Blog Archives - The PT Student

Improve Your Test-Taking Skills

There is nothing more nerve-wracking in physical therapy school than the exams. So much of your success is measured by written exams, practicals and competencies. This creates a lot of stress for physical therapy students.

That stress is at least doubled when you’re not naturally good at exams. But, you’re not alone and there are things you can do to decrease stress and increase performance, including using faculty biases to your advantage, which we will cover in this post.

Practice Makes Perfect

We really only get better when we practice what we want to be good at, right? So, if you’re not good at taking exams, increase your practice time. Your faculty may be able to provide you with some practice questions, or at the very least, a few examples of the types of questions that will be on the exam. Use these to get used to the instructor’s style.

Another option is to have your study group create questions. If you’ve got 5 people in your group, and everyone comes up with 10 questions, that’s pretty much a full exam, and some decent practice for the real thing.

So, you’ve practiced taking test questions and feel pretty confident … until test day. The anxiety sets in, and you can’t seem to …

Chill Out

Studies show that stress hormones, like cortisol, can have detrimental effects on our ability to perform on exams.^1,2 The more anxiety you have, the more cortisol you release and the worse you do on those tests.

So how can you take control of exam-related stress? First, show up early. Being late and agitated can affect your performance. Fighting traffic, finding parking and running into the building at the last second, raises your stress level. As you sit down (realizing that you didn’t have time to go to the bathroom before the test), your pre-existing stress is added to your exam anxiety, and your academic performance-killing hormones go into overdrive.

Do what you need to do, to arrive at least 15 minutes early. Take the day off, or leave a little early from work if you have to. Leave your house 15 to 30 minutes earlier than your normal time.

Once you arrive, get settled. Go to the bathroom. Get (or finish) your coffee. Listen to some music. If you can find a quiet corner, there are some fantastic YouTube videos with guided meditation specifically for students who are stressed about exams.

Just don’t spend your last few minutes before the test cramming information in. Fifteen minutes before the exam, you either know it or you don’t. Cramming will only increase your stress level, and decrease your performance.

Now that your stress levels are in check, make sure you have some test strategies you can rely on.

Slow Down

Most exams in physical therapy school have a time limit. When a deadline is imposed, stress can increase, and create a tendency to rush. But, when we rush, we miss things.

Make sure you don’t miss anything important, by slowing down and reading all of the directions and the questions carefully. Pay attention to key words and phrases. Underline or circle them if you’re allowed to write on the exam. Don’t lose points when you know the information, but get it wrong because you didn’t read the directions or the questions carefully enough.

Stay Steady

Some academic counselors will advise students to skim through the exam and answer the shorter and easier questions first, and then come back to the harder ones. I disagree with that strategy.

First, the more decisions your brain makes, the more energy it uses, and the less capacity it has for future decisions. So, answering all of the easy questions first, virtually ensures that you’ll be answering all of the hard ones when your brain is depleted.

Second, skipping around the test wastes time (i.e., flipping pages, scanning for the question, looking for the right bubble on the answer sheet). If you answer questions in order, you spend zero time searching for anything you skipped. Sure, you can mark questions for review later, but make a decision and put down an answer before moving on.

Third, skipping around leaves you vulnerable to missing questions on the answer sheet. If you answer the questions in order, systematically filling out the bubble sheet simultaneously, you have a better chance of not missing any bubbles. If you skip around and try to fill in bubbles you missed, there is a greater chance you will skip one, as that answer sheet starts to look like a Rohrchach inkblot.

It is the worst feeling in the world to miss points on a test because you simply forgot to put it on the answer sheet. The likelihood of that increases when you skip around, instead of answering questions in order.

Choose Wisely

Here’s a secret … faculty are not perfect at writing exams, and you should use this to your advantage. People who are good at testing are often, either consciously or unconsciously, exploiting the fact that test-creators have biases, and that these biases create patterns on exams.

One of the easiest biases to pick up on is when two answers on a multiple choice question are the opposite of each other. Chances are, one of them is the correct answer.

You see, when faculty (like me!) write multiple choice exams, we usually start with the question, and then immediately write the correct answer choice first. Then, we get to work, trying to come up with three more answer choices that are wrong, so that there is only one correct answer. Naturally, the first wrong answer choice that comes to mind is the opposite of the correct one, so there are very often two opposite choices within each question.

If you are stumped on a question, but you can clearly see that two of the answer choices are the complete opposite of each other, the correct answer is probably one of those two.

For more tips like these, download 7 Strategies For Mastering Exams from a Physical Therapy Professor and get even more advice.

Good luck on your next exam!

Ng V, Koh D, Chia SE. Examination stress, salivary cortisol, and academic performance. Psychol Rep. 2003 Dec;93(3 Pt 2):1133-4.
Halamandaris KF, Power KG, Individual differences, social support and coping with the examination stress: a study of the psychosocial and academic adjustment of first year home students. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 26, Issue 4, 12 March 1999, Pages 665–685.

Jennifer Bresnick 1 Comment

Don’t Study Everything. Study the Most Important Things.

One thing that can get in the way of your success as a physical therapy student is the sheer amount of information that you need to learn. From bones and muscles, to diseases and conditions, to examination and treatment, there is just so much information you need to get into your brain, to pass those tests, competencies and practicals. And let’s face it; there are only 168 hours in each week, so after sleeping, eating, bathing and going to class, we only have a little bit left to use for studying.

The question is: what is the most efficient way to study this information to ensure your success? The answer is to focus not on everything, but on the most important things.

What are the most important things?

Whenever we have a seemingly insurmountable pile of work ahead of us, it is usually impossible to get it ALL done. There are always a few more pages to read, skills to practice and anatomical landmarks to learn. This is true in studying and in life.

Let’s say you are leaving on a two week trip to go hiking in a remote part of South America. There is a huge list of things you would need to get done before you go, like getting a passport, a plane ticket, and immunizations, and of course, purchasing and packing all of the things you will need.

Also on your list is researching the hiking trail, its natural plants and animals, local culture, and learning a bit of the native language.

Of course, don’t forget about all of the usual things you have to do leading up to that vacation, like working so you have a job to come home to, training so you don’t collapse on the trail, and all of your other regularly scheduled activities.

While it would be nice to get everything on your list done before the vacation, there are some tasks that just are more important than the others. For example, two of the most important things on that list are a passport and airline tickets. Without those two things accomplished, you won’t be going anywhere. These are the high priority items.

Less important would be learning the native language. Although it would be a nice skill to have, it is not essential for you to get to your destination. This is a lower priority item.

How does this apply to physical therapy school?

Think about your physical therapy education the same way. There are just some concepts that are more important than others. These are the concepts that show up more on exams, competencies and practicals.

The 80/20 rule (AKA the Pareto Principle) says that 20% of the work we do, will net us 80% of our results. This means that if we can identify the right 20% to spend our limited time on, we increase our chances of success.

Another way to put the 80/20 rule is this: about 20% of what is presented in physical therapy school will comprise about 80% of what is on your exams. If that sounds nuts, take one of your textbooks, or even just a chapter. Only about 20% of the information in any given textbook will appear on an exam. It is just not possible in the amount of time it takes to complete a semester to expect students to memorize every word of every chapter. Faculty know this and will test you not on everything, but the most important things (20%).

How do I find the 20%?

If you can figure out what those important things are, and spend your time studying them, you will be more successful. Here are some ways to figure out what that 20% is.

First, you can actually ask your professor. Raise your hand in class, and ask her to identify the most important concepts for the next exam, or the course in general.

When I teach my pathophysiology course, I tell students that the three most important things for each disease and condition we go over are:

A brief description of the disease;
Any red flags, precautions or contraindications for a patient that has the disease, and;
What should the therapist do to improve the condition?

If students focus on studying these three things, generally they will know about 80% of the material on the exam. The other 20% of the exam relates to things like epidemiology. While it’s nice to know how many people are likely to have the condition, as a physical therapy faculty member, I am more concerned that you know what to do, and how to be safe with the patient in front of you.

Defining the most important 20% will differ from class to class. In many cases students can try to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic curricula that is present in any course. The extrinsic curriculum is the overt information provided that describes what the course is all about and what the students will learn, like the objectives, or schedule, or reading list on a syllabus.

The intrinsic curriculum is the stuff that your professor might not even realize he is doing. For example, if he spends a ton of time on a particular topic, like safe and proper exercise interventions for a patient with Type 2 Diabetes, this probably means that a larger portion of your exams or practicals will be about this topic.

Or, if you are assigned to read a whole chapter, that has 15 diagnoses or special tests or exercises, but in the lecture or lab, you only go over 10 of them, it is a safe bet that those 10 will carry more weight on the exam, unless your professor explicitly states otherwise.

So, remember, don’t try to study everything. Identify and study the most important things, and your success is all but guaranteed.

Jennifer Bresnick Leave a Comment

Pre-Exam Meditation

Have you ever had text anxiety? Sure, we all have.

If test anxiety has caused you to earn lower grades than you deserve, there is something you can do about it. The next time you have an exam coming up, try this meditation. Find a quiet comfortable place where you can be undisturbed for about 10 minutes.

Try going through this meditation once a day, for a week, leading up to your exam.

Duration: 10:01

Author: Jason Stephenson

Jennifer Bresnick Leave a Comment

Attitude Determines Altitude

Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, was fond of saying, “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t … you’re right.” What he meant was, it doesn’t matter where you come from, or how much talent you have, or how smart you are. What matters is that you believe that you can achieve your goals.

Henry Ford wasn’t the only one who made this observation. The motivational speaker Zig Ziglar used to say, “your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” Again, your skills, your smarts and your background have little to do with your chances for success. It is your attitude that leads you there more than anything else.

Here’s another from Napoleon Hill: whatever the mind can conceive, it can achieve. Napoleon Hill came to this conclusion after interviewing hundreds of successful people, looking for what they all had in common. It wasn’t education, background or training. The only thing they all had in common was that they saw themselves achieving their goal.

Now the scientists are on board

These are not just the thoughts of modern American writers and industrialists. These ideas have been studied in the last few decades, and it turns out, there is a lot of truth to them. Study after study shows that attitudes can impact whether a student does well in a Math class, or an online class, or throughout an academic program.^1,2 Simply believing you can do it leads to a positive attitude, which leads to positive actions, and positive results.

The struggle is real

Imagine this scenario. Your first exam in physical therapy school is coming up. You’ve been struggling in class, especially on the most recent quizzes. Your attitude is that the exam is probably not going to go well. You see a bad grade in your future. As you sit down to study, you start to think that this is way harder than you expected and you don’t think you can do it. Your anxiety level increases, and soon you can only focus on how bad you think you’re going to do. Instead of studying with your precious limited time, you are worrying. This leads to doing poorly on the exam, reinforcing this cycle, and the low success attitude.

The success is real too

What if instead, you believed that you were going to do very well on the exam.

Sure the quizzes haven’t gone as you expected, but those experiences just show you what you still need to work on. So when you sit down to study, believing in your ability to pass the test, your mind is not bogged down by worry, and free to focus on the material you need to learn. Since your studying is more effective, you do well on the exam.

Of course, you can’t just want it and believe it. You have to put the time and effort in to get it. Attitude goes hand in hand with the concept of grit. Grit is the ability to work hard and get the job done even in the face of what seem to be insurmountable obstacles. We cover grit in this post.

You decide

The best part about attitude is that you are the only one who can control yours. You get to decide whether you think you can do this or not. So, make the smart choice to believe in yourself, and you will do great.

If you're interested in learning more about Napoleon Hill and his book, "Think and Grow Rich," check out this video by FightMediocrity on YouTube.

Cereijo M. Attitude as Predictor of Success in Online Training. International Journal On E-Learning [serial online]. October 2006;5(4):623-639. Available from: PsycINFO, Ipswich, MA. Accessed April 22, 2014.
Spencer A. Attitudes Matter: An Examination Of The Relationship Between Student Attitudes Toward Mathematics And Success In Middle School Algebra 1 [e-book]. US: ProQuest Information & Learning; 2013. Available from: PsycINFO, Ipswich, MA. Accessed April 22, 2014.

Jennifer Bresnick Leave a Comment

Grit: What is it and why do I need it?

In previous posts, we’ve identified several characteristics of successful people. We’ve mentioned positive attitude, showing up on time and prepared, and some skills and strategies for managing your time. These are all very important things, but they don’t mean anything if you don’t have grit.

What is grit?

Grit, according to researchers like Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., is “passion and perseverance for very long term goals.” It’s the stamina to keep working toward something for several years without giving up.

The reality is, even if you have the right attitude and all of the best time management and study techniques, if you give up in the middle of physical therapy school, you can’t be successful.

Angela Duckworth and her colleagues have looked at academic, corporate and military settings to figure out which characteristics are the most important for determining long term success. They found that it wasn’t education level, background or talent. It was grit. Those who are willing to stick it out and do whatever is necessary to achieve their goals are the ones who succeed.

Why do I need grit?

Physical therapy school is difficult. Before you even get there, you have to make it through pre-requisite courses, which can take years to complete. Actual physical therapy school is then another two or three years beyond that. That’s a multiple year commitment to a goal. Your ability to commit to that goal and persevere no matter what is more important than anything else.

How do I get grit?

One way to build grit for a goal like this is to have a passion for it. Most physical therapy students are very passionate about becoming PTs and PTAs. I have known people who are not passionate about it. More often than not, these are the people who drop out for one reason or another. Making sure you are passionate about a career in physical therapy will help you succeed in it.

If you have the passion, but still don’t feel the grit, consider how you think about your past successes and failures. Do you think that these things were within your control or outside of your control? Researchers, like Carol Dweck, Ph.D., have discovered that people who think that success and failure are out of their control are much more likely to lack grit, and fail to achieve their goals.

If you feel like success is out of your control, then your thought system tells you that no amount of perseverance will be able to get you there. It’s not up to you. But if you believe that your successes and failures are entirely up to you, then all you need is perseverance and your goals will eventually be achieved. It’s up to you to keep going and if you do, nothing can stop you. Not even failure. This is grit.

If you have grit, failure is not a permanent condition. It’s just a speed bump on the way to your goals and dreams. Develop grit and you’ll not only be successful in pursuing your physical therapy career, but in anything you decide to apply this grit to.

For more information on grit, check out this TED Talk by Angela Duckworth.