@TheOncoPT – Dr. Elise K Cantu (00:20)
Hey OnkoPT, and welcome back to this episode of the Onko PT Podcast. In today’s episode, which is the audio version from a YouTube video that I’m publishing this week called Test Taking Strategies for Your Oncology Specialty Certification Exam. We are going to do a deep dive into some tried and true test day strategies. So, not just how do you prepare. Because at this point, you probably have a good idea of

Okay, I’ve kind of identified some weak areas, I know where I need to prioritize, I know what kind of you know information or what kind of content is going to be, you know, talked about on the exam, which PS, if you don’t already know that, if if you are not at that point yet, I would highly encourage you to go to the onkopt.com slash audit. I have created a free tool called the Oncology Specialty Exam Readiness Audit.

That is designed to help you identify areas where you feel confident in and areas you don’t feel as confident in so that you can prioritize what you’re going to study next. Again, you can find that at the onkopt.com slash audit.

So in today’s video, we’re gonna talk about test taking strategies, right? You have you have started the studying process. You have an idea of what you need to be studying, but all that means nothing if you can’t actually show up on exam day and perform at your best. And in this episode, I am laying it all out what you need to actually do well on the exam. Not just from a knowledge standpoint, but how to actually survive a seven-hour exam.

That was not a typo. That was on purpose. A seven hour exam. Now I say this because technically that is the max amount of time that you could take during this entire exam process. So logistically, the exam is four blocks of 50 questions. You get 90 minutes each for those blocks. So 90, 90, 90, 90. There is some built in rest.

time as well, break time that you can take. And then I think they technically also time the tutorial at the very end of it. Excuse me, at the very beginning of it. So, anyways, all that adds up in some capacity to potentially seven hours of time. that’s a long time. Heck, even if you’re spending four hours on this exam, that is a long time. So you need to make sure that you have the strategies to carry you forward from minute one of that exam

all the way through until you hit submit at the very end of your exam. So tune in and I’ll see you at the end of this episode.

@TheOncoPT – Dr. Elise K Cantu (03:03)
So you’ve spent months, maybe even years, preparing for your oncology specialty certification exam. You have devoured that description of specialty practice. You have read every key article out there on oncology rehab, and you feel like you know the clinical material inside and out. But are you ready for the actual test day itself?

Are you actually prepared for what is likely a seven hour cognitive marathon, all tucked inside a testing center appointment?

My name is Dr. Elise K. Cantu and as a board certified clinical specialist who has been exactly where you are right now, I get it. I know the deep down anxiety that comes with facing an exam this important.

You have already run the marathon of studying, but the exam itself is a different kind of endurance event.

It’s a test of your focus, your pacing, and your mental stamina just as much as it is a test of your knowledge.

That fear is no joke. You may start wondering, what if I run out of time? What if my brain just shuts down by the fourth hour? What if I second guess everything and walk out of that testing center feeling like all my hard work was for nothing?

It’s so easy to let that spiral of anxiety take over. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What if you walked into exam day with a clear, simple set of strategies to manage your time, tackle

any question and stay sharp for the entire seven hours. In this video, that’s exactly what I’m going to give you the critical test taking strategies that you need to conquer this exam and walk out of that testing center feeling confident.

First things first, we need to completely reframe what this exam is. By the time you’re sitting in that chair, your knowledge base is pretty much set. Last minute cramming is not going to move the needle forward much. Exam day isn’t about proving how much you know. It’s about being able to successfully retrieve and apply what you already know, even when you’re under pressure and you’re getting tired.

Think of it this way, your studying was training for the marathon. Exam day is the actual race. You would not show up to race day, the start line of a marathon without a pacing strategy, without a plan for hydration and a mental game plan for when you hit the wall. The oncology specialty certification exam is no different.

The biggest mistake I see PTs make is treating the exam like one big, terrifying 200 question monster. They go in without a plan and they’re completely burned out by question 120.

But the exam isn’t just one big block. It’s broken into four separate blocks, almost like mini exams.

And here’s the thing. When you finish a block of the test, you’re done with it. You can’t go back to it later. That block is done. It is sealed.

And this structure is actually your secret weapon because your goal is to just win each 90-minute battle one at a time.

By breaking it down mentally, that seven-hour giant becomes four manageable challenges. every time you complete a block and hit a break, you’ve won. You’ve won that block. You’ve earned a reset. And this mental shift is the foundation for everything else that we’re about to cover.

let’s get tactical and talk about your most precious resource on exam day. Your time.

Now it’s critical that you check the latest information from ABPTS and the testing provider as formats potentially have changed. But typically, this exam is going to be 200 questions divided into four blocks of 50 questions. So four blocks of 50 questions, with 90 minutes allocated for each of those blocks. The math is simple, but it’s also unforgiving. That gives you roughly

If my math is correct, 1.8 minutes or 108 seconds per question. So let’s just round that down to a general rule. You have a little under two minutes for every single question. So here’s where you need a strategy. What I call the 100-second rule. It’s all about pacing and knowing when it’s time to move on to the next question. So here’s how it works. When you open a question, you are going to give it your full attention, full focused attention.

You are going to read that prompt carefully and all of the vignette information associated with it. If you know the answer, awesome. Select it and move on. If you’re not sure, but you think you can figure it out, you know, it’s not immediately obvious, but you feel confident that you can figure it out, then give it a solid try. But the second that you feel yourself getting bogged down or rereading the same lines over and over and over with no real progress.

Glance at the clock, and there is gonna be a little clock going in one of the corners of your exam software. If you have spent more than 100 seconds on that question and you’re stuck, you need to do two things immediately. Flag the question, which that is available in the software, and you need to move on.

Getting stuck on one question is the fastest way to sabotage an entire block of questions. And this doesn’t just eat up your time, it also drains your mental energy and creates a panic that can infect the next several questions. You absolutely cannot afford to spend five minutes on one hard question when that means you’ll only have one minute for four other questions down the line.

The beauty of flagging questions is that you can bank all of the easier points first. This builds your score, it boosts your confidence, and funnily enough, when you come back to a flagged question at the end of the block, the answer often seems much more clear. Your brain has been working on it in the background. Trust this process. Never let one single question sink your entire 90-minute block.

This strategy might sound almost too simple, but it is one of the most powerful ways to avoid the traps that are built into standardized exams. When a question pops up on your screen, use your hand or the provided scratch paper. So I’m gonna use this right here at my plastic sticky note. You are going to use this: your hand or your sticky note, and you are going to physically cover up the answer choices. So first, you are going to just

Read the question. Just read the clinical scenario. Process the information. Who is the patient? What is their diagnosis? Their stage, their history, right? What treatments did they undergo? What is the specific question that is being asked of you to answer?

So before you even peek at the answer options, you are trying to formulate the correct answer in your mind already. Why does this work?

Exam writers, the item writers are trained to create distracting answers. Now these distractors are answer choices that look plausible. They might use the right buzzwords or even maybe be correct in like a different clinical context, but they are wrong. They are dead wrong for this specific question.

If you read the answer choices too early, your brain starts to get polluted by these decoy answers. You start trying to make an answer fit instead of using the prompt to find the right answer.

By covering the answer choices, you force your brain into active recall, not just passive recognition.

For example, you read a case about a patient with breast cancer and potential lymphedema, and you think to yourself, okay, the best exercise intervention would be graded progressive resistance training. So then you uncover the answer choices and you look for the one that matches what you’ve already decided. this little trick helps you steer clear of the bias created by those cleverly wrong answers and can seriously cut down on these simple mistakes.

Now, this next section is called Why You Must Take Your Breaks Even If You Don’t Want To.

The testing platform is likely going to offer you scheduled breaks, and you can find all the information about these specifics in the ABPTS candidate guide or other ABPTS resources. Whatever they are, you need to treat these breaks as non-negotiable parts of your strategy. So confirm the absolute, you know, logistics with ABPTS, but typically you’re going to get like a 10-minute optional break after block one, a 30-minute optional break after block two.

And then another optional 10-minute break after block three. So there’s kind of space throughout. And that longer block of time is meant for you to like you can take lunch if you wanted. Let me be blunt. You need to take every single second of these breaks. I know the temptation all too well. I remember sitting in that.

The testing center that I went to was a high-rise in Dallas. I remember sitting on the, I don’t know, 11th, 7th, 8th floor, whatever it was, could not wait to be done with the exam. I was finishing it at block three. I was moving into block four. I wanted so badly just to be done with it. You might feel the same. You might be in that same position and think, I’m feeling good. I’m feeling in the zone. I will just power through. This is a massive mistake, my friend. That

In the zone feeling is temporary. Pushing through from one block to the next without a reset is how you hit a wall of brain fog in block three or four. And this is where you start making silly mistakes.

So here’s your action plan for every single break. The moment your break starts, get up and leave the room. There’s gonna be a procedure, you’re gonna know exactly what that is, but you are going to get up and physically get away from that computer. Leave the room. Staring at that screen is not a break. You are then going to move your body. It’s helpful that you actually have to get up and walk out of that room. But I would also encourage you get up, do some light stretching.

Walk to the restroom, just something to help get that blood flowing again after you’ve been sitting for 90 minutes looking at those 50 questions. Next, you’re gonna fuel and hydrate. This is your chance to drink some water, eat a snack, ideally something that’s high protein, low sugar, that’s gonna power you through, but we’ll talk more about that here in just a second. Next, you don’t think about the exam. Seriously.

Do not look up an answer that you were unsure about. Also, I don’t think you can do that, anyways. But don’t let yourself stew over a test over a tough question. That block is done. It is it is past in your mind. You cannot go back to it anyways. There’s no sense thinking about it. Your brain needs a complete mind reset in this moment. And when you’re resetting your mind, I would encourage you to just close your eyes for 30 seconds.

Many PTs find during this that taking some deep, slow diaphragmatic breaths can be really, really helpful and helpful in calming down their nervous system, especially in this high stress moment.

Think of your breaks as these planned pit stops in your race. They are essential for making sure that your brain is as sharp on question 151 as it was on question 151.

Alluded to previously, what you eat and drink on exam day can make a real difference in your cognitive performance. Your brain consumes a lot of energy. It’s an energy hogging organ, and you need to give it high quality, long-lasting fuel to make it through that seven hour exam. This starts in the days before. Don’t do anything new or weird. Eat a normal dinner. Eat a normal, balanced dinner.

and get to bed at a reasonable hour. Pack your bag the day before. And this is with all the stuff you need for your exam: your ID, if you have to bring any paperwork with you, your your water, your snacks. So that way you aren’t scrambling in the morning on your way out the door to get to the testing center. On exam morning, you are going to aim for a breakfast with protein and complex carbs that are gonna fuel you, give you long fuel to get you going.

And keep you going through this entire exam. So maybe that’s oatmeal with nuts, maybe that’s eggs with whole wheat toast, Greek yogurt, whatever that is for you. But these foods are going to provide a slow, steady release of energy. I would encourage you, avoid a super sugary breakfast. this might lead to an energy crash right in the middle of your exam. We don’t want

The snacks you bring for your breaks are just as important. Skip the candy bars, skip the sodas. Instead, pack things like almonds, a protein bar, jerky, banana, whatever that is for you. But you want snacks that are going to sustain your energy and not give you a sugar rush and then a sugar crash. And finally, hydrate. I know it’s tempting to not hydrate on exam day because you don’t want to have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the exam.

First of all, you get breaks during the exam. You want to stay hydrated because you want your brain performing at the absolute highest it can. If worst comes to worst, you can get up and go to the bathroom during an exam block. It doesn’t stop the time, okay? But if you gotta go, you gotta go. So don’t like restrict yourself on hydration. You want to be hydrated for exam day.

Sip water during your breaks. Even mild dehydration can lead to a noticeable drop in your concentration. Proper fueling and hydration like this isn’t a magic bullet, but it is a core piece of your ENURET strategy for exam day.

You have the knowledge. You have spent literally hundreds of hours to get here. Your oncology specialty certification exam is your chance to showcase it all. But success on test day is about more than just clinical facts. It’s about having a strategy for endurance.

So remember the game plan. First, get into the endurance mindset. You aren’t taking one seven-hour test. You are conquering four 90-minute challenges. Second, master the clock with the 100-second rule. Flag anything that slows you down and come back to it. Do not let one question wreck your rhythm. And then number three, take your breaks. Use that time, get up.

Move around, refuel, and mentally reset for your next example.

These aren’t just little tips. These are the tools that will allow your knowledge to shine through even when you start to feel tired on exam day. You are prepared and you are capable. Walk into your testing center with a plan, execute it with confidence, and show them the expert oncology physical therapist that you have worked so hard to become.

Before you go, if you’re prepping for your own oncology specialty certification exam, I have a free training that I think you’re going to find useful. It’s called From Confused to Confident, and in it I teach a four-step framework for decoding any question that you encounter on your exam. We are going to work through real questions together, and you’ll walk away with a system that you can immediately implement in your studying and on exam day. The link to register is in the description below.

Now, for most PTs, there is one thing on exam day that scares them more than anything else: the impossible question. AKA the question that you do not know how to answer. And it also has the power to derail your entire exam. In my

next video, I’m going to show you the strategy I used and teach other onko PTs on how to tackle any question you encounter, no matter how impossible it may seem.

and if you found this video helpful, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more content to help you excel in oncology physical therapy. Best of luck on your exam. You’ve got this.

@TheOncoPT – Dr. Elise K Cantu (18:20)
Hey Anka Pete, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Anka Pete Podcast. I would love to know from you. Message me on either Instagram or LinkedIn. And I want you to tell me which test taking strategy will you be carrying forward with you? Right? There’s likely one that really resonated with you. I would love to know what that test taking strategy is. Message me on either Instagram or LinkedIn and let me know. I cannot wait to hear from you.

But until then, this is Elise with the Onko PT. And remember, you are exactly the physical therapists that your patients with cancer need. So let’s get to work.