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The SLP Praxis exam is the culmination of grad school. Due to a variety of personal reasons, I was impulsive. I signed up to take the Praxis in October of my second year of graduate school! Ahh!! So, I thought I’d share my experiences and describe how I passed!! (yay!!) Sorry this is kind of a really long post!
My General Timeline of Studying for the SLP Praxis Exam:
Eight Weeks (before the exam): Ordered an SLP Praxis exam review book. Below I’ve linked to my favorites. Note that one is an older edition (and is cheaper). I used an older edition one and it seemed fine but you’ll have to decide what you want to spend! 🙂 You can see a pretty long preview of some of the quizzes on Google here or check out the Amazon reviews below. I didn’t get this but from the Google preview, the questions were much harder than the ones on the test itself (but it’s a great review!).
Six Weeks: Signed up for the test! To do this, click here and check out the ETS website. I found it to be kind of a confusing process (finding the codes to where everything should be sent). FYI: The code for ASHA is 5031 (unless they change it!).
Six Weeks: Made a calendar and started a Praxis Binder. Check it both, and some other pictures, below:
I wrote the topic I would review/study each day. I did this a week at a time (you can definitely see weeks I didn’t have time to study… dang school!). That way, if I struggled on a topic, I could do it again another week. Typically, I’d study the corresponding chapter in my review book and then take the quiz at the end of the chapter. If I did well on the quiz, I didn’t plan another day on that topic. If I felt lost or did poorly on the quiz, I rewrote that topic for another day. I call this phase my study phase.
Four Weeks: I took a full-length practice SLP practice exam. You can purchase these here from ETS. This was a fantastic confidence booster, and I feel like these practice tests prepared me for the exam more than anything else! I got a 700. I printed both the test and the explanations of the answers. I went through one by one (even on the questions I got right the first time) and read the answers, looking up anything I had questions on. During this time, I tended to stay away from my Praxis review book. Instead, I printed off things from the internet or looked back at class notes at topics I did poorly on in this practice exam. For example, I definitely knew I didn’t remember all of the dysarthrias. So, I printed off information on each and studied that for a day.
Three Weeks: I took another practice exam! I had this feeling that I had gotten lucky and received a higher score than I really earned on the previous practice exam. To be honest, I had guessed on quite a few! On this exam, I got a 700 again. How about that for consistency?! Again, I went through the exam. I read every question over again, took notes on the exam itself, studied information I didn’t really know and guessed, and thought through every question.
Two Weeks: I started a week long membership to slpexam.com. This website is filled with practice questions, exams, videos, audio (that you can upload to your computer or iPod!!), and more! (if interested in hearing more about this site, read my review in the Resources section below) Due to my class schedule, this is when I really got serious and started spending more than 2-3 hours per week on Praxis studying. I studied every day, pretty much putting everything else on hold for a while! I ate meals and listened to audio (from the site above). I took practice test after practice test. I made flashcards. I studied the practice exams again. I reread parts of my SLP Praxis exam book again.
One Week: Panic! I will be honest… For some reason, the Praxis stressed me more than pretty much anything else in grad school. Everywhere I looked was warnings about taking it too early (which I was doing…) so this week I crammed and felt very in over my head!
Praxis Exam Day:
I got to the testing site really early (per usual for me). I ate lunch at a Panera nearby and attempted to walk around some stores for awhile but I was feeling pretty anxious. I chugged a coffee, went in early and was able to start a little early which was nice! Note: Writing that long statement is cursive is absolutely ridiculous (and really hard!!). Once I sat down to take the test, I felt so much better (compared to an hour earlier). I wasn’t 100% confident while taking the test, but I kept a list of every question I thought I got wrong on scratch paper. Every time I felt stressed, I looked back at the list and reminded myself that I only had to get like 70% or something and I hadn’t written down 30% of the questions! 🙂 It took me an hour to take the test (I’m a fast test taker) and THIS is when my anxiety kicked back in! What do I do with the second hour? Do I go back through questions? Do I just submit it? I stared at the submit screen for what felt like a year, and submitted the test!
All I wanted to see was a 6 (a score in the 600s). I got 720 and it took me a minute to realize that it was good!! I got up and left the room and SPRINTED to my car to call my mom! Might have cried a little bit… I was just so happy!!
Things You Should Read/Listen To:
Information from ASHA on each disorder. The page for Apraxia is here as an example!
Speech & Language Developmental Milestones
Introduction to Spectrogram Analysis
Beginners Guide to Phonetics Part 1
SLP Praxis Exam Resources:
Free practice test with 10 questions. Give you correlated Praxis score to see if you would have passed. Can purchase bundles of practice exams! Graphs your results.http://praxisspeech.com/
Ten example questions from ETS.http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/PRAXIS/taag/0330/mc_questions.htm
Speech Language Pathology Praxis Study Companion, a free download!http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/PRAXIS/pdf/0330.pdf
And don’t forget about the textbooks I mentioned above, and the ETS Practice Exams!! There were word for word questions from the practice exams on my exam and they were the most helpful of any preparation I did!
I was lucky enough to get a free week subscription to slpexam.com to check it out/review it. While much of the SLP Praxis exam is comprised of long case study type questions and this website is not, it was a good website for reminding me of my weaker areas and helping me think through several tricky topics! I would recommend signing up for their free emails and sampler daily quizzes (for a week) to get a feel for the site. If you like it, consider a subscription! After each test you take, the website provides you with a spread of your scores in each content area. Check out some screen shots below:
Have any questions?? Let me know! Good luck!!