9 Tips To Pass Your ARRT Registry Examination

So you’ve completed (or are near completing) a rigorous 2-year radiography program and you’ve scheduled your ARRT Registry Examination date. Despite earning a degree, and regardless of your grade point average throughout your courses, you still need to recall the last two years of information to pass this exam in order to become a Radiologic Technologist and to eventually be hired to perform this unique skill set you’ve spent so much time learning. Completing school is just a prerequisite for the exam, so how are you going to prepare for exam day?

You’ve come to the right place! I’m going to share several methods to prepare for your ARRT Registry Exam that will help you pass with flying colors! In fact, if you would like to dive deeper than just this article, I’ve developed a free online course that will provide some useful resources and help guide you with a systematic approach toward preparing for your exam. (Click here to take this course for free!)

UNDERSTAND WHAT’S ON THE EXAM

Knowing what information you’ll be tested on is vital to your success. Thankfully, the ARRT has posted Radiography Examination Content Specifications telling you exactly what you’re responsible for knowing in order to pass.

The exam is broken down into four sections (some with subsections) and is comprised of 220 questions covering the topics of:

1. Patient Care (33 questions)

2. Radiation Safety (50 questions)

   1. Radiation Physics & Biology (21 questions)

   2. Radiation Protection (29 questions)

3. Image Production (51 questions)

   1. Image Acquisition & Evaluation (26 questions)

   2. Equipment Operation & Quality Assurance (25 questions)

4. Procedures (66 questions)

   1. Head, Spine & Pelvis Procedures (18 questions)

   2. Thorax & Abdomen Procedures (20 questions)

   3. Extremity Procedures (28 questions)

Use the content specs to formulate your study guide! This 13-page document breaks down each section and subsection into very specific items you are responsible for knowing inside and out. So take note of these items, try to identify areas of weakness in your current knowledge and skills, and develop a plan to address those areas before you take your examination.

DEVELOP A PLAN

Now that you know exactly what you’re responsible for knowing on the ARRT Registry Examination, it’s time to develop a plan - not only for studying, but to address the areas of weakness you may have in the understanding of concepts or retention of information. Hopefully your respective radiologic technology program reviewed everything listed on the content specifications, but either way, the burden is now on you to break down each component of the exam content specifications, review everything you know about each of those components, re-learn anything you may have forgotten since your initial instruction on the topic/s, and to remediate if/when necessary.

Each radiography program requires specific textbooks for each course along the way, and I would propose developing your own study guide based on the exam content specifications outline. In order to prepare for this, for each item within the content specs, write down the name of your textbook/s and page numbers relevant to those topics. This may sound like a time-intensive task, but it will be a lifesaver down the road when you have the need to revisit concepts and will save you time in the long run.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

You likely had a capstone course at the end of your radiography program to review and test your knowledge on all of the concepts you’ll be responsible for knowing in order to pass the ARRT Registry Examination. You can absolutely use whatever resources your school provided, but consider potential additional resources if needed.

Here’s a list of resources that I like to recommend to my own students in no order of preference (Please note resource preference is subjective and everyone has unique needs when it comes to methods available for learning. And while it doesn’t cost you anything extra, specified affiliate links may allow me to earn a small commission on purchases if you decide to buy through my link):

• Rad Tech Registry Review 21 Day Challenge (affiliate link)

• Rad Tech Boot Camp

• Mosby’s Comprehensive Review of Radiography, 8th Ed.

• RadReview (Mc Graw Hill)

Regardless of where you are in the process, having a baseline assessment of your current knowledge of this information is imperative in order to identify areas of need in order to address them as you study.

In addition, it’s important to note that a majority of students don’t pass their initial mock exam during their capstone courses. This is entirely normal! Hopefully by the end of your radiography, you’re able to pass a mock registry exam, but the difficulty level is going to vary based on what kind of questions you end up seeing on those exams. The important thing to establish right now is a baseline, so I’ll emphasize this again: It’s okay if you’re not passing a mock examination at this point. It’s expected that you’ll be able to improve going forward, however, and if you follow my advice here, you’ll see guaranteed improvement as you progress with the plan!

REVIEW YOUR RESULTS

Now that you have some data at your disposal, it’s time to take a look at the questions you didn’t answer correctly in order to determine a few things. Really give this some thought and make specific notes about why you missed specific answers. Be honest with yourself in this step. Ask yourself the following questions for each individual response you missed:

1. Did I miss this question because there is a lack of conceptual knowledge?

2. Did I fail to recall a simple fact or definition?

3. Did I miscalculate something?

Make simple notes that you can understand. Simply document something like, “Remember to angle 15 degrees caudal for the Caldwell Skull”. Asking questions in your notes can also help you retain information. One example might be, “At what kVp are Characteristic x-rays produced?” Taking detailed notes will allow you to focus your efforts going forward when you revisit specific topics and/or remediate concepts you covered in your radiography program.

RELEARN / REMEDIATE

Depending on the reason you missed specific questions, you may need to have a varying plan of attack to reinforce the concepts you need to improve on.

For questions where you’ve identified a lack of conceptual knowledge, look at the explanation provided for the correct answer (if applicable on your mock exam). Check your content spec notes to determine what textbooks and page numbers you can review to read about those concepts again. Try to understand if you truly understand the concept itself, as well as its application. Use keywords and search for YouTube videos relating to those concepts. Check out Rad Tech Boot Camp videos if you have access to them. Ask your peers or go to some online communities dealing with ARRT review (here’s a link to a great resource on Facebook, for example).

If you failed to recall a simple fact or definition, try creating your own flashcards. Once you review them, shuffle them and review them again. Repeat throughout your day when you have a few minutes at a time. Study with a friend. If each of you creates your own deck of flashcards then quiz one another. If the information involves labeling an image of some kind, try to draw that image and create your own labels.

If you made a simple miscalculation, check to make sure you know the formula to derive your answer. If you knew the formula, check that you applied it appropriately. Look at each step in the order of operations and review your work to find out exactly what mistake you made. Consider reviewing practice problems from any workbook from your radiography program.

Tech Tip: There are some amazing free tools out there for flashcards and one of those I find particularly helpful is an open source program called Anki. While there is a web-based version, there’s a downloadable option as well which allows you to create your own flashcard decks without having to lug around cardstock everywhere you go. The learning curve isn’t too steep and there are some very powerful add-ons that will allow flashcard creators to utilize a variety of information recall techniques through spaced repetition, an evidence based technique for optimum knowledge retention. Here’s a detailed video on how it can be utilized, however, you don’t need to go into all of the methods possible. I recommend the base version with one simple add-on called “Image Occlusion” to quickly set up images to label.

The beauty of Anki (not an affiliate) lies in the software’s ability to mark flashcards with a difficulty level indicating each user’s level of knowledge of the particular topic. Anki is smart, and for more difficult topics, slides you’ve marked more difficult will appear more often as you continue to utilize your deck. In other words, it shows you the hard ones more often until you begin to mark them as less difficult, and it still shows you the entire deck, showing you the easier ones with less frequency.

RETEST

Here’s where you get to see what kind of improvement you’ve made since your initial mock exam. Remember that score you had the first time you tested your knowledge and take a mental note. Now, after you’ve gone through the areas of weakness that you outlined, reviewed your textbooks, notes, and any other supplemental sources of information to boost your knowledge and retention of those subjects, take another mock exam. It can be the same exam you previously took or it could be a completely different one. You should see your score increase!

Of course, there are probably going to be areas that might need further reinforcement. For those cases, you can simply repeat this process again to address your weak points. This is where being honest with yourself is going to provide you with the greatest opportunity for improvement.

Review your results, relearn or remediate, then retest (and repeat). Continue on this cycle until you’re confident in your ability to take on the ARRT Registry Examination!

GET HELP

I’ve been teaching for JRCERT-accredited radiography programs for over 20 years and I’ve had multiple people outside of programs I’ve been employed to reach out to me for help. Occasionally during this review process, some individuals claim they never received instruction on a given part of the curriculum. Or perhaps they were ill and missed that portion of the education and for whatever reason, didn’t obtain the opportunity to remediate before they graduated. That’s where you might need to obtain some additional help. There are a few places you might want to look.

I always recommend contacting your Program Director from the radiography program you just completed for assistance. They should be more than willing to assist you. I say “should” because on rare occasions, I’ve encountered some graduates who claim that they couldn’t acquire help once school was over. This is rare, however, especially since the school’s pass-rate for the ARRT helps them maintain accreditation by JRCERT for the program. If schools drop below a 75% pass rate, the respective program could be placed on probation unless those scores increase the following year, and if pass rates don’t meet this standard for long enough, they could lose accreditation (which they absolutely do not want). So they “should” have a vested interest in you passing.

Ask former teachers for help. Many of your radiography program’s faculty are well-equipped to provide you assistance, especially the ones who taught the individual courses covering topics you may need help with. Just be mindful of the reality that once you graduate from your radiography program, they’ll be getting an entire new group of students to teach and they will no longer be obligated to provide assistance. Most will, but they won’t be compensated for doing so, so keep that in mind when you approach them.

Attend a review webinar. There are a few instructors out there who put on radiography review webinars (for a fee). These can range from brief sessions to several weeks long, and are usually coordinated by instructors with years of experience. The content they go over in their webinar should be the same as what you reviewed in your capstone courses while in school, however, due to variations in both how students learn and how instructors convey information, it can be useful sometimes to hear the information from a different person who may present it in a more understandable way to you. Again, this is a subjective match between the teacher and the learner, so make sure you look at reviews for their services before you buy. Here are two great resources I recommend if you’d like a live session for review:

• Meryll Fulmer

• Meaghan Piretti

If you identify very specific areas of need, consider hiring a tutor. Often the college you attended may have a list of available tutors, which may be current students who excel in the course contents or even recent graduates. Some of the people who may conduct live webinars may also be available and offer 1:1 sessions for you to ask specific questions. Just make sure you identify a budget and ask about rates before agreeing to work with one. Of course, if you’d like to work with me, GO HERE.

And finally, you may wish to take a self-paced online course. I have never seen this option offered (at the time I am writing this article), however, I am currently in the process of creating one. Eventually there may be others who come around to this idea, so regardless of who’s online course you choose, just make sure it follows the current ARRT Radiography Exam Content Specifications, which may change slightly every few years. The course I’m creating utilizes the content specs as an outline and follows that structure closely. I’ll be posting updates here as the course gets near ready for publication.

PREPARE FOR EXAM DAY

The first step in getting prepared for your exam is obtaining a good understanding of what to expect. You’ll have 230 minutes to answer 230 questions. Only 200 of these questions are scored toward your own results. 30 of the questions are considered “pilot questions” that are not counted toward your score, and that are being trialed for potential use on later versions of the exam. Additional time is allotted for a tutorial, a non-disclosure agreement, and for a post-test survey.

In addition, you’ll only have 3 attempts at the exam (paying the exam fee for each attempt). Not to add to the pressure, but failing 3 times will require you to either repeat the entire program or an abbreviated version of it, so you definitely want to make the most of your very first opportunity. Many schools encourage you to take the exam as soon as possible after you graduate, which is excellent advice. Their capstone courses should follow a similar structure to what I’ve outlined here and you will have information fresh in your mind if you don’t delay.

However, I realize some of you reading this right now may have already taken your first or second attempt and are here in efforts to research strategies for success. Regardless of which attempt you are currently taking, there is some general advice I like to give before test day:

• Eat well before your exam. Having a healthy dinner (something that won’t upset your stomach and has balanced nutrients) will ensure your brain has the energy it needs to make sound decisions. Eating a good breakfast (nothing too heavy) will also reinforce your body’s ability to put think clearly and make good decisions

• Get plenty of sleep. Make sure you’re getting at least 8 hours of sleep the night before your exam. This will also help with mental clarity and provide you with some endurance to get through the nearly 4 hours provided for you to take your exam, especially toward the end where you’ll likely be dealing with some mental fatigue

• Don’t rely on cramming. Slow and steady wins the race. It’s true, you can retain some information for the short-term by reviewing immediately before an exam. But committing this information to your long-term memory by studying some every day and spacing out your activities will allow you to retain this information much longer. Remember, the method is “spaced repetition”, meaning space out your study sessions and study frequently, reviewing concepts multiple times. This is where the studying sweet spot lies and is backed by scientific evidence.

• Try to relax. Another concept supported by science is that stress impairs your cognition. You literally won’t be able to recall the same amount of information when you’re in a state of duress compared to when you are calm. It’s completely normal to be nervous, but try not to let anxiety take over. Approach your exam in a state of calm to the best of your ability. If you think about it, stressing about it right now isn’t going to change the outcome for the better, so think about all the time you’ve taken over the course of your radiography program in the last two years in addition to your studying efforts now that you’re done. Walk into the exam with confidence knowing you’ve got this!

ADDITIONAL TIPS

Don’t overlook some of the logistical steps you can take to ensure there are no hiccups on exam day. Part of that includes reading the ARRT’s Handbook. I’d like to focus on Section 4 starting on Page 40 for their tips, which include:

• Arrive early - Plan out your route and even consider driving that route prior to your exam day around the time you have it scheduled in order to anticipate how long your commute is going to take. Plan to arrive early. The last thing you want to do is get into a traffic jam which causes you to miss the opportunity or barely make it on time (which will contribute to your stress level).

• Wear comfortable clothing - Review what kinds of clothing are allowed and prohibited and plan for varying temperatures in the testing room. Wear layers in case it’s hot or cold so you can adjust to your comfort level.

• Account for your personal belongings - Your personal belongings will need to be left in a locker during your examination. With few exceptions, you will not have access to these items until your exam is over (see the handbook for exceptions such as ADA, medical, etc.). This means no notes, no cell phone, no laptop, etc.

• Make sure you have ID - The exam center will check for proper identification before allowing you to take the test, so make sure you have it with you before leaving your home.

Now that you’ve read these tips, it’s up to you to put them to use. I know that accredited radiography programs only obtain that accreditation by undergoing scrutiny relating to the information covered within them compared to the ARRT content specifications, so wherever you went to school, they’ve at least outlined the right information. If you’ve graduated, you’ve passed by demonstrating an understanding of that info, so you’re on the right track, and you can take encouragement that you’re almost a Registered Radiologic Technologist.

If you’re like I was at the end of my program, you’re likely a bit tired, but ready to move onto earning that Registration and to start working. You need only to persevere a little bit longer, and with a structured method for addressing your weak areas and reinforcing the areas you’ve already mastered, you’ll no doubt see success in your near future.

Good luck! You’ve got this!

Jeremy Enfinger, RT(R)