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I took the NBCOT earlier this month and got back my score a few days ago. I passed!  Some folks have asked how I studied for the NBCOT exam so here you go:

I studied for about 5 weeks, 3-5 hours per day, 5 days a week. I received a score of 485 which appears to be a hair above average for first time new graduate test-takers (see image).

Tufts OT NBCOT scores 2011-2013

The most useful test prep was  AOTA NBCOT Prep. In the end, I answered 839 questions and did 23 clinical scenarios. I initially had a poor percentage correct but I reviewed them repeatedly until I understood the reasoning behind most of the questions. I focused on the questions in “DOMAIN 3: Select interventions…” because 45% of the exam is comprised of those questions. It costs $150 for a one-year subscription and it is well worth it.

The AOTA clinical simulations were very useful. One note: the AOTA responses were more helpful than the actual test responses. In the actual test, they’d usually respond with something noncommittal like, “Ok, you did the thing” instead of something like, “When you did that, you discovered a big issue.” I was initially thrown off a little by that!

When I got something wrong on the AOTA questions and didn’t know why, I tracked down the references at the end of each AOTA question. I found the book and studied the section. Having PDF copies of some of the books was very helpful to find the reference quickly.

I used a free search tool on my computer called Docfetcher  that let me search my school notes, the AOTA PDFs, and the PDF textbooks quickly.

I studied the AOTA PDFs and they were fairly helpful but not detailed enough as a study guide on their own.

Googling question content was useful.

OT Miri on Facebook and Youtube was helpful (2020 update: she now has her own website, I’m sure it’s very helpful: OTMiri.com). Watching her videos was a welcome relief from reading the whole time. Scroll down to the beginning of her Facebook feed (late 2016) and start reading. Thanks OT Miri!

I also found the Occupational Therapy Examination Review Guide 4th Edition  to be useful. I did a few hundred questions, reading their reasonings very carefully.  I found the questions in this book a bit easier than the AOTA questions; getting 70% correct at the outset instead of 40% like on the AOTA questions was a real morale booster!

I read through the NBCOT Exam Handbook  and tried out the sample test on the NBCOT website. By reading up on the instructions, I knew that I could take a 7 minute break during the tutorial that came after the clinical simulations and before the multiple choice. I read how the test is criterion-based but not really criterion-based, that let me explain to people how the score I need to get (450) isn’t really something I can actively aim for while studying. I heard from many folks that I’d need about 70% on the AOTA Prep and that turned out to be about right.

I used the highlighting and “marking” system on the actual test even though I couldn’t practice with it before the test. I couldn’t find a good demonstration of it anywhere. It lets you mark answers (ie. “I know it’s not A or C but I’ll come back to this question”) and come back to questions.

Here are some useful websites I kept on bookmark:

• Rehabilitation Measures Database  – Descriptions of pretty much ALL of the assessments
• Medscape – The website for doctors. If it’s a pathology, it’s very well described here!
• NIH List of Disorders – A lot of disorders described

I got Therapy Ed. 8th edition but I don’t recommend it. I found the study guide and the questions to be waaaaay too detail oriented. I feel that they totally missed the forest for the trees. Some friends agree with me on this, some disagree!

I sat down once and made myself a simulated exam using the AOTA NBCOT Prep… 3 clinicals and 170 questions in 4 hours. It was kinda brutal but was helpful to get my pacing. I should have done it 1 or 2 more times. On the actual exam, I ran out of time, wishing I had another 30 minutes.

The first thing I did when the clock started was make a schedule on the dry-erase paper they give you in the test center, something like this:

4:00-3:30 clinicals
5 min break while reading tutorial
3:30-3:00 1-30
3:00-2:30 31-60
5 min break
2:25-1:55 61-90
...

That’s about it. Good luck and…. you’ve got this!

I passed the occupational therapy board exam!!! I am now a registered occupational therapist!
My business card now reads Lee Sonko, MS, OTR

I expect to be licensed within a month so I can start working as an OT in California!

See my NBCOT certification below:

Fun and  Free: Crucible Open House Sept 9, noon to 5pm

There’s always lots of fun free demos and presentations. Build real things!

EmoniNail is a new topical nail fungus treatment.  Only, it isn’t. It’s a scam.

Why do I think it’s a scam?

1. Their website is vague about its (common, inexpensive) ingredient list, and  about how it works.
2. The website makes vague but compelling promises that not even the best doctor and medical treatment could keep.
3. It is expensive enough for you to hope that it might work but not break-the-bank expensive.
4. The company has created a bunch of fake review sites saying how great their product is, trying to hide critical reviews like mine.
5. Their web design looks so much like many other scam anti-fungal treatments that it is clearly the same bad people trying to market the same bad product under a fresh name. Similar scam products are Funginix, and Zeta Clear.

Do not buy EmoniNail. For more information about nail fungus products that work and don’t work, read my blog posts about nail fungus.

Here is a short summary of all my blog posts on the subject of nail fungus:  the over-the-counter topicals at your local pharmacy ($20) sometimes clear up nail fungus. It appears that is what’s in Emoninail (undecylenic acid). Lamisil (generic terbinafine) topical ($30) or oral ($2000) is one drug that has better than average results. Going to a podiatrist and getting drugs, or your nail ripped out, or both ($50-$3000) might work. Sadly, modern science doesn’t have a guaranteed cure for nail fungus. Don’t believe anyone that says otherwise.

Dr. Zarkov! There’s no sun! It’s 8:24 in the morning, and there’s no sun!
Happy Solar Eclipse!

Megan loves her Contigo mugs for drinking coffee in the car every day. I’ve been hand-cleaning them for a while and the insides kept getting more and more brown despite scrubbing. An abrasive pad and a lot of elbow grease worked well enough but I wasn’t keen on doing that again. So I tried soaking the mug in Oxi Clean for an hour and it worked super duper great! The inside of the mug got to sparkling silver clean! Actually, it worked too great, the little bits of Oxi-Clean that spilled over to the outside made the paint bubble off the mug! As a last ditch effort, I used Oxi Clean to remove the paint completely and it actually looks pretty cool.

The best part is something I just read from Contigo…

Contigo travel mug lids and any unpainted stainless steel bodies are top-rack dishwasher safe for a quick, easy clean. Painted stainless steel bodies are hand wash only.

The mug is now fully dishwasher safe! Woot!
In the image, notice the last remnants of the purple paint embedded in the word “Contigo” on the one on the right.

Today I tried to install an EPUB reader to read my friend TJIC’s new books.  After more than an hour of trying this has stopped being fun. I just want to read a book and I’ve wasted a few hours pushing buttons. This is why paper is not dead yet. Or maybe this is why single-purpose Kindle readers are a good idea.

I have an  Amazon Fire HD 8 (5th Generation) and it continues to be a a pain in the ass. Every time I try to do something that isn’t akin to watching television on it, I get sucked into this vortex of things that don’t work. Here was today’s adventure:

I went to the Amazon Appstore and installed eLibrary Manager, which is billed as being “actually free” from Amazon. It worked OK but the default font is a horribly bland san serif font and the option to change the font didn’t work! Not happening.

I tried Overdrive, which has lots of tie-ins with public and university libraries. That seemed like a safe bet. But I couldn’t figure out how to get the book into into the app! How it’s supposed to work is that I install Adobe Digital Editions on my computer, link my account to my computer, and move it over to my Kindle. I spent 15 minutes wrangling with Adobe and some insane user registration system. Then I couldn’t get Adobe Digital Editions to see my Kindle when I plugged it into USB. I gave up.

Calibre Companion (demo version). After 15 minutes I figured out that it isn’t an ebook reader, just a way to move ebooks around. It works great, it just doesn’t do anything. Ugh.

Aldiko seemed like a really good bet. Super pretty. But I can’t create an account with the app. This is likely because the Amazon Appstore gave me a version of the software that is 3 years old and I’m not able to update it. I wrote to customer support. (update 9-1-17: they never wrote back :-(  )

Blah!