The battle of the NPTE prep practice exams, more specifically Scorebuilders vs. TherapyEd aka O’Sullivan. Let me preface this by saying this is only my opinion and not necessarily the opinion of rehabstudents.com or anyone else associated with the site.

I hate reading something that blabs on, on, and on when all I really care about is the bulleted talking points, so here are my quick bulleted points. Remember these reviews only cover the provided CD practice tests and are not reviews of the actual study guides themselves. Those are coming later… much later as I am sooo busy doing my hair.

I have taken a few screen shots of each test to give a better understanding of what I am talking about, but I did not take any of the actual tests mainly because I don’t feel like being sued.

Scorebuilders

http://www.scorebuilders.com/

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Actual test is similar to the PEAT and I would imagine the actual NPTE. Each section is broken up into blocks of 50 with a 15-minute break after 100 questions.

You can mark questions to be reviewed so you can go back prior to submitting that block of 50 questions.

I am not 100% positive on this one but I think you cannot submit the 50-question block until you have answered each question. So basically you can’t forget to answer a question.

The break down following the test was informative and semi-easy to navigate.

The printed answer sheet tells you what answer you picked vs. the correct one. So when you look back in the book for the explanation you can see what you chose.

Similar to the PEAT, each question is referenced with a page number so know where to start looking if the provided rationale doesn’t quite do it for you.

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I felt the questions were too easy when compared to the PEAT and O’Sullivan.

The user interface seemed a bit out dated and not the greatest when trying to look at the break down of your scores.

The score results make it hard to find out the answers to your incorrect questions by category. The interface doesn’t allow you to view only incorrect answers. The user ends up scrolling through all the questions.

TherapyEd aka O’Sullivan

http://www.therapyed.com/nptexamreview.htm

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The questions seemed similar to those in the PEAT; they seemed more situational based and overall tougher when compared to Scorebuilders.

The user interface is very easy to use.

You can “Create an Exam”, which basically means you can pick and choose the subjects you want to be tested on along with the 3 included tests.

You are able to go through your missed questions in the software but you still need the book for full explanations.

Very few questions based on straight memorization.

Easy to use interface allowing the user to look through incorrect questions easily by category.

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The test did not break the test up into 50 question sections like the NPTE nor was there time allowed for a break.

You can and probably will skip a question or two by accident when taking this test. (I did twice, not very happy about it).

After you finished the test, the graded answer sheet doesn’t tell you what answer you picked, only whether you got it correct or not.

Most of the longer clinical scenario questions did not have a detailed answer for them in the book.

The questions are not referenced so you do not know exactly where to look if you have additional questions about the answer or rational.

Related Posts:

1. How I (Darin) Prepared for the NPTE.
2. Helpful NPTE prep site – nptebasics.blogspot.com
3. Is Evidence Based Practice Really That Important?
4. Checking Results of your NPTE examination
5. How I prepared for the NPTE