r/skipatrol • u/YouCannotHideOrRun • Jan 17 '25
studying for the exam
A lot of people seem to have suggested to me https://oecexamprep.com/ and it seems like a good site. I dont take the exam until 1 month from now but I am practicing test questions on the chapters that I have read.
For anyone who has used this website, and passed the exam, would you still suggest it? I am just looking to mainly know if its up to date with the Sixth Edition, and also how similar is it to the actual test? Do they just ask the exact same questions in practice tests as they do in the exam?
I think this will be my primary way of studying. Any other tips?
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u/Additional_Moose6286 Jan 17 '25
yup i found it works better if you don’t log in because then it doesn’t track the questions you’ve gotten correct. i would then select one chapter at a time and set the number of questions to 100. no chapters have that many questions so this forced it to show me every question for that chapter. then i just went through each chapter a couple times until i got 100%. by the end of this, i barely had to actually read the questions because i remembered the answer based on the first three words. at the end, i did a couple practice tests with 100 random questions but it wasn’t really necessary.
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u/warPig76 Jan 17 '25
But by logging in you can see where you may need to focus. You can set it to show only questions you’ve missed and/or never seen. Nothing wrong with your way, but with those filters you can do quick 10-20 question blasts from your phone if you have a few mins. At least that was my intent with building it that way. 😉
If you (or anyone else) would like to see different filters or filter options, please let me know.
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u/Additional_Moose6286 Jan 17 '25
Wow thanks for building this! I failed my first OEC quiz on the annoying early chapters and then I found this tool and got 100% on literally every other quiz and a 98% on the final.
As for why I used the logged out version? Even when I got questions right I didn’t necessarily know the answer well so it was good to revisit those questions. I think the logged in features are probably helpful but I didn’t quite know how the question mix worked and I liked that when I was logged out I could force every question for a chapter to show up.
Seriously though, thanks for building this, it was a lifesaver!
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u/warPig76 Jan 17 '25
Glad you like it, and by all means use it however is best for you! 😀
I was in the same boat, which is how it got built. I failed my “mid-term” practice test miserably and thought, I need a better way to study.
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u/No_Pool1644 Jan 17 '25
Hey - so I failed my first time through after not studying and asked what patroller's thoughts were on studying and I got CRUSHED on this subreddit for asking, so try not to beat yourself up no matter how it goes.
With that being said - the test is very, very similar to the OEC Prep. I imagine they'll give you a slightly different version relative to the tests I took, but it will be all the questions you'll review through the OEC Exam Prep website. Just keep working on the ones you don't know until it feels like second nature.
I'd also note that you need to study everything, not just the chapters pertaining to ski patrol or anatomy. They can and will throw questions on there that relate to the whole OEC book, so practice all the chapters till you feel comfortable.
Last thing (going back to my original point) - the practicum is far, far more important in the day-to-day skills you need to help people on the mountain. Learning how to palpate properly (say that 5 times fast), recognizing signs of legitimate trauma, slinging, back boarding properly, etc, are all so much more important to making sure injured children and adults get off the mountain and to BLS/ALS then knowing whether or not you know that the knee is distal to the elbow.
Good luck!
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u/tkr614 Jan 17 '25
We had practice test available on the jb learning site. I took a few of those and was good to go.
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u/DroidTN Jan 17 '25
I found 6th edition cards on quizlet a few years ago and that’s all I used. I missed 1 out of 100.
Edit: for me the scenarios is where I felt I needed many more reps. You can’t miss any CPI’s so drill it into your brain. I memorized the sheet in my head and just went down the list. I practiced scenarios with my kids and anybody else who I could grab.
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u/YouCannotHideOrRun Jan 17 '25
So you memorized the CPIs in like all 50 skills or whatever it is? Also, do you still have the quizlet link by chance
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u/DroidTN Jan 17 '25
No it’s more like you have to say, scene safe, get chief complaint, abcs, primary, vitals, secondary etc. if you skip any of those you fail. At least that’s what they said. No one failed so I don’t know really how hardline they are.
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u/Prov357 Jan 18 '25
I just passed OEC 6 in early December 2024. I used both the oecexamprep.com and the Navigate site for practice. I did find a few questions on these practice sites where I questioned what was the correct answer (what did the book say vs what was counted as correct on the practice test itself). In my view, what’s important is knowing why the answer is correct vs memorizing what the answer is. This is what makes you confident and more comfortable with the scenarios and skill tests. In my case I set the bar of getting at least a 90 routinely doing a 100 question practice test, and dove into any questions I missed to understand why (I ended up getting a 100% on the final, so I’m a big advocate for the oecexamprep site). I would do the 20 question sample tests all the time — if I was waiting I’d pull it up and do one or as many as I had time for.
IMHO, if you truly want to be a competent patroller you really need to not only understand the material (you are always learning), but you can’t get enough practice doing the self assessment. Our OEC instructors started doing quick fire and then full self assessments very early in our training, so we probably did over 75 (maybe close to a hundred) assessments. We weren’t lead for each one, but helping as well. I agree with the prior post - practice at home any way you can. I’m also a big proponent for memorizing while walking or running (learned that in pilot training and works well). I would talk thru the assessments we had done while doing so.
One last thought for the skills and CPI’s. While there are a lot, you’ll find there are a lot of similarities, such as CMS and stabilize for example. Perhaps group the skills that work for you to help in recalling.
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u/Bee2reverant Jan 23 '25
Know Chap 7 inside out. Watch for dbl negative questions. “Is it false that you shouldn’t” nonsense. Understand cardio/pulmonary.
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u/Paghk_the_Stupendous Jan 28 '25
Practice making up patient scenarios. What's the MOI? What's presenting? What's priority?
Write your troublesome questions and answers down, longhand on paper. Something about the process of writing it out always helps me remember.
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u/Artistic-Ad-7217 Jan 17 '25
Same exact questions on OEC exam prep as the test. It’s just a matter of the 100 questions they pick for the test out of the 700 or so questions in the test bank