Week 6

Hello again, loyal readers. :-)
I'm home (parent's place) tonight after taking the Praxis this morning. 120 multiple choice questions in 2 hours wasn't bad - I finished a half hour early. I didn't study much for it because a) Comps was only last month, b) Praxis has been rumored to be much easier, and c) I've run through several practice questions, and the above two reasons were sufficient to make me confident that I'll do fine. (I've probably just jinxed myself, and 4 weeks from now when I get my results I'll probably have failed it.) By the way, you only need a 75% to pass, so that means don't get more than 30 wrong!

I also wanted to update to warn all y'all that the www.ets.org website is a torture chamber, a disaster area, a hell-hole, a... a... stupid website! I personally spent hours on end trying to figure things out, and I know I'm not alone (b/c I've been quite outspoken about it, so I've heard stories).
Here are a few tips: 1. You CAN register online. You just have to find the link. (sorry i can't remember how I got there)
2. Avoid the phone. Not only do they put you through a full 10 minute gauntlet of recorded messages, but also charge you a lot extra $$ to register by phone.
3. Note that they only have paper-based versions of the Praxis at this time. I didn't know until last night! I honestly thought I registered for the computer based version. You can't use mechanical pencils, and they don't provide pencils at the center. You need your own set of #2's.
4. The registration thing will log you out after inactivity for like 2 minutes, so before you start:
- Find the testing center that you want to go to before you start the registration process. I can't remember how I found that out either, b/c the process was so convoluted. But it kicked me off for taking too long to find a place closest to me. Ugh.
- Find the institution codes for the places you want your scores sent. You HAVE to put ASHA as a recipient at the time you register, or else pay $35 later, like me. You won't be able to modify your registration at all after you submit (or at least I couldn't, after an hour's worth of frustration). The directions for this section when you get to it are confusing. For example, when it asked for the "certifying agency" I put ASHA, and somehow I thought it meant it would get a copy of my scores. Not true. Ick. Anyway, you can find ASHA's code at the ASHA website under Praxis info. I put U of Iowa as a recipient. If you want to work in the schools, I think you'll have to put the state's department of education as a recipient, too. Not sure what else.
- Create a password with at least 8 characters, nonwords, containing uppercase, lowercase, and numbers. I spent too long trying to make something work and it kicked me off, even though my created password fit all criteria. Oy. And you might want to write it down along with your login name and security question answers. Why? See #5 below.
5. Finally, do all that registration stuff, and be sure to print out your order b/c it'll be your admission ticket. And have it emailed to yourself just in case. The ticket will say that they may change testing centers without notice, so 3 days prior to your exam day, go back to the website and check to see if it has changed. Marie, Michelle and I all forgot our login names AND passwords by that time, and had to go through another process to find them out.
6. Check out your order summary to double check info. And get the heck out of ets.org before it sucks out your soul.
7. Oh yeah, order a sample test booklet. I didn't, but Marie shared some of its info with me. We found it somewhat helpful, although we disagreed with some of its answers! At least it was a good representation of what to expect, and good practice, too.
8. One more thing about studying for the test. Textbook knowledge from Comps studying will help, but don't forget to take time to bore yourself with reviewing: ASHA guidelines & policies, state regulations, legislative regulation info (like public laws), managing culturally & linguistically diverse (CLD) populations, and research and design methods.

::PHEW:: I hope that's it. I only meant to update and say it's over with for me, but then I got carried away with how mad I've been at the whole ETS system. Hope the info above can save you some grey hairs.

In terms of clinic, week 6 has also been uneventful. I managed to see 7 people within 3 hours on Wednesday! At the time, I was afraid Kim was going to say I didn't spend enough time with each patient, but instead she said she doesn't usually assign students such a full load by their 6th week, much less expect them to complete it efficiently. She said a lot of students usually spend time between patients gathering thoughts and planning for the next, or somethign like that. For me, I think I was just lucky that day. I mean, 5 of the patients were ones I'd seen before, and so I only followed the previous plans. The last 2 were new cognitive evals, which don't require planning, since it's an eval! They both happened to be very sweet people, and performed well to boot. So between patients, I only took time to write notes on the session, then moved on. I was also lucky because each patient was free whenever I wanted to see them, and if not they were easy to fit into the schedule. That hardly ever EVER happened. I'm amused to think that when I started the placement, I admired Caroline for seeing 7 people while I only saw 1 or 2 people in that same time span. Remember that post? Ah, those were the days. Less people mean less SOAP notes, of course. ;-)

Oh, I can also update on the hours I've gotten so far. I hope this long post makes up for the lack of posts previously. ^_^ Wait I don't remember them off the top of my head (they're posted in my office). But I currently have a bajillion hours in Neuro/Language-Dx and Tx, but 2.5 hrs in swallowing! Oh well, dysphagia has not been very interesting to me lately.

Ok, ok. It's now 1:26am and I'm exhausted. Let me know how things are going on your end, and also feel free to tell me what you want me to tell about my experiences!