I am getting pretty nervous about the exam. I am taking it next Saturday. I have been using Gollnick and Cember for reference. I have been using the Radware RRPT prep cd. I am a radiological consultant with no experience except "book" in the nuclear power industry. Very familiar with medical, x-ray, common dose calcs, instrumentation, nuclear theory, etc. Any last minute tips that anyone could think of to help a brotha out?
Quote from: Sixxdogg on Jul 31, 2010, 01:59
I am getting pretty nervous about the exam. I am taking it next Saturday. I have been using Gollnick and Cember for reference. I have been using the Radware RRPT prep cd. I am a radiological consultant with no experience except "book" in the nuclear power industry. Very familiar with medical, x-ray, common dose calcs, instrumentation, nuclear theory, etc. Any last minute tips that anyone could think of to help a brotha out?
Recognize the pitch, and then go after the ball. Keep your swing level and stay behind the ball, exploding into the pitch.
Oh...wait...I was thinking of something else. ;) Just relax & enjoy the test. If you have enough education & experience to be a consultant, you will do fine without power experience...they are just testing theory.
Good luck!
Sounds like you got it covered. Just relax. Use good test taking strategy. Mainly relax. Sounds like you are ready and you will not need luck.Let us know how it goes.
[chill] you probably have spent plenty of your time studying the subject matter make sure you study some test taking skills as well, such as:
-reminding yourself to read the whole question and ALL answers before answering,
-if you are having trouble with a question leave it and come back later, another question may offer something that jogs your memory (or even hand you the answer),
-if you are tensing up don't be afraid to lean back close your eyes, breath deep, and relax for a minute or two,
-don't read anything into the question that is not there, the question may be that easy,
-for questions you really don't know the answer to there are frequently two answers that are far enough out that they can be excluded, that leaves you with two possibilities (down to a 50/50 chance)
good luck ;)
When I took the test, I wrote down the number of every question that I was unsure of or was a complete guess. If you average the test with those questions as incorrect and get over a 70, you should be in the clear. Hopefully there are enough right guesses to counter any wrong answers to keep you there. Also recheck those questions to see if you have any new knowledge from the other questions to give better answers.
Good luck [salute]
Most tests have the answers pretty well distributed. When I took mine 1 1/2 years ago I actually counted up all the answers and indeed, they were. I took the few I had no clue on and picked one letter to answer the rest, C....for Cathy ;) I believe you actually increase your chance that way instead of just randomly picking letters. I had an excellent shot at getting 20% of those right.
Make sure you know the SI units!!! It seemed like every math question I had was in SI. Know how to calculate air samples, decay and effective T 1/2. Not a bad idea to know something about tritium, radon and the working levels and limits for the same. I had lots of questions on shipping (in SI units), xray, dose, and accelerators (targets, beam dumps etc..).
Good luck and try to stay calm. I actually got up and walked outside (escorted of course) to try to get my thoughts together. I went through the first 10 questions and did not know 9 of them! It got much better with the remaining 140.
Thanks everyone for the tips/encouragement. How long does it typically take to know the results?
Good luck!
Results are sent out within a couple of weeks. :)
thanks Gran and stud
Look Logically at answers , such as half life and Half value layers should be able to eyeball them and know where the answer is. Also random guess after you throw out answers you know are wrong. IF C is your emergency choice and its a halflife question and the answer goes up in value you better not pick that one, but try something else. Unless u are trying to back calculate to a value. but a present or future value should always go down. Take Friday off and take it easy and go through your prep disk some more, it helped me. Start on prep disk now start from question one, only write down questions you dont know or have trouble with, then study them Friday. cross off the ones you get, until you just have a few left, dont dwell on the math ones now, its too late, if you have them fine if not, do the ones you can memorize like radiation area, Yellow 2, 3 etc. Taking tests on the disk is a waste now in my opinion. You are doing ones you already know. Start from one and go through the whole thing at least three times this week then maybe have just a few that U have trouble with, just write them off if math. I did that for my CHP part 1 and passed, I was dumber but passed my NRRPT first time I wasted alot of time taking the tests. Instead of going from question 1.
Quote from: Sixxdogg on Jul 31, 2010, 01:59
I am getting pretty nervous about the exam. I am taking it next Saturday. I have been using Gollnick and Cember for reference. I have been using the Radware RRPT prep cd. I am a radiological consultant with no experience except "book" in the nuclear power industry. Very familiar with medical, x-ray, common dose calcs, instrumentation, nuclear theory, etc. Any last minute tips that anyone could think of to help a brotha out?
I'm assuming this is an updated version of the old practice tests? If so, and you have been using this CD extensively, go ahead and 'guess' on questions you
think you can't find a legitimate answer for...it will be your subconcious picking the right answer based on something from the CD...
Quote from: UncaBuffalo on Aug 02, 2010, 01:25
I'm assuming this is an updated version of the old practice tests?
I don't think they have been updated. The decay constant is... well... constant.
Quote from: Rennhack on Aug 02, 2010, 01:57
I don't think they have been updated. The decay constant is... well... constant.
But when was the last time it was adjusted for decay? ;)
Quote from: Rennhack on Aug 02, 2010, 01:57
I don't think they have been updated. The decay constant is... well... constant.
When I took the NRRPT, I think General Physics put out the practice test program we used... I'm assuming Radware is a similar (but possibly updated...since CDs didn't exist back then) program?
Quote from: UncaBuffalo on Aug 02, 2010, 02:38
I'm assuming Radware is a similar program?
Yes, It is similar.
Quote from: Rennhack on Aug 02, 2010, 02:53
Yes, It is similar.
Then I stand by my advice: 'Guess' when necessary.
took the test yesterday morning. I am not sure one way or the other if I passed. I will say it was HEAVY in calcs. We will see.
Mine took about a month to get the results back. If you get the big envelope, you passed. It has your certificate in it.
Mine took about three months. The process then (maybe now too) was to evaluate the questions after the test was taken, if a large percentage of people missed a question it was evaluated and possibly thrown out changing the pass/fail point. This happened on the test I took and it took a bit before it was resolved.
Quote from: Marlin on Aug 10, 2010, 06:48
Mine took about three months. The process then (maybe now too) was to evaluate the questions after the test was taken, if a large percentage of people missed a question it was evaluated and possibly thrown out changing the pass/fail point. This happened on the test I took and it took a bit before it was resolved.
I remember mine taking about that long, too. Long enough to sort of forget about it until several techs showed up at my desk telling me to call an 800 number to see if I had passed. Apparently they had been told that only one person that took it at our site had passed the test and they wanted to know if it was me.
It was about three months before I got my results. Not knowing that a big envelope meant passing, the first piece of paper I pulled out was an application form. First thing that went thru my mind was that it was to reapply to take the test again. The form was for the wall diploma. Then after seeing what it was my heart stopped fluttering. Many a person have told me that passing the test would mean nothing to help me. But taking into consideration who these people were who told me this are the people who cannot pass the test.
They grade it a lot quicker now. I received my results in about two weeks. ;D
Hope you get good news
My results took about 2 weeks after they told us it would take about 2.5 months. The biggest tip I can offer if you are indeed prepared is to go over the first 50 questions of test when you are through. You'd be surprized of the bonehead mistakes made because of being nervous. After the first 50 questions you are usually "settled in".