Exam feedback for Physios - Australia
We have asked a few of our physios who recently passed the exam (to gain registration in Australia) for feedback on how it went - to see what their thoughts were, please read below.
The next exam is in September with a June 1st cut off date - if your interested, please get in touch as now is the time to get started!
Re the exam - I over revised. I would advise to not stress and over revise. There is too much content to cover and remember and a slim chance it will come up. Questions come down to common sense, clinical reasoning, and how to practice safely... I never figured out how the marks work.. 120 questions but out of 1000 points ! I think reading over general topics helps, there are lots of support groups say on WhatsApp where people share questions and discuss answers. Exam questions make you understand how some questions are.. some quite silly ... but I feel the exam does not test your memory from a book, but more what you would learn in practice - which can be tricky if you have not worked in that area. But working with others who know the questions you then learn how to answer and the typical answers that are correct.. the main thing is there is lots of resources out there to help, and services you can pay for tuition - AAPTA.
The exam was not too difficult, I mainly just read through a wide range of conditions online including their evidence-based treatment and the associated diagnostic tests which helped a lot.
I found the practice exam helped structured my revision quite a lot because I didn't know what to expect/where to start with the revision. So actually, going through the practice questions and getting a feel for the exam structure and kind of questions they asked helped. I spent a lot of time revising clinical content on PhysioPedia (free access through APC). I also signed up to a few free webinars from Clinical Physio and got some free access/resources from AAPTA. I found I needed to look up the outcomes measures more because some have different names/structure in Aus compared to what I'm used to in the UK. I would definitely recommend looking up the basic anatomy again before looking at complex conditions because a couple of the exam questions were about basic anatomy and healing of bones/soft tissue etc. During the exam its very easy to over think it with the length of the exams and the number of questions so I tried to always go with my first answer and marked questions for review if I really wasn't sure. I also found it useful to look up conditions more common in Aus and public health/health promotion in Aus and their healthcare system.
It took a lot of preparation and there is a lot of content to cover. Me and a few friends were doing the exam together in march so we created a group online notebook where we all inputted on different topics which made life a bit easier- less research for each of us. In the actual exam they covered such a large range of topics and actually had a fair bit about paeds in there. There's plenty of time to complete the exam so time isn't a worry and some questions are very straight forward and others obviously not so much so. So all in all anyone taking it needs to be prepared to do a lot of work for it, but it's doable and best to just space it over like 3 months and do it bit by bit. Its such a weight lifted when you've passed it as well because you just know you're all done and you're so close to getting out to Oz.
Thank you to those who shared this feedback - it's great to see physios helping each other and we can't wait to see these physios working in Australia soon :)