The boards are a test to measure minimum competence. That means that if you pass you have the basic knowledge to be a sleep technologist. This is important for any laboratory that wants to hire him. The problem is that the questions are not based on what you do in the lab, but rather on the best practice rules of the American Association for Sleep Medicine (AAASM) and the American Association of Sleep Technologists (AAST). That means you will need to study the correct information to be successful in passing the meetings.
The first thing to do is go to BRPT.org and download the plan for testing. This will tell you exactly what is on the test. It will also let you know how many questions on each topic there are. Use this as a study guide. As you study a specific topic, check it off the list. You will see that some areas have more questions than other areas. This gives you an idea of how much time to spend on each topic.
The scoring manual and scoring rules were designed by the AASM using research and consensus to create the rules. You need to memorize them, including the page with all the filter settings. These are the rules and the only correct answer; the way your laboratory performs the study may not match these criteria. Staging and scoring studies are a large part of the test. If your job doesn’t require you to score, ask your scoring technician to review some of the scoring you’ve done. You cannot take the test and pass if you do not get a score. Even if you are scoring 200 epochs a night, you should take the time because it will help you pass the test.
Titling is another area of high failure on the boards. The reason is that the AASM criteria generally do not match the laboratory’s titration criteria. It is essential that you read the AASM guidelines which are freely available. The pressure change is always 1 cm. The minimum waiting time between pressure changes is 5 minutes. It is necessary to memorize the number of apneas, hypopneas, RERA and snorkeling.
I know that taking tests is difficult or that you feel like you’ve been an excellent technician for years and you know what you’re doing; however, the test is based on the perfect patient in the perfect environment and not on what he does in the laboratory. If you keep this in mind when you’re studying, you’ll be a registered technologist in no time.