Social Work Test Prep » materials

Beck Basics Book Excerpt

admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:30:00 +0000

A generous chunk of Judith Beck’s Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond lives here. Should get you more than up-to-speed on CT for the exam.

Social Work Exam Study Pages

admin — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:29:00 +0000

Posted over at Therapy Worksheets:

From covenanthealth.org, a full bag of mental health info pages. Useful, cut-and-pasteable articles covering mental health topics from A (abuse, active listening, addiction) to…W (withdrawal).

Useful for clients, sure. Maybe still more useful to license-bound, exam-prepping social workers. They’re not info pages, they’re study pages. And free–a whole lot cheaper than AATBS and co.

Keep Up

admin — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:51:00 +0000

They say keeping up with what’s going on in the wider world of psych is a help when it comes to licensing exam day. May also be useful in actually doing social work, doing therapy.

For non-journal-reading types (i.e., most people), a couple of shortcuts to newish info: Psychotherapy Networker Magazine–which seems to be improving in recent issues–and the Harvard Mental Health Letter–nicely short, readable, and authoritative-seeming. (Free trial issue offer here.) Worth a look.

Sue and Sue

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:25:00 +0000

Sue & Sue’s Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice is cited again and again in the culture sections of the AATBS material. Maybe you want to read the whole thing. Probably not. But here it is…

Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders

admin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:12:00 +0000

This might come in handy. Not just disorders, but also meds, interventions, etc.

Social Work Exam Prep: The Next Generation

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:52:00 +0000

Dr. Hutchinson at socialworkexam.com has rolled out a new iPhone/iTouch app for exam prepping social workers. Runs questions, keeps your score, etc. The future is yesterday.

Another 10 Practice Questions

admin — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Another ten practice questions here. Scroll slowly–the answers sit right below the questions.

Free Social Work Exam Prep Audio

admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:02:00 +0000

Having tried the AATBS and Gerry Grossman CDs, turning now to free test prep audio. (It’s a really long commute.)

There are a few options available through iTunes. For starters, try the Social Work Podcast (mentioned several times already on these pages). Good for clear, listenable explanations of theory.

Then, for diagnostic refresher, try Dana Leighton’s Abnormal Psych lectures. Prof. Leighton knows his stuff, and is in no hurry to get through the material. The result is semi-soothing walk through collections of disorders (mood, psychotic, etc.). And since the students and video clips aren’t miked, there are longish info-free moments (aka silence). For this prepper, a each lull a warmly welcomed rest from the daily cram.

I’ll add others as I find them (and as you suggest them). Enjoy.

Free Social Work Test Prep?

admin — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:26:00 +0000

Can you pass the licensure exam without laying out a lot of money? Maybe, sort of. You can save a bunch, turns out, leaning on the web for a lot of materials. Some have been posted here: practice questions, flash cards, mnemonics. The early episodes of the Social Work Podcast cover a lot of same ground as the big company prep CDs do. The books you probably already have from school cover most of what AATBS or BTA or Gerry Grossman cram into their materials (think Corey, think Hepworth, Rooney, et al). The NASW Code of Ethics is sitting all over the web. Relaxation techniques, another part of the pay-program package, are another web-based, no-charge item.

The problem, if any, is with amounts. You’ll probably need more practice questions and less other material. AATBS melts down all of social work into about 900 pages (including a bunch of section quizzes and practice tests)–less reading than Corey + Hepworth + the code + whatever state-specific legal stuff you can find + other books just in case.

You can probably track down the course books for free (a post-test friend?) or cheap (craigslist, ebay)–though they may be all marked up. So, if you’ve got it, this is where your money goes: the online practice questions. AATBS’s “TestMaster,” for one, offers five 200-question tests with rationales for each answer. You can take each test several times. (If you can consistently score 80%+ on retaking the exams, they say you’re ready to go.) It’s the same with the other courses, give or take.

That’s one not-yet-done-prepping person’s opinion. Done it differently? Let me know (socialworkprep [at] gmail.com).

Continued good luck to us all.

Mnemonics for DSM

admin — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:58:00 +0000

Most practice exams I’ve encountered make memorizing the DSM in full seem strictly unnecessary. Questions tend to be more about a small set of differentials (Schizophrenia ve. Schizoaffective D/O, PTSD v. Acute Stress). But, then again, why not? It’s only time and more time and a little more time and some brain space. It’ll all come in handy later in life for dx’ing clients, friends, and family.

Others have worked out mnemonics for DSM criteria so you don’t have to. I’ll grow the list as I encounter more.