Preparing for your EPPP is no joke. Like the Bar exam for lawyers, or the medical licensure exams for doctors, a pass in the EPPP is recognized as among the highest academic achievements a person can achieve.
Precisely because of this, the EPPP is hard. At TSM we don’t pretend to make it easy to pass your EPPP. But we do provide you with the tools so that what would otherwise be an insurmountable goal can be broken down into a series of manageable steps.
These steps are based on the fact that success at the EPPP is not simply the result of how much you study. Of course, how much you study plays a large role in your ultimate success, but what is more important is how you study.
Spending hundreds upon hundreds of hours cramming is not going to give you anything but cognitive overload, and it may actually be detrimental to your success in passing the EPPP. What you need is a plan of action, in which your ultimate goal is subdivided into a series of steps. And that is exactly what we aim to provide here at TSM.
It may seem strange to warn against too much study. However, recent research has found that while psychologists studying to pass their EPPP did better the more they prepared, this was only true up to a point.
“What’s surprising,” said Jack Schaffer who led a study that was later published by the APA, “is that beyond 200 hours of study, there’s very little additional improvement.” In fact—and this was the really surprising thing about the study—the pass rates began to fall off beyond 300 hours. Those who studied beyond 400 hours were even less likely to pass their EPPP. (See Rebecca Clay’s article, ‘Are you studying too much for the EPPP? Research suggests that more than 300 hours can backfire.’)
Once again, the point should be clear. Quantity of study, by itself, is not necessarily an asset and may actually become a liability. What is crucial as you prepare for your EPPP is quality of study.
Further Reading
- Are you studying too much for the EPPP?
- Don’t Overcrowd Your Working Memory
- You May be Spending Too Much Time on EPPP Study Materials