I passed my ASCP exam first try!

[u/Leading-Celery2226]

Hi all! I recently passed my ASCP BOC MLS exam and I've debated making this post for a few days now since I'm relatively new to this page, but I thought it would be good to share my experience in case there are MLS/MLT students looking for different ways of studying for the MLS exam. I want to first start out by saying that what might have worked for me, may not work for you so feel free to adapt my methods to fit your way of studying. This is not a guaranteed study method to pass, this is just the way I went about studying that worked for me. The way I'll set this post up is by listing the materials I bought to study and then any comments regarding that resource and what it helped me with as well as my study plan.

Study Materials:

1. ASCP BOC MLS Exam Content Guide

• I went through the exam content guide for each individual section and highlighted the topics within each section that I absolutely needed to review in red highlight and things that I needed to lightly review in yellow highlight.
  • Doing this helped me guide my studying so that I wasn't reviewing topics that I already knew well which saves you a lot of time if you are studying on a time crunch.

1. ASCP BOC Quick Compendium of Medical Laboratory Sciences (2nd edition)

• Once I went through the exam content guide and did my highlights, I would go through whatever subject I was focusing on that day, for example, if I wanted to study blood bank, I would go to the section that correlated with the topic I highlighted in red to review that specific area and made notes/things to remember.
  • I ended up using this compendium A LOT for the tables that were in some of the different sections but also for a quick summary of whatever topic I was studying.

1. ASCP BOC Study Guide Medical Laboratory (7th edition)

• I won't lie, I didn't use this resource a lot, it is good to go through and answer questions in each of the sections so that you get used to the way that questions are structured, but it was mostly practice questions and then the answers were in the back of the book with no explanations.

1. ASCP BOC MLS Practice Exams

• This resource came with the study bundle I bought that included the Quick Compendium and Study Guide.
  • I used the practice exams A LOT whenever I finished a certain section. It was sort of like LabCE where you could choose the subject you wanted practice questions for and how many questions you wanted to do. For example, once I had gone through and studied all of the topics I needed to in blood bank, I would go to the BOC MLS Practice Exam on my ASCP account and choose 50 or 100 questions of just blood bank. Once I was done, I would go back through the questions I got wrong and read the explanations. (NOTE: the explanations given for some of the questions will not be helpful.)

1. Clinical Laboratory Science Review: A Bottom Line Approach (7th edition) by Patsy Jarreau

• This was a really good book if you need anecdotes or fun ways to remember certain things.

1. Quick Review Cards for Medical Laboratory Science (3rd edition) by Valerie Dietz Polansky

• These flashcards were my holy grail when I didn't want to carry huge books around with me. They were bulky when you have all of the sections on the ring but if you're focusing on one section at a time, they fit in your bag super easily so you can review at any time. I liked these cards because the summary tables were so neat and concise. I found these really helpful when I needed to quickly glance at something.

1. LabCE by Medialab

• I used this to complete computer adapted practice exams. I will say that the questions on LabCE were more general and not written the same way they are on the ASCP exam. I did the same thing I did with the ASCP practice questions where I reviewed everything I got wrong to understand why I got the question wrong. I will say that LabCE does a way better job of explaining the correct and incorrect answers than the ASCP website.
  • I'll be very frank, I would do the computer adaptive practice MLS exams and would get around a 58-62% with an average difficulty of 7.2, so I'm not sure about how this correlates with whether or not you will pass the exam (if anyone has any idea, feel free to comment).

Study Plan:

I was casually studying all subjects for two months before I actually took the exam and then did a 2 week study plan leading up to my exam day that went as follows:

Week 1:

1. Pick a subject for every day of the week going from your weakest area all the way to your strongest.

Example of my study schedule:

-Monday: Blood bank

-Tuesday: Microbiology

-Wednesday: Chemistry

-Thursday: Hematology/Hemostasis

-Friday: Urinalysis/Body Fluids

-Saturday: Immunology

-Sunday: Day OFF

1. Focus on the one area of the day as if it were a school day (8AM-3PM, listen to yourself and take breaks as needed). Go through the topics you highlighted in red for the specific subject and make notes and then review.

2. After reviewing the topics in the section, take a practice exam of 50-100 questions with only that subject (I used LabCE for this step).

3. Write down the questions you got wrong, the correct answer, and why that answer is correct.

4. Repeat these steps with the other subject areas.

Week 2:

I ended up doing one practice computer adaptive exam per day and reviewed my wrong questions while using my Polansky flashcards to go over the sections.

Week leading up to exam date:

I'm going to be completely honest, I did not touch anything. I listened to myself and didn't do anything since I was getting really horrible migraines every day leading up to my exam day so I took the week to relax but if you want, you could use the week to review any last minute stuff.

Final advice:

1. This is one of those exams that you don't know what they're going to ask you so it's ok if you went through all of the studying and still don't feel prepared on your exam day, just try your best to remain calm and answer the questions to the best of your ability.

2. If at some point during the exam you feel like you're doing bad, just keep going and trying to answer the questions to the best of your ability and see what happens. Also, don't change any of your answers unless you know for a fact it's a different answer choice. It might be really hard to do, but try to trust your instincts.

3. It's not the end of the world if you don't pass the exam the first time. A lot of people don't pass it the first time and that's ok. That means that you take a step back and try a different approach for the next time you go take it.

To end this really long post, I want to reiterate that this is the method that worked for me and is not a guaranteed way to pass the exam the first time. At the end of the day, it's luck of the draw what test you get on your exam day, so all you can do is go in and try your best. If anyone has any questions or there are MLS reading this that want to give some advice, feel free to comment. Good luck! You guys got this!

[u/my_peen_is_clean]

nice work and thanks for the detail, this is super helpful for people who hate labce percent scores and panic for no reason

[u/mjjp83]

I just passed mine today! I honestly felt like I wasn’t doing well the whole time. I had a similar study approach. I used Labce and the harr book mostly. I also just graduated from a program so I had a lot fresh in my mind. It was super difficult and my I had to basically think logically through each question. Congratulations!

[u/Silent-Medicine95]

Three week old MLT graduate here! I’m currently studying for the test . This was very helpful. Thank you