While working through your exam preparation resources, look up unfamiliar terms and acronyms. Knowing and understanding the terminology you will encounter on exam day will be very important. Better quality study guides and LMS have glossaries, and many include flashcards.
What do you find yourself doing with those 5-to-10-minute chunks of downtime that occur throughout a typical day? What if you dedicated a couple of those small chunks of unproductive time each day to reviewing terminology or working with flashcards? Think about how much more productive your scheduled study and review sessions will be for doing so. Those micro-learning sessions could be the catalyst that helps you accelerate your prep efforts or could be the very thing that helped you meet that cut score on exam day.
You may find it helpful to create a document or flashcards dedicated solely to terminology and acronyms that you find troublesome. In addition, there are many sites like Quizlet, where you can search for study stacks that others have created or create your own.
However, I would be doing you a disservice if I did not advise you to be mindful of copyright law (including the DMCA) while using sites like Quizlet. Best practice – change your profile settings on these sites to make all of your study stacks private (inaccessible to others not listed in searches), and only copy or share study stacks you feel pretty confident do not include copyright-protected content.
Oh, and be sure to skim through the files in our group and check out the “Topics in this group,” which are there for you as another resource. In both locations, you will find many excellent quality supplemental learning resources that many group members and I have contributed over the years.
You have to master the fundamentals before developing the depth of knowledge required to effectively respond to most of the questions you will encounter on exam day. Memorizing terminology and basic understanding of employment law and best practices will work for passing the aPHR. These credentialing exams are about ensuring you possess the knowledge and competency of a well-round HR generalist or senior HR professional.
What’s your goal? To pass your exam and earn that credential. Don’t lose sight of your goal. Work for what you want!
Keep calm and study on!
~V
