DECONSTRUCT. DECODE. DEMYSTIFY. Written by Tony Madril, LCSW, BCD Licensing Exam Coach

© 2015 by Tony Madril, LCSW, BCD and Mindfully Prepped.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by an information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing by the publisher.

Requests for such permission should be addressed to: Tony Madril, LCSW, BCD Mindfully Prepped 10350 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 310 Los Angeles, CA 90025

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Welcome to my toolkit of tips and techniques I’ve designed to help you master the California LCSW Standard Written Examination online test environment. These techniques are not “magic” or “effortless shortcuts” to meeting your professional goals, rather they are practical tools that, like anything else, require diligent practice. With such practice you will be able to use them to add clarity, insight, and ease to your studying experience! I believe that these tools will not only transform your perception of the difficulty of the exam, they will add new levels to your mental toughness as a savvy test taker…

Onward!

THE CURRICULUM

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YOUR BREAKTHROUGH TOOLKIT:

Tool: Eliminate Unreasonables

Tool: Identify Key Words & Phrases

Tool: Write Positive Restatements

Tool: Note Nuances

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BREAKTHROUGH TOOL: ELIMINATE UNREASONABLES

Supporting Philosophy: We believe that physical and mental energy are invaluable human

resources. We should conserve them whenever possible.

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“Do as little as needed, not as much as possible.” –Henk Kraaijenhof, Coach of Merlene Joyce Ottey who won 23 combined medals at the

Olympic games and world championships

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ELIMINATE UNREASONABLES You’ll quickly find that most questions on the first exam include one or two possible answers that obviously don’t fit; they are “unreasonable” because they allude to a phenomenon categorically dissimilar to the information contained in the vignette or question stem. Take, for instance, the following example:

Cognitive dissonance can lead to… a.  Psychological discomfort b.  Narcolepsy c.  Extinction d.  Overexposure

What here sounds unreasonable? If you recognize that the term “cognitive dissonance” is a term from cognitive therapy, you should have no problem noticing that “narcolepsy,” a sleep disorder, is unrelated to cognitive therapy as is “extinction” and “overexposure” --they are terms from behavioral therapy. Therefore, you are left with answer “a,” the only reasonable choice.

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