These tips are specific to the Ontario Registration Exams, but probably apply to any massage therapy exams. Thanks for sharing your perspective, Candice! - Doug

My blog has started to get a bit more traffic recently, mostly due to people looking for advice, practice exams, and other information relating to Ontario’s OSCE and MCQ exams for Massage Therapy. Rather than reply to each email and comment I’ve received, I will instead put up a general post for those looking for such information.

First: You need to be aware that per CMTO policy, I am not allowed to give you any precise information about the exams. I cannot tell you exactly what I got in a station or how I decided to approach the information provided on the stem. What I can do is give you some general advice that might help you focus your attention for studying for the exam.

If you have been the ‘last minute’ sort when studying all through massage school, do not do that now! You absolutely need to put in the hours for these exams. I went a bit over board and studied almost every day for nine weeks straight for my school board exams (which are a school-created test run of the MCQ and OSCE), and then continued to study at least 3-4 days per week for my real MCQ and OSCE, which I wrote at the end of May and beginning of June, respectively. You don’t need to be quite as crazy as I was, but you do need to put in the hours.
When studying, focus on what you don’t know, not on what you know. Seems simple, right? But the truth is, when faced with a huge exam like this, people tend to just choose some areas to study and ignore the rest. While I do think that there is no way anyone could possibly review all 2 or 3 years of their education in a few short weeks, I also believe you need to study the most difficult stuff, and use your memory on the easier things. In my case, I spent a lot of my time studying the nervous system (anatomy and physiology, as well as treatment), because that was what I found the most difficult. Things like the effects of certain techniques or how to apply stretches clinically, that I didn’t study at all, because I knew it from doing it so many times.
If your school uses Rattray’s ‘Clinical Massage Therapy’ book, study it cover to cover. I’m not joking. It’s like the CMTO bible for the OSCE.
For the MCQ: read each question carefully, and remember, if it seems hard, you’re probably doing well! Easy questions are usually only given if you answered the previous question incorrectly. If you’ve been getting a lot of correct answers, you’re going to have a lot of hard questions.
For the OSCE: Read the stem VERY carefully. They are precise about what it is they want you to do. You might have been taught a treatment/assessment/interview questions/etc a certain way at school, but you MUST do what the stem is telling you to do! I spoke with a number of people after my own OSCE and found that they had not done a number of things their stem had asked them to do. Instead, they just did things from memory. The CMTO is asking for specific things for a reason, so make sure you do them!
Keep your stress level down. I know, easier said than done, right? Just remember that you’ve been studying hard for the last few years, you know your stuff, you just need to be able to spit it out for the examiners to grade it. If you make a mistake, just correct it and move on (or ignore it and move on, depending on the situation). If you leave a station feeling like you just bombed it, take a deep breath and remember that failing one station will not usually cause you to fail the entire OSCE.
Both orthopedic and non-orthopedic conditions will be tested. If your school has told you otherwise, they need to be updated to the latest exam model.

Good luck!