Basic Sciences
What to master
Basic sciences for the CAET candidate means applied anatomy, biomechanics, tissue healing, and neurophysiology as they touch clinical decisions rather than isolated facts. Know the lever classes and how muscle moment arms change with joint angle; understand stress-strain behavior of skin, tendon, and bone; and be able to reason about phases of wound and fracture healing and what each phase implies for load tolerance.
Traps questions use
Questions often test the direction of a relationship: does a longer moment arm increase or decrease the force a muscle must generate for a given external torque? Another common trap is confusing healing timelines with safe loading timelines, or mixing up which tissue has the greatest tensile strength per cross-sectional area. Be careful with terminology such as 'agonist' versus 'prime mover' and with units.
Worked rule of thumb
For a lever, torque = force × moment arm. If a therapist moves a 5 kg hand weight (≈50 N) from 0.20 m to 0.40 m from the elbow, the torque doubles from 10 N·m to 20 N·m even though the weight is unchanged. Rule of thumb: doubling the moment arm doubles the torque, so resistance can be progressed by moving the load distally before adding mass.