ENADE Psicologia common mistakes
ENADE Psicologia · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Treating the Enade objective items as recall questions and answering from memory of a textbook definition, without first identifying what the item's situation-problem is actually asking the graduate to demonstrate.
The exam is built on the 'situation-problem' format, so many candidates default to the memorization habits they used in traditional exams and skip the step of locating the competence being tested in the stem.
What to do instead
Before choosing, restate the stem in one sentence naming the professional situation and the competence requested (e.g., 'evaluate an intervention', 'identify the theoretical approach'), then eliminate options that answer a different competence even if factually true.
Selecting the alternative that is a true statement in general but does not answer the specific command verb in the stem (e.g., picking a correct description of a theory when the item asks for a critique of it).
Under time pressure candidates match on familiar keywords rather than reading the command verb, and distractors are deliberately written as accurate but off-target content.
What to do instead
Circle or underline the command verb and the object of the question before reading the options; after choosing, verify the option answers that exact verb and object, not merely a related fact.
Ignoring the discursive questions until the end and then writing a short, thesis-less paragraph that lists ideas without articulating a position or connecting them to the situation presented.
Candidates underestimate how much time a well-structured discursive answer takes and treat it as a spare-time task, and many have never practiced writing an argued academic response under time limits.
What to do instead
Budget explicit minutes for discursive items, and practice a fixed structure: state a thesis in the first sentence, develop two or three arguments tied to the case, and close with a synthesis; rehearse this on past-format prompts with a timer.
Answering the student-questionnaire section carelessly or leaving it blank, believing it does not affect the outcome.
The questionnaire feels irrelevant to the candidate's own score, so it is rushed or skipped, but it feeds the course and institution indicators that are part of the evaluation.
What to do instead
Treat the questionnaire as a required, timed part of the exam: read each item, answer honestly and completely, and reserve the last minutes of the session for it rather than abandoning it.
In the health-area multiple-choice items, jumping to a diagnosis or conduct before systematically reading the clinical vignette's key data (onset, duration, associated symptoms, risk factors).
Pattern recognition from a single salient symptom feels efficient, and candidates over-weight the most memorable detail instead of integrating the full picture.
What to do instead
Use a fixed reading routine for vignettes: extract age, onset, duration, severity, associated findings, and red flags into brief notes, then match the complete pattern to the options and reject those that explain only one feature.
Confusing levels of prevention or public-health concepts (e.g., labeling a screening action as primary prevention) when the item asks to classify an intervention.
The terms are taught early and rarely revisited, and everyday usage of 'prevention' blurs the technical distinctions tested in the item.
What to do instead
Rebuild a compact reference table of prevention levels with one concrete example each, and for every item classify the action by asking whether it acts before, during, or after the onset of disease.
Answering clinical-ethics or health-policy items from personal opinion or common sense rather than from the legal and ethical frameworks (e.g., informed consent, confidentiality exceptions, SUS principles) that the item presupposes.
Candidates trust their intuition about 'what seems right', and the options are constructed so that plausible-sounding but legally incorrect choices attract intuitive answers.
What to do instead
Review the core normative documents and principles for the area and, for each ethics item, identify which principle or rule is at stake before evaluating options; discard options that conflict with the stated legal framework.
In the teacher-training items, proposing a classroom solution that is generic or purely affective ('motivate the students', 'promote inclusion') without naming the pedagogical, curricular, or assessment procedure the situation requires.
Candidates draw on personal school experience and goodwill rather than on the didactic and policy knowledge the licensure exam assesses, producing answers that sound laudable but are technically empty.
What to do instead
For each pedagogical scenario, name the specific construct or policy involved (e.g., formative assessment, curriculum adaptation, inclusive education legislation) and require your answer to state a concrete procedure, not only an attitude.
Treating the specific licensure area's content as separate from general education foundations, so items that connect learning theory, development, or policy to a teaching decision are answered with only one half of the required knowledge.
Preparation is often split into 'content' and 'pedagogy' study blocks, and candidates fail to integrate them when an item deliberately crosses the boundary.
What to do instead
Practice integrated items that require linking a foundation (e.g., a developmental stage or a learning theory) to a concrete teaching decision, and rehearse explaining the link explicitly in your own words.
Misreading the length and scope demands of discursive items in the licensure exam, writing either a single sentence or an unstructured essay, and failing to reference the legal or theoretical basis the prompt requires.
Candidates transfer habits from objective-only practice and do not know the scoring rubric, which rewards articulated argument, correct terminology, and explicit grounding.
What to do instead
Study the published discursive-item criteria, then practice timed responses that state a position, develop it with evidence or normative grounding, and conclude; self-score against the criteria to calibrate length and depth.