EPPP Part 2 Skills study guide
EPPP Part 2 Skills · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The EPPP Part 2 is the second component of the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology, the licensing exam sequence administered by the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB). Part 1 is the knowledge-based multiple-choice exam; Part 2 is the skills-based companion that assesses applied professional competence rather than recall of content. The EPPP Part 2 Skills study guide has 8 sections and about 3,475 words.
01Biological Bases of Behavior
Biological Bases of Behavior carries a large share of Part 2 vignettes because the exam asks you to apply neuroscience to a clinical decision rather than to recall a diagram. Expect stems about sudden-onset confusion in an older adult, medication side effects, lateralized cognitive findings, or a behavior traced to a specific neurotransmitter system.
418 words, about 2 min02Cognitive-Affective Bases of Behavior
Part 2 tests this domain through behavior you can observe in a stem: why a behavior persists, what maintains it, what a client remembers, and which appraisal drives the emotion. Recognizing the mechanism behind the described behavior, then selecting the intervention that targets it, is the skill being measured.
438 words, about 2 min03Social and Cultural Bases of Behavior
Stems in this domain describe people behaving in context: a team that stops questioning a leader, a family that disagrees about acculturation, a client whose distress is expressed through a culturally specific idiom. The exam rewards recognizing the social mechanism and adapting the clinical response to it.
455 words, about 2 min04Growth and Lifespan Development
Developmental stems ask you to judge whether a presentation is expected for the client's age, a deviation warranting assessment, or a reaction to context. Precision about timing and sequence is what separates the correct answer from the plausible one.
423 words, about 2 min05Assessment and Diagnosis
Assessment stems test whether you can choose an instrument, interpret a score correctly, and reach a defensible diagnosis. The most common failure is an interpretation that sounds plausible but ignores psychometric base rates or the limits of the standardization sample.
398 words, about 2 min06Treatment, Intervention, Prevention, and Supervision
These stems present a treatment decision, a stalled intervention, a prevention program, or a supervisory dilemma. You are expected to match the intervention to the mechanism, respect the client's stage of change, and know where the supervisor's responsibility lies.
437 words, about 2 min07Research Methods and Statistics
Research stems test design judgment and statistical interpretation. They often present a finding and ask what can and cannot be concluded: whether a threat explains the result, whether the test chosen was appropriate, or whether a claim about mechanism is supported.
448 words, about 2 min08Ethical, Legal, and Professional Issues
Ethics stems are applied: a realistic dilemma with two defensible answers, one of which respects the proper hierarchy of obligations. Know the structure of the APA Ethics Code, the difference between ethics and law, and the recurring rules on consent, multiple relationships, records, and disclosure.
458 words, about 2 min