EPPP Part 2 Skills study plan

Map the ethics code's enforceable standards to the specific decision points where they most often appear in vignettes (informed consent, multiple relationships, confidentiality limits, competence boundaries, fee arrangements).

Draft a one-page decision tree for the four most common ethics vignette traps: boundary crossings versus violations, Tarasoff-type duty-to-warn triggers, custody and confidentiality conflicts, and bartering.

List the legal doctrines tested most heavily (privilege versus confidentiality, HIPAA versus state law, subpoena response, involuntary commitment criteria, mandated reporting) and write a two-sentence operational definition for each from memory.

Build a supervision checklist covering informed consent for supervision, due-process steps before remediation or dismissal, and the supervisor's vicarious liability exposure.

Sort the 17% ethics/legal weight into the sub-areas you personally score weakest on and rank them by expected point yield.

Apply the ethics decision tree to at least 25 vignette-style items, writing one line of rationale per answer that names the governing standard or legal principle.

Distinguish treatment-planning decisions (modality selection, level of care, termination and referral) from ethics decisions in mixed vignettes where both are embedded.

Compare evidence-based treatment selection criteria across at least four presenting problems (e.g., panic disorder, PTSD, major depression, disruptive behavior in children) and state the first-line approach for each.

Explain prevention frameworks (universal, selective, indicated) and match each to a concrete program example.

Identify the supervision and consultation obligations that attach when a case deteriorates or when a trainee is not meeting competencies.

Differentiate the DSM-5-TR criteria sets for the highest-yield disorder clusters (psychotic, mood, anxiety, trauma, personality, neurocognitive) by writing the discriminating feature that separates each from its nearest neighbor.

Practice differential diagnosis on 20 brief case descriptions, committing to a primary diagnosis plus one rule-out with justification.

Interpret the psychometric properties that drive assessment items: reliability types, validity types, standard error of measurement, sensitivity versus specificity, positive and negative predictive value, and base-rate effects on classification accuracy.

Select the appropriate instrument class for stated referral questions (cognitive, achievement, personality, neuropsychological screening, adaptive behavior) and justify the choice on psychometric grounds.

Compute and interpret the core statistics used in research-methods items: effect size, confidence intervals, power, Type I versus Type II error trade-offs, and the meaning of statistical versus clinical significance.

Apply the formula sheet to 30 assessment and research-methods items under timed conditions, showing the arithmetic or decision logic for each.

Critique five study designs (randomized controlled trial, quasi-experimental, single-case, correlational, qualitative) for internal and external validity threats and state which inference each supports.

Identify threats to validity by name (selection, attrition, instrumentation, regression to the mean, demand characteristics, experimenter bias) in described studies.

Explain test construction and norming issues: standardization samples, cultural and linguistic fairness, floor and ceiling effects, and the limits of profile interpretation.

Integrate diagnosis and measurement by writing a brief assessment report outline that links referral question, instrument choice, scores, and diagnostic conclusion.

Trace the cognitive-affective models most frequently tested (classical and operant conditioning, social learning, information processing, attachment, learned helplessness, cognitive appraisal) and name the clinical implication of each.

Map developmental stage theories (Piaget, Erikson, Kohlberg, attachment phases, language and motor milestones) onto their approximate age ranges and the clinical presentations each stage predicts.

Describe memory systems and their dissociation (working, episodic, semantic, procedural) and connect each to a clinical phenomenon such as amnesia, dementia staging, or trauma memory.

Apply emotion-regulation and stress-and-coping frameworks to explain how affective processes maintain anxiety, depression, and substance use.

Identify normative versus atypical development at each life stage, including the developmental course of common childhood disorders and the effects of aging on cognition.

Label the neuroanatomy most often tested (lobes and functions, limbic structures, basal ganglia, cerebellum, brainstem) and state the deficit pattern produced by damage to each.

Match neurotransmitters and their pathways to drug classes and disorders (dopamine and psychosis, serotonin and mood/anxiety, GABA and sedation/anxiety, acetylcholine and dementia, glutamate).

Explain lateralization, split-brain findings, aphasia syndromes, and the neuroendocrine stress axis in enough detail to answer a two-step inference item.

Apply social psychology principles (attribution, conformity, obedience, group polarization, social loafing, cognitive dissonance) to clinical and organizational scenarios.

Analyze cultural formulation and bias in assessment and treatment using the cultural formulation interview domains, acculturation, stereotype threat, and the distinction between cultural competence and cultural humility.

Integrate treatment, cognitive-affective, and social-cultural content by working 30 mixed vignettes that require selecting an intervention while accounting for client culture, developmental stage, and affective presentation.

Justify intervention choices using mechanism-of-change reasoning rather than name recognition alone.

Identify when to refer, when to consult, and when a cultural adaptation of an evidence-based protocol is indicated over a standard protocol.

Review the ethics and supervision content from weeks 1 and 2 at spaced intervals and re-test the previously missed items.

Audit your error log across all eight domains and rank remaining gaps by point yield.

Complete two full-length timed practice exams under exam-day conditions, including breaks and no reference materials.

Score and analyze each exam by domain, computing your percentage per domain and comparing it to the exam's domain weights to estimate your scaled standing.

Re-teach, in writing, every sub-topic missed more than once across the eight weeks, limiting each to a five-line summary.

Rehearse the exam-day logistics plan: arrival timing, identification requirements, break strategy, and a written plan for managing time on long vignettes.

Confirm your readiness threshold and decide whether to sit for the exam on schedule or shift the date.