I passed the NCE
Like the title said, I passed the NCE, however, getting to that point was quite the mental roller coaster. First off, I’ve drank the most coffee in consecutive days and weeks than I have ever had in my life. I am not one to rely on coffee in the morning, nor sit in a coffee shop longer than it takes to finish a #2. Yet, from the months of October to December, that was pretty much my life.
The NCE (National Counselor Exam) first began in 1983 and continues to this day. There are two types of exams, the NCE and the NCMHCE. The NCE is purely multiple choice, whereas the latter has questions that you’ll need to answer out in sentence and paragraph form. Mostly diagnoses and understanding what’s happening in the hypothetical counseling cases. Knowing my strong suit is fate and guessing, I elected to take the NCE for the state of Washington state. Now, what’s interesting is that an exam with “national” in the title, you’d expect it to be accepted everywhere, however states like California, do not. For states like Washington & Oregon, passing it is required to get your complete licensure.
The thing about the NCE is that you only need a 61% to pass, however in recent years, the fail rate for first time takers have also been around the 60th percentile (NBCC). Out of 200 multiple choice questions, 40 of them “do not count", as they are test questions for future exams for the reviewers to decide if they would like to keep the question in or not. So hypothetically, you could get all 40 questions correct, but in turn, still fail the exam due to lack of correct answers from the questions that matter. With my luck, I felt that was going to be my case and my $275 registration fee would go to waste.
The NCE was the first important exam I have ever taken in my life. The longest multiple choice test I have ever taken were the standardized tests given to high schoolers by the state of CA to decide how to divide funding…. essentially, extremely low stakes. I have never studied or taken the SATs or ACTs, as I made a decision my junior year of high school that I wanted to go to community college, mostly because I didn’t want the stress or spend the money on a test that I could fail. So why not just completely avoid it. Also I didn’t realize it at the time, but with my past experience of test taking in middle school mixed with an undiagnosed case of ADHD, I felt doom before I even gave it a chance to manifest. So with that tangent aside, the NCE was the first time I really had to focus on a test with high stakes.
If you happen to read this hoping to get some insight on the NCE, all I will say is that you can pass. I began with a purple book called “The Encyclopedia of Counseling” by Howard Rosenthal. The book is broken into the 5-6 categories that the NCE implements, however on the actual exam, the questions will be randomized. The format of the book is in a test question form, where they’ll ask a question, provide four answers, then give you the answer and reasoning. This is how I started, and far from how I ended. Mid-way through my studies, I realized that reading textbooks and taking notes from them was not the best way for me to study. Rather I had learned about my top two tools: Pocket Study & a YouTube channel by Dr. Pam Turner, who now tutors the NCE to folks looking to test. In the last 2 weeks, I had also come across "Mental Matters” a recently licensed therapist who had just passed the NCE. Her content was extremely helpful from the perspective of someone who had just taken it. So with those two youtubers in mind, my process was then simple: Take the daily ‘Questions of the Day’ from Pocket Study, then ten random questions every hour. On days where I took the full 200 question test, I would be at a coffee shop with my Bose headphones on, and just sit with me and my thoughts. After the practice, I go over each question I had gotten wrong and write those down, all while having the YouTube videos on in the background. This was my process for the remaining 4 weeks of studying before my exam.
On the day of the exam, I had to show up to the test center by 8:00am, me being me, I was late. When I walked through the waiting room, there were ten other people sitting there waiting to be called up by the front desk person to get checked-in. Because I was last, I got into the testing room last. The person checking us in asked which test we are taking, checked for our IDs, and made sure we had no smart watches, cell phones, or anything else on us. Even as far as to checking our glasses to make sure there’s no camera inside. Once we put everything in our lockers, he called us up one by one to go over the rules (which he repeated 10+ times) and then escorted us to our seats. One by one, “I’m here for the NCE”, “I’m here for the nursing exam”, “I’m here for the pharmaceutical exam”… etc.
Once it was my turn, I felt everything I had crammed and memorized in the last two months, begin leaving my mind. I answered as quickly as possible so I could begin. They did a final check of my body, told me the layout of the space, then walked me to my seat. Each seat was separated by blinders so all you see is the computer in front of you, and a personal white board for you to use as scratch paper. I answered a few questions about my identity, then the test began. Everything I’ve ever studied was officially a blur. I sat there reading questions over and over, most were subjects I had never studied or read up on (I would write some examples, but we signed a NDA sort of contract that said we wouldn’t say anything in that regard, I think?). An hour passed by and my eyes never left the computer screen, then another hour. We had no watches or clocks to show us the actual time in the world, just a timer that counted down. Since I had asked for accomodations for my ADHD, they gave me an extra hour. I clicked an answer, wrote it down, doubled back, and clicked another. I began doubting myself and soon I just wanted it to be over. I got to question 200, looked it over, changed some answers, and took a big sigh. I had gone into my accommodation time, thank God I asked for it. I submitted the exam.
I stood up and walked back to the lobby. The man at the front desk handed me a printed sheet of paper. I didn’t look at it, grabbed my things from the locker, went to the bathroom, and went straight to my car to sit. I took another big sigh and flipped the paper over. I passed… by 6 questions.
I celebrated with Chinese biang biang mien. It was delicious.
