How to review a practice test: the error log that turns a score into a plan.
The test is the cheap part. The review is where the points are. A five-column error log and how to use it.
By Dr. Andrew Wichterman · September 19, 2026 · 5 min read · Updated October 4, 2026
Most people take a practice test, look at the percentage, feel good or bad, and take another one. The percentage is the least useful thing the test produced. The individual wrong answers, examined properly, tell you exactly what to study next.
Budget as much time for review as for the test
A 200-item test takes just under four hours. Plan four hours of review, split over two days. If that seems excessive, consider that you will spend it on precisely the items that separate your current score from a passing one.
The five columns
For every wrong answer, and every right answer you guessed, record: the content area; the specific topic; why the correct answer was correct, in your own words; why you chose what you chose; and the error type. Error types are a short list: did not know the fact, knew it but misread the question, knew it but fell for a distractor, ran out of time, changed a right answer.
A sample entry
Content area: Intake, Assessment and Diagnosis. Topic: standard error of measurement. Why the key was right: the SEM is the standard deviation of the error distribution around a true score, so a confidence band is built from it, not from the standard deviation of the norm group. Why I chose what I chose: I saw "standard deviation" in the option and stopped reading. Error type: distractor. That single line tells you three things: the content is known, the reading was fast, and the fix is the reading routine, not another lesson on psychometrics.
Compare: Content area: Counseling Skills and Interventions. Topic: Satir's communication stances. Why the key was right: the super-reasonable stance is detached and intellectual, and the stem described a client who answered every feeling question with a theory. Why I chose what I chose: I did not know the five stances and guessed computer meant something else. Error type: did not know. That line goes to a card and to the family systems lesson, and nothing about your reading needs to change. Same test, two misses, two different plans.
What the error types tell you
"Did not know" goes to flashcards and content review. "Misread" and "distractor" are exam-skill problems and respond to the question-reading post, not to more content. "Ran out of time" is a pacing issue. "Changed a right answer" is the most common surprise; most people who tally it stop changing answers.
How to read an explanation
An explanation is not an answer key; it is the shortest lesson you will get on that item. Read the reasoning for the key, then the reasoning for each distractor, and pay the most attention to the one you chose. Then write one sentence in your own words that would have let you answer the item cold: "A subpoena alone does not compel disclosure; assert privilege and wait for a court order or the client's consent." If you cannot write the sentence, you have not understood the explanation, and the item will come back in a different costume.
Collect those sentences. After three tests you will have forty or fifty rules, and they are better study material than any summary chapter because every one of them corresponds to a place where your knowledge actually failed. Read the list before each new practice set. Candidates who do this report the same items feeling "obvious" the second time, which is what learning looks like from the inside.
Review the right answers too
Go through the ones you got right but were unsure of. If your reasoning was wrong and the answer happened to be right, log it. That is a gap that will not be lucky twice.
Turn the log into next week
Sort the log by topic. Whatever appears three or more times is next week's content focus. Whatever appears once is a flashcard. Add the exam-skill counts to a running tally; if "distractor" keeps growing, you are studying the wrong thing.
The pattern after three tests
One test's log is a list of problems. Three tests' logs are a pattern, and the pattern is more useful than any single score. If the same topic appears on all three, it is a genuine gap that the lessons and cards have not yet closed, and it needs a different approach: teach it to someone, or write your own items on it. If "did not know" is falling and "distractor" is flat, your knowledge is growing faster than your reading is improving, and the next two weeks should be about how you read stems.
If "ran out of time" appears only on the second half of each test, the problem is not speed but revisiting; the flags are eating the clock. If "changed a right answer" is above two or three per test, make the rule and keep it: change only when you can name the reason. The score on the fourth test will move more from acting on these patterns than from any amount of additional content, because the patterns are the part of your performance that content cannot reach.
Retake the same test? No
Taking the same test again measures memory of the items, not of the content. Use a fresh form. The value of the old one is entirely in its log.
Three well-reviewed practice tests do more than eight taken and forgotten. The test finds the gap; the review closes it.