Free Study Resources
Preparing for the NCS exam can be challenging, but there are many free resources to help you. Check out our recommended resources - and before you go, don't forget to read the interviews with past test takers for valuable insights.
These are checklists created by the content creators at NCSPrep and adjusted each year to reflect the many subtopics on the NCS exam. Use these lists to identify gaps in knowledge and to ensure you don't miss any essential information. These lists can also be found in each chapter of NCS Exam: 115 Case-Based Questions, Explanations, and Study Plan (2027)
Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) are the highest impact resource you will use in preparation for the NCS exam. This section shares free detailed reviews to summarize and highlight key points of these high impact articles. Learn in detail the six that are officially endorsed by the Neurology Section of the APTA.
Knowing which outcome measures have the highest evidence based on each patient population is essential for tackling the complex cases on the NCS Exam. This section gives you access to the most recent recommendations compiled by the APTA Edge Task Force. Each measure is separated by inpatient, outpatient, acute, or chronic, and is organized by component of the ICF model.
Recommended Articles
Making judgment calls based on best-available evidence is a cornerstone of the NCS exam. Pertinent research articles are integrated throughout the NCS Prep books and the cases are designed to integrate all articles from the recommended article list created by the ANPT.
This section gives you a sample of a weekly study plan and calendar to help keep you on track. Use these tools to spend the right amount of time on each topic and to ensure you pace yourself during your long study journey. This study plan can be used either as a self-study guide, or in conjunction with video-based prep courses.
Three individuals share their insights on how they successfully navigated the study process, managed all the complex information, and tackled the exam. During this online focus group, they were able to discuss what worked and what didn't work for them, providing valuable advice to help you with your studying journey.
This is a virtual test environment to practice the actual computer software you’ll be using to take the exam. It is important to be comfortable with navigating through the exam questions and practice how to use all the features that will augment your test, including the ability to highlight parts of a case, flag questions to return to later, and create comments.
Learn by problem-solving through case-based study questions in the same format, complexity, and challenge of the questions on the NCS exam. Each practice question is hand-picked to target a different aspect of the various topics needed for evidenced-based practice in neurologic rehabilitation. All questions include detailed explanations and cite relevant research articles so the reader can find more information on any of the topics covered on the NCS exam.
This section contains Clinical Summary Cards for the six core outcome measures, including key cutoff scores, normative values, and clinically meaningful benchmarks. These are essential study tools for the NCS exam, as questions frequently test your ability to interpret outcome measure scores, identify fall risk based on diagnosis, recognize normative values, and apply these results to complex cases.
CPG Review
Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) are among the most valuable resources for specialty exam preparation because they summarize the highest-quality evidence supporting common interventions. Since CPGs guide neurologic PT practice, they should be a major focus of your NCS exam preparation. They are also efficient study tools because interventions are organized by the strength of the recommendation (strong, weak, or not recommended), allowing you to quickly identify which treatments are supported by the best available evidence.
Scroll through the CPG review resources below
Outcome Measures
Knowing which outcome measure has the highest evidence for each patient population is essential for the cases on the NCS Exam. This section gives you access to the most recent recommended outcome measures compiled by the APTA Edge Task Force. Each measure is separated by inpatient, outpatient, acute, or chronic, and is organized by component of the ICF model.
Stroke
Parknson's Disease
Brain Injury
Spinal Cord Injury
Multiple Sclerosis
Vestibular Disorders
Core Outcome Measures (for all neurologic disorders)
Clinical Summary Cards
Don't Stress.
Be Prepared.
NCSPrep.com
Study Plan
This section gives you a sample of a weekly study plan to help keep you on track. Use it to spend the right amount of time on each topic and to ensure you pace yourself during your long study journey. This study plan can be used either as a self-study guide, or in conjunction with video-based prep courses. We've also created a study calendar that shows the time allotments for the full 21-week study plan and a link to the practice cases that match the order of the plan.
Essential Checklists
These are checklists created by the content creators at NCSPrep and adjusted each year to reflect the many subtopics on the NCS exam. Use these lists to identify gaps in knowledge and to ensure you don't miss any essential information. These lists can also be found in each chapter of NCS Exam: 115 Case-Based Questions, Explanations, and Study Plan (2027)
Spinal Cord Injury
(coming soon)
Vestibular Disorders
(coming soon)
Explore the Collection
Learn by problem-solving through case-based study questions in the same format, complexity, and challenge of the NCS exam. Each practice question is hand-picked to target a different aspect of the various topics needed for evidenced-based practice in neurologic rehabilitation. All questions include detailed explanations and cite relevant research articles so the reader can find more information on any of the topics covered on the NCS exam.
