Took the Principles of Supervision test yesterday, and passed with a 453. Here's my advice and experience with the test:
Difficulty: 2 out of 10
Prep time: 5 hours
Resources: InstantCert, Audio book Principles of Supervision test prep
Who should be fine: People that are good at process of elimination and critical thinking on questions, people with college experience, people with good a good vocabulary, people who have studied for/taken the WAPS, people with some notion of leadership and supervision.
Who should study: People that haven't been in a college setting, don't have a notion of what leaders should do it certain circumstances, and are unfamiliar with leadership vocabulary
Thoughts:
I'm going to be honest, I felt a bit upset I spent any money prepping for this test. I genuinely believe that I could have rolled out bed, hungover, and gotten a 420 on this test. I'm not saying do it, but you don't need to be worried about this test if you prep for 5-10 hours. I genuinely think you can be unaware of Maslow's HoN or contingency leadership and do fine. It's a lot of process of elimination, and even on the questions that I wasn't sure on there was usually only one good answer. Also, I mentioned the vocabulary knowledge as important because many of the questions may be about something you might not know the actually meat of the theory, but if you simply understand the vocabulary you can deduce what they're trying to say. For example "concurrent controls" are exactly what they sound like- thinks you control in the moment, not before or after. "Contingency leadership" simply means that different situations call for different styles of leadership. If you knew what contingency means (as in being prepared for different unknown outcomes), you'll be able to get the answer. There are a lot of terms that if you know what they mean outside of the principles of supervision or specific theories, you can probably get the answer right based on what they mean.
Instacert wasn't super helpful when it came to meaningful test prep, simply because I'm a text book guy and like things being put in context. This is why I supplemented with the audio study guide on Audible, which is a bit outdated but will hit some of the key theories I touch on below. It at least gives you a frame of reference for what they test will be about. The flashcards are great IF you know what you're actually supposed to be studying. No background text makes it kind of feel like you're thrown into the subject without any bearing. The practice tests were helpful and pretty accurate in regards to how the test will feel (even if the questions aren't the same). If you are a bit worried about the test and want to get some of the easy, "if you studied the book you'd get this answer in 2 seconds" topics, I would focus on:
- Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (almost guaranteed to be at least one question about this)
- Different roles of leaders (IE Fayol's 10 roles, what roles fall into which sub-categories like informational, etc.)
- Structures of organizations (Matrix, bureaucratic, centralized, etc)
- stages of supervision (Planning, organizing, leading, controlling: this is a big one, for sure hit these up and be comfortable)
- the theories (path-goal, contingency, cost-leadership, etc.)
- PERT vs GANTT (I only got one question about this, but good to know the difference and what they're used for)
- Discrimination/diversity (you don't really need to study for these, but I got about 5 questions on these subjects that were straightforward)
- Storming, Forming, Norming, Performing (only had one question, but if you're unfamiliar with this is the terminology can be a bit weird)
I would say bang for your buck, these are the ones that I would put time and effort into. That being said, you can just ChatGpt this list and they'll give you enough information to get by or know where to start.
I think that anyone who takes their time on the test, really understands the question and what they're asking, and carefully combs through the answers before selecting the best option will be fine. A lot of the questions are like this:
What is one outcome of decentralized control of an organization?
a. more rigid structure and top down control
b. more authority and power given to front-line supervisors and employees
c. decreased flexibility at lower levels of the organization
d. decreased communication between the levels of management
If you chose B, you'll be fine. There will be some that will catch you off guard, but for the most part about 50% of the questions are like this one I just gave.
Don't stress this too much, if you're worried study a bit- but I promise, if you're getting 70+ on the practice tests, you'll do fine on this test.
You got it!
Difficulty: 2 out of 10
Prep time: 5 hours
Resources: InstantCert, Audio book Principles of Supervision test prep
Who should be fine: People that are good at process of elimination and critical thinking on questions, people with college experience, people with good a good vocabulary, people who have studied for/taken the WAPS, people with some notion of leadership and supervision.
Who should study: People that haven't been in a college setting, don't have a notion of what leaders should do it certain circumstances, and are unfamiliar with leadership vocabulary
Thoughts:
I'm going to be honest, I felt a bit upset I spent any money prepping for this test. I genuinely believe that I could have rolled out bed, hungover, and gotten a 420 on this test. I'm not saying do it, but you don't need to be worried about this test if you prep for 5-10 hours. I genuinely think you can be unaware of Maslow's HoN or contingency leadership and do fine. It's a lot of process of elimination, and even on the questions that I wasn't sure on there was usually only one good answer. Also, I mentioned the vocabulary knowledge as important because many of the questions may be about something you might not know the actually meat of the theory, but if you simply understand the vocabulary you can deduce what they're trying to say. For example "concurrent controls" are exactly what they sound like- thinks you control in the moment, not before or after. "Contingency leadership" simply means that different situations call for different styles of leadership. If you knew what contingency means (as in being prepared for different unknown outcomes), you'll be able to get the answer. There are a lot of terms that if you know what they mean outside of the principles of supervision or specific theories, you can probably get the answer right based on what they mean.
Instacert wasn't super helpful when it came to meaningful test prep, simply because I'm a text book guy and like things being put in context. This is why I supplemented with the audio study guide on Audible, which is a bit outdated but will hit some of the key theories I touch on below. It at least gives you a frame of reference for what they test will be about. The flashcards are great IF you know what you're actually supposed to be studying. No background text makes it kind of feel like you're thrown into the subject without any bearing. The practice tests were helpful and pretty accurate in regards to how the test will feel (even if the questions aren't the same). If you are a bit worried about the test and want to get some of the easy, "if you studied the book you'd get this answer in 2 seconds" topics, I would focus on:
- Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (almost guaranteed to be at least one question about this)
- Different roles of leaders (IE Fayol's 10 roles, what roles fall into which sub-categories like informational, etc.)
- Structures of organizations (Matrix, bureaucratic, centralized, etc)
- stages of supervision (Planning, organizing, leading, controlling: this is a big one, for sure hit these up and be comfortable)
- the theories (path-goal, contingency, cost-leadership, etc.)
- PERT vs GANTT (I only got one question about this, but good to know the difference and what they're used for)
- Discrimination/diversity (you don't really need to study for these, but I got about 5 questions on these subjects that were straightforward)
- Storming, Forming, Norming, Performing (only had one question, but if you're unfamiliar with this is the terminology can be a bit weird)
I would say bang for your buck, these are the ones that I would put time and effort into. That being said, you can just ChatGpt this list and they'll give you enough information to get by or know where to start.
I think that anyone who takes their time on the test, really understands the question and what they're asking, and carefully combs through the answers before selecting the best option will be fine. A lot of the questions are like this:
What is one outcome of decentralized control of an organization?
a. more rigid structure and top down control
b. more authority and power given to front-line supervisors and employees
c. decreased flexibility at lower levels of the organization
d. decreased communication between the levels of management
If you chose B, you'll be fine. There will be some that will catch you off guard, but for the most part about 50% of the questions are like this one I just gave.
Don't stress this too much, if you're worried study a bit- but I promise, if you're getting 70+ on the practice tests, you'll do fine on this test.
You got it!
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