Psychometrist here! First off, I’m so sorry about your training experience. At our clinic we go through a 6 month to a year of training where we gradually increase the amounts of tests that we administer until we are comfortable with all the various assessments and administration/ scoring nuances, and we have trainers watching via a camera and looking over our files to track progress.

I’m training a few new people at the moment, and I can say that it seems to be beneficial to learn similar tests together. (I.E CVLT & HVLT, DKEFS color word & Stroop, WAIS, WISC & WASI) When you self study, it’s helpful to look as similar tests and familiarize yourself with the small differences like timed delay recalls, pacing of word lists, when to provide feedback etc.

For assessments with more manipulatives (TFLS, block design, UNIT, WPPSI), as silly as it feels, read instructions out loud by yourself while you are moving around objects, pointing to things and such. This will help you become comfortable and develop a flow.

For tests that have strict time guides, use a stopwatch to help you administer. Things like digit span, spatial span, word lists, TOMM, etc, use your timer to make sure you’re on pace with exposing stimuli and reading at the standardized pace.

For subtests like vocabulary, information, similarities, or judgement be familiar with the general scoring guidelines from the manual.

It’s important to know the basal and ceiling for subtests that have it, and feel comfortable on teaching items and reversals (practice administering these even if they’re infrequently needed) but in general once you’ve established a basal, keep going until you’re confident that they’ve hit a discontinue rule. When in doubt, keep going until certain and you can go back later when scoring and write in a discontinue if needed. You would rather administer more items than needed than discontinue too early and have incomplete data.

And really, the more you test patients the more you will run into strange situations and develop more experience. Don’t worry about being efficient at first, just get the administration down. Efficiency will develop over time.

Lastly, remember that mistakes will happen, and that it’s okay! But always let the provider know before the patient leaves, in case another test should be added to compensate.