7 Common CHES Exam Study Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Studying hard is only half the equation when it comes to passing the CHES exam. Studying smart is the other half, and it is the half that most candidates underestimate. Every year, well-prepared individuals walk into the testing center with hundreds of hours of preparation behind them and still fall short, not because they lacked effort but because their approach contained structural flaws they never recognized.

The good news is that the most damaging study mistakes are also the most predictable. They show up again and again across candidate experiences, and once you know what they look like, they are straightforward to correct. Whether you are just beginning to build your study plan or you are deep into review, this list will help you identify habits that may be quietly undermining your progress and replace them with strategies that actually work.

The 7 Mistakes

Mistake 1: Cramming Instead of Spacing Study Sessions

The instinct to cram is powerful, especially when the exam date is approaching and entire Areas of Responsibility still feel unfamiliar. But decades of learning science make one thing clear: massed practice, the technical term for cramming, produces short-term recall that fades quickly. The CHES exam does not reward short-term recall. It rewards the kind of durable understanding that comes from spaced repetition, the practice of spreading study sessions across days and weeks with deliberate gaps in between.

When you space your study sessions, each time you return to material you are forcing your brain to reconstruct the knowledge rather than simply recognizing it. That reconstruction is what builds lasting retention. Aim for shorter, focused sessions of 45 to 90 minutes spread across multiple days rather than six-hour blocks crammed into a single weekend.

Mistake 2: Ignoring Low-Weight Areas Entirely

It is tempting to look at the exam blueprint, see that certain areas carry less weight, and decide to skip them altogether. This is a gamble that rarely pays off. While areas like Assessment (Area I) and Planning (Area II) carry more questions, the lower-weight areas collectively still represent a significant share of your final score. A handful of questions on ethics or advocacy can easily make the difference between passing and failing.

Beyond the math, the eight Areas of Responsibility are interconnected. Concepts from administration and management show up in scenario-based questions about implementation. Advocacy principles appear in questions about community engagement. When you skip an area entirely, you create blind spots that affect your performance across the entire exam, not just in that one domain.

Mistake 3: Memorizing Facts Instead of Understanding Concepts

The CHES exam is not a vocabulary test. It is an applied reasoning exam. Memorizing definitions of terms like formative evaluation or social ecological model will only take you so far. The exam wants to know whether you can identify when a formative evaluation is appropriate, select the right approach given a specific scenario, and explain why one strategy fits the situation better than another.

Shift your study approach from memorization to comprehension. After reading about a concept, close the book and explain it in your own words. Ask yourself when you would use it, what its limitations are, and how it connects to related competencies. If you cannot explain a concept without looking at your notes, you have not learned it deeply enough for the exam.

Pro Tip: After each study session, write a brief paragraph explaining the most important concept you reviewed as if you were teaching it to someone with no background in health education. If you struggle to simplify it, that is a signal to revisit the material.

Mistake 4: Skipping Scenario-Based Practice Questions

Many candidates spend the bulk of their preparation time reading content and reviewing notes, then attempt practice questions only in the final days before the exam. This is backwards. Scenario-based questions are not just a way to test what you know. They are a study tool that teaches you how the exam thinks.

The CHES exam presents realistic situations and asks you to apply competencies to solve them. Practicing these questions throughout your preparation, not just at the end, trains you to recognize patterns, eliminate distractors, and connect abstract knowledge to concrete situations. Our guide on scenario-based question practice walks through specific strategies for breaking down these items and building the analytical habits the exam rewards.

Mistake 5: Using Outdated Study Materials

Health education is a field that evolves. The competency framework that NCHEC uses to build the exam is periodically updated, and study materials that were accurate five years ago may not reflect the current emphasis areas, terminology, or sub-competency structure. Using outdated flashcards, old practice exams, or study guides based on a previous version of the competency framework can leave you preparing for an exam that no longer exists.

Before investing time in any resource, verify that it aligns with the most current version of the Areas of Responsibility and Competencies published by NCHEC. Check publication dates, look for references to the current competency update, and cross-reference any study guide against the official framework. A smaller set of current, accurate materials will serve you far better than a large collection of outdated ones.

Mistake 6: Studying in Isolation Without Discussion or Teaching

Studying alone in silence is comfortable, but it is also limiting. When you study exclusively by reading and re-reading your notes, you remain in a passive mode of learning that can mask gaps in your understanding. You may feel familiar with a topic without actually being able to reason through it when the phrasing changes or the context shifts.

Discussion forces active processing. When you explain a concept to a study partner, answer their questions, or debate the best answer to a practice scenario, you expose the edges of your knowledge in ways that solo review cannot. If you do not have a study group, find online communities of CHES candidates, or simply practice teaching concepts aloud to yourself. The act of articulating your understanding, even to an empty room, engages different cognitive pathways than silent reading does.

Mistake 7: Neglecting Self-Care During the Study Period

This mistake rarely makes it onto study guides, but it deserves a place on this list because it is remarkably common and remarkably consequential. Candidates who sacrifice sleep, skip meals, abandon exercise, and isolate themselves socially during their study period are not making a noble sacrifice. They are degrading the cognitive functions they need most: memory consolidation, attention, critical thinking, and stress regulation.

Sleep is when your brain transfers information from short-term to long-term memory. Exercise improves focus and reduces anxiety. Social connection provides emotional resilience during a stressful period. Treating self-care as optional during exam preparation is not a sign of dedication. It is a study mistake with real consequences for your performance on exam day.

Pro Tip: Schedule your self-care the same way you schedule your study sessions. Block time for sleep, movement, and at least one non-study activity each day. Protecting these blocks is not a distraction from your goal. It is part of your strategy to reach it.

Building Better Study Habits

Recognizing these mistakes is the first step. Building better habits requires a deliberate shift in how you structure your preparation. Start by creating a study plan that distributes your time across all eight areas proportionally to their exam weight, with additional time for your weakest domains. Build practice questions into every week, not just the final one. Find at least one person you can discuss material with regularly, whether that is a formal study partner or an online peer.

Track your progress honestly. After each practice session, note which areas and question types gave you trouble. Over time, these notes will reveal patterns that are far more useful than a general sense of how prepared you feel. Feelings of readiness can be deceptive. Data from your own practice is not.

Most importantly, treat your study period as a project to manage, not a crisis to survive. Steady, structured, sustainable effort over weeks will always outperform frantic intensity over days.

Learn From Others' Mistakes

Every mistake on this list comes from real candidate experiences. The people who failed the CHES exam and came back to pass it on a second attempt almost universally point to one or more of these patterns as the thing that held them back the first time. You do not need to repeat their mistakes to learn from them.

Start your preparation with a clear plan, practice the way the exam actually tests you, keep your materials current, engage with others, and take care of yourself throughout the process. The CHES exam is challenging, but it is designed to be passable for candidates who demonstrate competency across the eight areas. If you study with intention and avoid the traps that derail so many others, you will give yourself the strongest possible chance of passing on your first attempt.

This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by NCHEC. CHES and MCHES are registered trademarks of NCHEC.