I failed the SPI exam. What do I do next?
A free plan built from your own score report.
If you're reading this you probably just got a score report you didn't want. So let me start with some numbers.
The first-time pass rate on the SPI is 71 percent. So about 30 percent of people don't pass it the first time. That's a lot of people.
Way more than you'd think from how quiet everybody is about it. Your classmates, the sonographers you follow, people you assume had no problem with it. A lot of them have a report like yours saved somewhere too.
For comparison, the OB/GYN registry has a first-time pass rate of about 82 percent. The SPI is just harder. You didn't fumble an easy test.
Sit with that second number for a second because not everyone talks about it. People who retake pass less often than people taking it for the first time.
Not because they're less smart. It's because most people retake the exact same way they studied before, just harder and more stressed. Same notes, same books, same cram.
So what has to change isn't how much you study. It's what you're actually doing when you study.
Take a few days and feel bad about it if you need to. That's normal and you're allowed. Then come back, because the only thing that moves you forward is figuring out what's next.
And you're holding something most students never really use. That score report is telling you exactly where to go.
Fill this in and I'll build you a plan. It's free, and you can print it when you're done.
Your score report
Skip anything you don't have. The more you put in, the better the plan.
Scores go from 300 to 700. You need 555 to pass.
Your Content Area Evaluation
Your report gives you a rating for each of the five areas. The percent next to each one is how much of the exam it makes up.
What happened last time
Be honest. Nobody sees this but you, and the plan changes based on what you pick.
Your name
So the plan is yours. Leave it blank if you want.
Nothing gets saved or sent anywhere. It runs on your device and it's gone when you close the tab.
Here's your plan.
One thing before you read this
What went wrong
Where to spend your time
Your schedule
What to do different on exam day
What I'd do next
How I can help
See itYou got this. The people I've seen pass on the second try weren't smarter the second time. They just stopped studying the way that already didn't work.
— Tekara
How to read your SPI score report
Most people look at their report once, see that they didn't pass, and never open it again. Open it again. It's telling you where to go.
Your score
SPI scores run from 300 to 700 and you need 555 to pass.
It's a scaled score, so you can't work backward from it to figure out how many questions you got right. What it does tell you is how far off you were, and that part is worth knowing.
Your Content Area Evaluation
This is the part that matters. Your report lists the five areas of the exam and gives each one a rating.
You get a band, not an exact number. That's fine. It's enough to plan around.
The percent next to each area is not your score
This is the part almost everybody reads wrong. That percent is how much of the exam that area makes up. It's not what you got in it.
Straight from the SPI content outline, which is public and worth a look.
Say you got Requires Further Study in Doppler and Requires Further Study in Manage Transducers.
Same words on the page. But one is 34 percent of your exam and the other is 7.
They're nowhere near the same problem.
Stop studying what you're already good at
Here's what I see students do all the time. They know they're strong in one area, so when they sit down to study they go right back to it.
It feels good. You get the questions right, you feel like you're making progress, and you close the book feeling better than when you opened it.
That's the trap. You already have those points.
If your report says Excellent in Quality Assurance or Manage Transducers, you're done there. Leave it alone. Those two together are 17 percent of the exam and you already own them.
If it says Requires Further Study in Doppler or Optimize Sonographic Images, that's where you go, even though it's the part you don't want to touch. Those two are 60 percent of the exam between them.
You can be great at everything else and still not pass if those two are weak. There just aren't enough points anywhere else to make up for it.
Studying should feel a little uncomfortable. If it feels good the whole time, you're probably just reviewing instead of learning.
How long do you have to wait to retake the SPI?
You have to wait 60 days between attempts, and you can take it up to three times in a 12 month period. So the soonest you're back in that chair is about two months out.
Two months is enough if you use it different. It's not enough to reread everything you already read.
Pick your two heaviest weak areas and actually go deep, instead of skimming all five again the same way you did the first time.
Why do some people fail the SPI more than once?
Because the second attempt, or the third, or even the fifth, is usually just the first try with extra hours on it.
The SPI asks you what you would do, not what you can define. That's the whole thing.
You can know a topic and still not recognize the question, because the question is coming at it sideways. Knowing that increasing frequency improves axial resolution is not the same as being able to work out what happens to your image when you switch probes.
So the fix isn't more repetitions. It's changing what studying looks like.
Once you understand it in that direction, the exam can come at it from any angle and you're fine.
What to do different on your retake
Study by weight, not in order
Your weakest heavy area comes first every time. Doppler at 34 percent gets more of your calendar than Safety at 10, even if Safety is the one you'd rather work on.
Stop rereading
Rereading feels productive because it gets more familiar every pass. Familiar is not the same as knowing it, and the exam can tell the difference. Close the book and explain it from nothing instead.
Do at least one full timed mock
No pausing, no phone, all the way through. Not for the score. For the pacing and the stamina, which are their own skill.
Go through every question you got wrong
Not just the right answer, the whole thing. Why did the one you picked look good? That's where the learning is.
It's all about relationships
A big chunk of this exam is just one thing changing because something else moved. Raise the frequency and your wavelength gets shorter, and now you've lost penetration. Add focal zones and your lateral resolution gets better, but your frame rate drops and you just worsened your temporal resolution.
Get used to asking which way things move and what that change costs you somewhere else. Do that and it doesn't matter what angle the question comes at you from. Don't focus on memorizing. Focus on understanding, and the answer is already sitting there.
Where I can help
Everything above works whether you buy anything from me or not. But if you want someone in your corner for the retake, this is what I've got and who each one is for.
The Ultrasound Physics Course
For when the concepts themselves never really landed. All fifteen topics taught in order through video lessons, explaining why things work instead of handing you rules to memorize. Premium and Pro add quizzes, worksheets, the interactive lessons and a full SPI mock exam simulator.
Think Like the SPI™ Crash Course
For when you knew the material and the questions still trip you up. How to break a question down, cut the distractors, watch the clock and stop talking yourself out of answers you already had.
The Interactive Physics Companion™
For when reading it over and over just isn't going in. A digital physics textbook you work through instead of read, with visuals, animations and models you control. The SPI mock exam simulator comes with it free, so you can find out where you stand before you retake.
Failing this doesn't say anything about whether you're going to be a good sonographer.
It's a physics test. It's beatable, and you can do this.
Take a few days. Then take the plan.
— Tekara
MHSc, RDMS (AB, OB/GYN), RVT