Podcast
Education Exam Prep
Hosted by Ran Chen, EA, CFP® · EN
Education Exam Prep is a free, daily podcast by OpenExamPrep covering the most in-demand teacher licensure and education certification exams — including Praxis Core, Praxis Subject Assessments (Math, ELA, Social Studies, Science, SLP, ESOL), ParaPro, CDA (Child Development Associate), CBEST, CSET, edTPA, FTCE, GACE, ILTS, MTEL, MTLE, MoGEA, AEPA, CEOE, CPACE, CTEL, FELE, RID/CASLI Interpreter Certifications, EIPA, and CELTA. Each 5-minute episode breaks down one exam topic with concrete classroom-style examples, scoring rubric insights, common exam traps, and memory tricks to help you pass on your first attempt. No fluff, no filler — just the concepts you need to know, explained the way the exam tests them. This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation for everyone — from paraprofessionals and early childhood educators to teacher candidates and education leaders. For free practice questions, AI-powered explanations, flashcards, and full study guides, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ Subscribe and listen daily — your teaching license is closer than you think.
92episodes
Episodes
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ParaPro Exam Prep 38, Statistics — Mean, Median, Mode, Range, and Probability
2d ago00:03:24Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How to calculate and distinguish between mean, median, and mode for the ParaPro exam. - The critical difference between measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode) and a measure of spread (range). - How outliers affect the mean and why the median is often a better measure for skewed data. - How to solve fundamental probability problems often presented in classroom scenarios on the test. - To identify common exam traps, such as forgetting to order data before finding the median or misinterpreting range. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →ParaPro Exam Prep 37, Data — Tables, Charts, and Graphs
3d ago00:03:46Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How to interpret common data displays like bar graphs, line graphs, and pie charts on the ParaPro exam. - The critical importance of always reading the title, axes, labels, and scale before answering a question. - A common exam trap involving pictographs and the necessity of checking the key for symbol values. - How to identify misleading information, such as a truncated y-axis on a bar graph. - A simple mnemonic to remember when to use each type of graph: "Compare with a Bar, change over a Line, and a piece of the Pie." For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →ParaPro Exam Prep 36, Measurement — Units, Conversions, Time, and Money
4d ago00:03:45Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - Key US Customary unit conversions for length (inches, feet, yards), capacity (ounces, cups, pints), and weight (pounds, tons) frequently tested on the ParaPro exam. - How to use the metric system's base-10 prefixes (kilo-, centi-, milli-) to perform conversions for length, volume, and mass quickly and accurately. - A practical method for solving elapsed time problems by 'counting up' in chunks of time to avoid common subtraction errors. - The exam's approach to money problems, focusing on real-world classroom scenarios like calculating totals and making correct change. - A simple mnemonic for conversions: "Big to small, multiply all; Small to big, divide the pig," to master directionality in your calculations. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →ParaPro Exam Prep 35, Transformations and Symmetry
5d ago00:03:54Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How to differentiate between the four geometric transformations: translation, reflection, rotation, and dilation. - The critical distinction between congruent figures, produced by rigid transformations, and similar figures, produced by dilation. - A common ParaPro exam trap that tests your understanding of which transformation changes a figure's size. - How to identify and count lines of symmetry and determine the properties of rotational symmetry in common shapes. - A simple mnemonic, "Rigid transformations are 'Really, Really Tight' (R-R-T)" to remember that reflections, rotations, and translations produce congruent figures. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →ParaPro Exam Prep 34, The Pythagorean Theorem
6d ago00:03:09Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The Pythagorean theorem, a² + b² = c², applies exclusively to right triangles to find a missing side length. - The variable 'c' always represents the hypotenuse, which is the longest side and is located opposite the right angle. - Memorizing common Pythagorean triples, such as 3-4-5 and 5-12-13, can significantly speed up problem-solving on the exam. - The theorem's converse can be used to determine if a triangle is a right triangle by checking if the side lengths satisfy the formula. - Finding the distance between two points on a coordinate plane is a practical application of the Pythagorean theorem.
Transcribe →ParaPro Exam Prep 33, Perimeter, Area, and Volume
1w ago00:03:00Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How to distinguish perimeter, area, and volume by their dimensionality and units (units, units², units³). - The most common exam trap on the ParaPro: confusing the formula for a rectangle's perimeter with its area. - A simple mnemonic, PAV-123, to remember the correct units for Perimeter, Area, and Volume. - Why you must halve a circle's diameter to find the radius *before* calculating the area. - How the ParaPro exam uses irrelevant information, like a triangle's slant height, to distract test-takers from the correct area formula. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →ParaPro Exam Prep 32, Geometry — Polygons, Triangles, and Quadrilaterals
1w ago00:03:09Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The sum of angles in any triangle is always 180 degrees, while the sum in any quadrilateral is 360 degrees. - How to classify triangles by their sides (scalene, isosceles, equilateral) and by their angles (acute, right, obtuse). - The formula for the sum of interior angles in any polygon: (n-2) × 180°, where 'n' is the number of sides. - The specific properties of quadrilaterals like parallelograms, trapezoids, rectangles, rhombuses, and squares. - How to navigate common exam traps, such as understanding that a square is simultaneously a type of rectangle and a type of rhombus. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →ParaPro Exam Prep 31, Geometry — Points, Lines, and Angles
1w ago00:03:31Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The exact definitions of lines, line segments, and rays as they appear on the ParaPro exam. - The critical difference between parallel and perpendicular lines and their exam-relevant properties. - A simple mnemonic to permanently distinguish between complementary (sum to 90°) and supplementary (sum to 180°) angles. - How the 'vertical angles are equal' rule is a shortcut to solving problems involving intersecting lines. - The key relationships to master for parallel lines cut by a transversal: corresponding and alternate interior angles. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →ParaPro Exam Prep 30, Patterns, Functions, and Coordinate Graphs
1w ago00:04:00Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How to distinguish between arithmetic (adding a constant) and geometric (multiplying a constant) patterns. - The definition of a function as a rule assigning exactly one output (y) for every input (x). - How to interpret the slope-intercept form of a linear equation, y = mx + b. - The correct procedure for plotting (x, y) coordinates on a graph by moving horizontally then vertically. - How to avoid the common exam trap of reversing the x and y coordinates when plotting points. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →ParaPro Exam Prep 29, Solving One-Step and Two-Step Equations
2w ago00:03:21Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The core principle of solving equations is to isolate the variable by using inverse operations on both sides. - When solving two-step equations, use the reverse order of operations, often remembered by the mnemonic SADMEP. - On the ParaPro exam, these problems are often disguised as word problems that must first be translated into an algebraic equation. - A common exam trap is performing an operation on only one side of the equation; incorrect answer choices often reflect this error. - Always check your final answer by substituting it back into the original equation to ensure it is correct. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
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