What the HCA State Exam Is Like: An Interview With Joy
Updated: Aug 27
Joy Kinsinger is one of the instructors who reviews the skills videos Cornerstone students as part of the Virtual Skills Lab. But before she started reviewing other students' work, she went through the process herself. Joy completed the Virtual Skills Lab while working full time, then finished the full 75 hours of HCA training and passed the HCA state exam in July.
Part of her reason for becoming HCA certified was to experience the same training, skills, and testing process as the students she would be working with.
Now that she has been on both sides of the process, we asked Joy what HCA training and the state exam are actually like, from recording skills at home to preparing for test day and finding out whether she passed.
When did you take the course, and what made you decide to do it?
I took it when I started at Cornerstone, so that would have been around May. The position wanted me HCA certified. But also, for me personally, I wanted to experience what the students were experiencing, so that when I reviewed a video or somebody had a question, I would have a little more to speak to. My own caregiving background is with family rather than in a professional setting, so plenty of this was going to be new to me too.
Did you have any expectations going in?
Not really, because I did not really know. I had heard the 75 hours number getting thrown around, so I knew there was a lot of coursework to review. But no huge expectations.
You chose the virtual skills lab over in-person. Why?
That was easier with my schedule. I probably could have made two days work, but I am a person that if I can do it by myself, I am going to do it by myself. I did the skills lab before I was even given the job offer, and I was working full time then, so being able to do it after work was what made it possible at all.
And there is nobody standing over you. You set your phone up in your own house, on your own time, and if you are not happy with it you go again. I would start shooting on my own and then be like, oh shoot, I forgot something and redo it. On the more advanced ones, the perineal and the catheter care, I was afraid I had been forgetting steps, so I would redo those to be safe.
How did the recording part feel?
I mean, like anything, when you hear yourself being recorded you get pretty self-conscious. I feel like most people do. So yeah, it was awkward. But I was really happy I could just do it from my phone, and other than my own personal thing about being recorded, it was very fine.
Did you have to redo any skills?
Nothing ever came back to me from an instructor. I also never went back and rewatched before uploading, because I would have found something I didn’t like about the video. I just took it, uploaded it, and figured I would redo whatever came back. Thankfully nothing did.
How long did the skills lab take, and how long for the full 75 hours?
The skills lab was less than a week, working my full time job. The rest was maybe another week or two. So within a month of starting, I had all the coursework done.
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Knowing what you know now, would you pick the same format?
One hundred percent. There was no in-person skills lab close to me, so I would have been driving a couple of hours on top of taking the two days off. For the flexibility alone, I would do it again.
Has going through it yourself changed how you work with students?
Yes. I took the skills lab before I was given the job offer, and then once I accepted and started reviewing videos I was like, man, I am so glad I did that. As awkward as it was, and I did not love recording myself, it helps me do my job better and give more personal and intentional feedback, knowing I had walked through the same steps.
How long did you prepare for the exam?
Well, I am an overthinker and an overpreparer, so this is hard to give a time for. I finished the course within a month of starting and took the practice final, and I think I missed one or two questions, so I felt like I had grasped the knowledge pretty well.
That test was really useful as a gauge, just to see, do I know this stuff or not, and then to be able to go back over what I had got wrong and learn the correct answers was helpful for me. After that I did not think about it again, because I would have overthought it, until I had a test date. That ended up being the end of July.
About a week before, I redownloaded the course study guide and all the exam prep and reviewed it, did the two HCA practice exams on the website, and went over the SWIPES and common care handouts.
Since I had been reviewing videos for two months by then, I felt pretty confident on the steps. If I had not been, I would have gone through every skills procedure checklist. And then on the day I was really stressed out, so I was like, let me just read all of it again. I had it downloaded to my phone, so any time I was waiting, I was reading. So maybe a few hours sprinkled across that week and the day of.
What did the morning look like?
I did not eat all day because I was so stressed. Would not recommend. And I wanted to be sure about what to bring, because our test location was an hour away, so I had two forms of ID and my pending HCA credential number.
A couple different resources I had read on what to bring on test day listed two forms of ID as requirements. I also made sure Blanca had hers too, because I picked her up on the way. All they needed at the site was the one form of ID. But my thoughts tend to be overprep better than under prep.
What happened when you arrived?
Like I said, I am an over prepper. I planned to arrive 30 minutes early and then gave myself another 15 for traffic or mishaps, which I am glad we did, because we could not find the room right away. It turned out they were renting a room at the city hall in Pasco so it took some time to find it.
We were there early, so we sat for half an hour, and they let you be on your phone, they do not take your stuff until you are ready to test. We were waiting on one more student, and once she arrived the instructor went through the rules and the timing, our devices (and even my Apple watch) went into little baskets, and we started the written test.
Interested in Blanca's Experience?
Read how she managed HCA training and exam with a full time job.
What was the written test like?
Paper and pencil. You get an hour and a half. I was done in about 10-15 minutes. The instructor prefaced it by saying it is a 60 question exam and you only have to get 45 right, and that the number you need is that low because a lot of the questions are worded weirdly and they are looking for one specific answer.
I felt pretty confident going in, because I had done the curriculum and passed the final, but then the wording of some of the questions had me doubting. On the true and false ones the instructor told us that if any part of the scenario is incorrect, the whole thing counts as incorrect. It was not like I was going to spend an hour and a half reviewing my answers, because I would just get myself in trouble second guessing and questing my answers.
Honestly I got way more stressed after taking the exam than going in. I think I have half blocked it from my memory, so I can't provide much more feedback for the written part. I went in thinking a lot of this is common sense, and then looking at how the questions are worded, it was like wait a second, wait a second, it depends how you look at it. In the end I got a 93, so I did the math and I think that was six missed, and, and I could have missed fifteen.
Which skills did you get, and how did you feel when you saw them?
She walked us through the room first, where the supplies were and what to expect, and told us the testing order and the skills selected for each student to be tested on are computer-generated. The computer put me first, which I was so glad about.
She read me my skills and gave me a sheet with them written out along with the client's limitations: like for mine it was noted that the client started lying in bed for the transfer to wheelchair skill. I could take as long as I wanted reading the sheet of paper with my skills I was to test on and refer back to it any time, with 30 minutes for all three.
I got handwashing (which is a required skill for every student), then oral care, a knee-high stocking, and a bed to wheelchair transfer. Having reviewed videos for a month plus, I felt confident on all of them. I knew to take the wheelchair one slower, because there are a couple more bolded steps I did not want to miss. Otherwise I was like, oh, these are easy-peasy lemon squeezy.
What was the instructor like?
Very helpful. She was doing her best to keep it chill, told us there's no need to stress and we can ask whatever questions we have, giving us all the tips. Very nice.
When did you find out your results?
Because I went first on the skills, she told me right there that I had passed, and that she would give me the full feedback once the next student had finished. I was not expecting that. The handouts I read said you would know by the end of the day, or get an email, so it was not clear whether we would know anything before leaving. Walking out already knowing was the part I was happiest about.
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What feedback did you get on the skills?
She told me I got a 93 on the written, and I really wanted to know which six I missed, but she could not tell me. I am a person who needs to know what I got wrong so I can fix it, so that was hard. On the skills she went through each one and provided good feedback.
On the wheelchair transfer I had two notes of feedback: my gait belt was too loose, and I knew it as soon as I put it on, I had not used one in years and I think I had it upside down. And I forgot to cue my client to reach for the wheelchair before sitting down. I was like, "oh my goodness, I couldn't believe I had totally forgotten that step." Overall the feedback was helpful.
