Best free resources for CAADE prep — what's actually worth your time

Good thread. One thing I'd add: don't try to cram the night before. I did 2 hours the night before my CAADE and I think it hurt more than helped. Your brain needs consolidation time. Light review or full rest is better.

Good thread. One thing I'd add: don't try to cram the night before. I did 4 hours the night before my CAADE and I think it hurt more than helped. Your brain needs consolidation time. Light review or full rest is better.

Same experience here. The caade pharmacology of substances was what finally made it click for me — specifically the way it explains the reasoning rather than just giving answers. Took me 3 weeks of consistent practice but scores went from 69% to 87% by exam day.

Really helpful breakdown, thanks for sharing. I'm at week 2 of my CAADE prep and the study guide section is exactly where I'm struggling too. Going to try the approach you described and see if it moves my scores.

Congrats on putting this together, wish I'd found something like it before I started. I passed last month and honestly the one thing that made the difference for me was drilling pharmacology questions until I couldn't get them wrong anymore. Not just reading about the drug classes, actually testing myself on them. I'd been rereading my notes for weeks and it wasn't sticking. The free practice questions forced me to actually recall stuff like withdrawal timelines and which substances hit which receptors, and that's exactly what the exam went after.

If you're short on time, skip the passive review and go straight to question banks. Seriously. You'll figure out your weak spots in one session instead of guessing at them. I wasted a good month highlighting a textbook when I should've been doing practice tests from day one.

Quick update since I posted last week -- hit a 74% on my most recent practice run which felt huge after being stuck in the 60s for what felt like forever. I've been rotating between a few different topic areas and honestly the caade student development learning theory section was the one that bumped my score the most, didn't expect that.

Planning to sit the real exam in late August so I've got about six weeks to tighten up the weak spots. If you're still in early prep mode don't stress the score too much yet, consistency matters way more than cramming at this stage.

Honestly I almost didn't finish the prep at all. Around week three I hit a wall with the counseling theory sections and just thought, this isn't worth it. What kept me going was finding practice material that actually matched the real test format instead of generic addiction counseling stuff. The caade student development learning theory questions were the ones that surprised me most because they're harder than they look and I would have bombed that section if I hadn't drilled them.

If you're feeling like giving up, just push through the theory parts first. Once those clicked for me the rest of the material felt way more manageable. I passed on my first attempt and I genuinely didn't think I would. Free resources can get you there if you're using the right ones.