Taking the ARRT MRI registry in about 10 weeks while working 36-hour weeks. I've been an RT(R) for 4 years so I'm not starting from zero, but MRI physics is a completely different animal from radiography and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
The content outline breaks down to roughly: patient care and safety, imaging procedures, and physical principles of image formation. That third category is where most people struggle and where I'm spending 60% of my study time.
K-space is the thing that finally made sense when I stopped trying to memorize explanations and started drawing it. Visualizing how lines of k-space relate to spatial frequency in the image was the breakthrough for me.
Pulse sequences are endless. SE, FSE, GRE, IR, EPI — each has subcategories and clinical applications. I'm building a comparison table to keep them straight.
Working 36s while studying is brutal but doable. I did the same. I studied on my commute, during lunch, and one 3-hour session on my off day. Consistency beats marathon sessions when you're fatigued.
Safety is where people lose easy points by rushing. Know your zones (I through IV), know your screening form requirements, and know the specific risks for every implant category. That content is very testable and very learnable.
The physics section is genuinely hard and there's no shortcut. That said, Euclid Seeram's MRI textbook is the clearest explanation of k-space I've found. Pair it with a question bank and you'll get there.
The pulse sequence comparison table approach is exactly right. I did the same thing and added a column for clinical applications — why you'd choose FSE over SE, when you use STIR vs FLAIR. That applied context helped the registry questions click.