Here is an actual email from my inbox:

“Hi!
I failed the MBLEx last week. I have dyslexia and bad exam anxiety. I have never been a good test taker and I am afraid I will never pass this exam and get my massage license. Do you have any advice?”

If you were considering sending me a similar email, I want you to know something: you are not alone. I have hundreds of emails just like this. Massage therapists are often unique individuals that love the hands on nature of our profession. But in order to get licensed, we need to prove that we have met the minimum competency levels set for the massage profession via an exam. This is where many LMTs-to-be with learning disabilities get anxious.

About 1 in 5 people in the United States have a learning disability, but for a lot of people, these go undiagnosed. So this article is for you— whether you have a formal diagnosis or just struggle with academics, traditional learning, or testing.

Getting the Help You Need: The FSMTB and Accommodations

First, let’s talk about the FSMTB and what they can do for you on test day. They have a process for getting special accommodations for taking the MBLEx, but you have to know what they’re looking for. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requires them to provide reasonable accommodations if you have a documentable physical or mental impairment.

“Documentable” is the keyword here. It’s not just a note from your mom saying you learn a bit differently, or struggled in school. It’s a formal diagnosis from a licensed health care professional, like a doctor or a psychologist. This is a crucial step that many people miss. It’s about ensuring fairness and following the law.

If you qualify, you can ask for a range of accommodations, but it’s not a guarantee. They review each request and I have seen plenty denied. But, if you have a learning disability and want to know what accommodations the FSMTB might provide include:

• Extra time to take the test. This is one of the most common ones and can make a huge difference. Just know that tests aren’t untimed.
• A test reader to read the questions out loud to you.
• A separate room to give you a quieter place to focus without distractions.
• A larger font on the test screen.
• A scribe to write your answers for you.

Remember, they don’t let you bring your own helpers. It’s their staff to keep the exam fair for everyone. If you have any questions, you can email them directly at ada@fsmtb.org. Also, accommodations do not include language translation services. The MBLEx is still only provided in English and Spanish.

What if You Don’t Have a Diagnosis?

Maybe you’ve never been formally diagnosed with a learning disability. There is no age limit on getting a diagnoses. Speak to your health care provider if this is important to you to get a formal diagnosis and possible testing accommodations.

Or maybe your struggle isn’t a disability at all—you’re just a hands-on learner in a textbook world. Either way, you can still absolutely use the following strategies to help you pass the MBLEx.

• Create Your Perfect Study Environment. You know yourself best. What environments do you thrive in? Do you need to find a quiet spot and put on noise-canceling headphones? Should you turn off your phone and any other notifications to remove distractions? Your brain needs an environment where it can do what it needs to do.
• Use Your Hands and Your Voice. You’re a trained massage therapist, so you’re probably a kinesthetic learner. Don’t just read the information in your guides and textbooks. Draw the muscles, say the names out loud, review the concepts while massaging a practice client/friend, or even just walk around while you study. It’s all about getting your body and your senses involved to help you retain the information.
• Break It Down. The MBLEx has 100 questions, and that’s a lot to think about all at once. Break your study sessions into small, manageable chunks—maybe 20 or 30 minutes at a time – called pomodoros. It’s a lot easier to stay focused on a small chunk of material than on a whole textbook. Our program also includes mini MBLEx simulations that are 25% of a full exam so you can take small tests when you do not have time. We really try to keep you from being overwhelmed.
• Work on Weak Areas. Don’t Avoid Them When you take a practice test, don’t just look at the overall score. Find out what subjects you’re consistently scoring low in. If you’re missing a lot of questions about pathology, that’s where you need to focus your time. Lots of people avoid the subject they are weak in. This won’t work with the MBLEx since you need to read minimum scores in each area, not just overall. Working on weaknesses is another one of our strategies we use for our program.
• Use All the Tools. Your textbook is a great starting point, but don’t stop there. Look for videos, podcasts, and online study guides. Finding a resource that explains a concept in a different way is all it takes for it to finally click.

Here is another an actual email from my inbox after someone used our program:

“Hey! I actually took the test at 12:15 today and passed!!! I really loved your website it broke things down for the ADHD impaired like myself. I was having difficulty with other sites and study ideas. I didn’t feel as overwhelmed with your exam prep.

Thank you!”

Ultimately, your brain isn’t broken. It’s just a different kind of powerful. Your unique way of learning is a gift that makes you a great hands-on therapist. You just have to find the study strategy that speaks your language. At Massage Exam Academy, the goal is to make a program that fits the needs of most learners. It isn’t for everyone, but maybe it is for you. You can check out our program details and see if it might be a tool for you to use to pass your exam, get your massage license, and start getting clients on your table.

If you’re just starting to study for the MBLEx, you might be looking for the easiest way to pass your exam. You’ve probably already found the forums and Facebook groups where people are sharing practice questions. Maybe you’ve even downloaded a study app that promises to have the “real questions from the test.” It is possible you have made flashcards with some of these questions or questions from your study guides – word for word. It seems like the fastest, most direct route to passing, and you likely used it on some exams back in grade school, right?

I’m here to tell you that, besides not studying at all, this is one of the worst things you can do as you prepare for your exam.

Here is a sample email or text I get from someone that just found the Massage Exam Academy website after failing the MBLEx:

“None of the questions I studied on the app I was using were on the exam.”

As someone who has talked to thousands of people who have both passed and failed the MBLEx, I see this all the time: a student spends weeks, sometimes months, memorizing questions from these so-called study aids. They feel ready, they feel confident, and then they sit down for the exam only to find that none of the questions look like the ones they were studying. The test they took was not the one they studied for. They memorized questions and failed to truly understand the concepts of the exam that they would be tested on.

Let me put this in perspective: the MBLEx is a professional licensing exam designed to ensure public safety. At over $250 an attempt, it is time to develop study techniques that work and avoid ones that don’t.

The MBLEx Is Not a Memory Test

The biggest mistake you can make when preparing for the MBLEx is treating it like a game of memory. The Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB), who administers the exam, has a very clear mission: to protect the public. The MBLEx is not designed to see how many facts you can recall. It’s designed to test your competency and your ability to apply your knowledge to a variety of situations you might encounter in a real massage practice.

Think about it this way: if a client walks in with a specific condition, the FSMTB wants to know if you can identify the correct course of action—not just if you can define the condition. The exam is testing your clinical reasoning, your ethical judgment, and your ability to make safe, professional decisions. All in all – they want to know if you will be a safe and ethical licensed massage therapist.

This is why simply memorizing questions will never work. The FSMTB has a massive question bank and is regularly adding more questions. They are constantly updating and rotating questions to ensure that the exam’s integrity is maintained and that test takers can pass by simply memorizing a cheat sheet. The questions on your practice app, or that some teacher or other LMT you know, might have been on an exam five years ago- but they likely won’t be on yours. Even if a question is similar, the wording will be different, the scenario will be slightly altered, and you’ll be lost if you haven’t mastered the core concepts.

The Problem with “Question Farms”

Unfortunately, a lot of the cheaper or free “study apps” and websites you find online are essentially “question farms.” They are crowdsourced collections of questions that people claim they saw on the exam. There are a few major problems with this approach:

1. Inaccuracy: Many of these questions are submitted from memory, and they are often worded incorrectly or contain factual errors. You could be studying wrong information and not even know it.
2. Lack of Context: A question on its own doesn’t teach you the underlying principles. You might memorize that for a client with diabetes, you should avoid deep tissue massage on their feet. But what if the question on the real exam is about peripheral neuropathy? If you only memorized the answer to the first question, you won’t be able to apply that knowledge to the second.
3. No Explanations: These apps often give you the answer but offer little to no explanation for why it’s the right answer. Without understanding the reasoning, you’re just adding a piece of disconnected data to your brain, which is useless for a competency-based exam.

The Strategic Approach: How to Actually Study and Pass

So, what should you do instead? Stop trying to memorize the answers. Instead, focus on mastering the concepts. This is how you build a study plan that will actually get you results.

1. Focus on Concepts, Not Facts.

Instead of just memorizing the origin, insertion, action, and innervation (OIAI) of a muscle, focus on its function. What does the pectoralis major do? It adducts and medially rotates the arm. Now, think about that. When would a client need work on this muscle? What real-world scenarios apply? This is how you turn a dry fact into something you can actually use to answer a scenario-based question.

2. Master the Scenario.

Think of every study session as an opportunity to practice your clinical reasoning. For example, a question might ask: “A client with a history of hypertension is experiencing a severe headache. What should the massage therapist do?”

• Step 1: Identify the key terms: “hypertension,” “severe headache.”
• Step 2: Recall your knowledge of these conditions. What are the contraindications for hypertension? What could a severe headache signify?
• Step 3: Use your knowledge to identify the safest course of action. A severe headache in a hypertensive client is a medical red flag. The correct answer is to refer them to a doctor and not proceed with the massage.

3. Use the Practice Exam as a Diagnostic Tool.

A good practice test isn’t about the score; it’s about what you learn from your mistakes. When you get a question wrong, don’t just look at the right answer and move on. Look at the explanation. Why was your answer wrong? What core concept did you misunderstand? This is how you pinpoint your weaknesses and know exactly where to focus your next study session. If you get three questions wrong about the lymphatic system, you know exactly what your priority is for the next two days.

4. Employ Active Recall and Spaced Repetition.

These are proven, effective study methods. Active recall means you are actively pulling information from your brain, not just passively reading it. After you read a section, close the book and try to explain the concept out loud to an imaginary client. Spaced repetition means reviewing the information at increasing intervals. Use flashcards for this, or a flashcard app that uses the spaced repetition model. This trains your brain to store information in long-term memory.

The Bottom Line

The solution isn’t to find a better app with “real” questions or memorizing all the questions in your paper study guide that claims to have all the secrets for this year’s exam. It’s to change your mindset to preparing for this exam like any other professional exam. This takes time, focused preparation, and a commitment to learning key concepts. This is what we have seen work time and time again.

The Plan to Pass on Massage Exam Academy has helped thousands of people make that jump from student to licensed massage therapist. You can make your plan to pass today and finally take that next step toward your new career.

Start Your Plan to Pass Today