by As you may have heard, ACE recently announced the release of the Exercise Professional’s Guide to Personal Training textbook and associated study materials. Individuals studying from the 5th edition ACE Personal Trainer Manual and associated study materials may be wondering if their current materials are still sufficient to help them prepare for the ACE Personal Trainer Certification exam. Here is some information that may help you feel more comfortable about being able to successfully prepare for the exam using the ACE Personal Trainer Manual and associated study materials.
Can I still use the ACE Personal Trainer Manual and associated study materials to prepare for the exam? Yes. Those of you who currently have the 5th edition ACE Personal Trainer study materials can use these resources to successfully prepare for the ACE Personal Trainer Certification examination. If you’ve been working with these materials we’d encourage you to finish up your studies and sit for the exam, as an updated ACE Personal Trainer exam content outline was introduced in July 2018, prior to the launch of the new textbook.
When will the certification exam change to reflect the new manual? The exam does not make a dramatic switch from one manual to another, as it is not directly tied to any one manual or study resource. Instead, what is being tested is whether or not an individual is adequately prepared to enter a particular profession or job role. New questions are rotated into ACE certification exams on a regular basis each year, even when the manual remains unchanged. This is something ACE does with all four certification programs. As we move further into 2020 and beyond, more questions will be rotated into the certification exam that reflect the updated evidence-based information referenced in the ACE Personal Trainer exam content outline, as well as the Exercise Professional’s Guide to Personal Training textbook and other reference materials.
How do new exam questions get selected for the exam? ACE certification examinations are built according to the domains and tasks in the exam content outline for that specific exam. The current ACE Personal Trainer exam content outline is available as a downloadable PDF on the ACE website. ACE Certification Committees write new exam questions (items) throughout the year. The questions are edited and validated by other Certification Committee Members, and then they are rotated into exams as experimental (unscored) items. Questions that perform well are then used in place of older and outdated items on new exams. These new questions may focus on updated industry guidelines, evidence-based findings in exercise, nutrition, or health-behavioral sciences; or they might simply be new questions on existing topics in the ACE Personal Trainer exam content outline.
In summary, you can still successfully prepare for the ACE Personal Trainer Certification exam using the 5th edition ACE Personal Trainer Manual and associated materials. Continue with your current study plan using all print and online study materials that you purchased, including any practice tests. Once you feel prepared for the exam and a career as a Personal Trainer, log into your MyACE account to register for your examination. If your study materials included an exam voucher, you will want to make sure that you schedule your exam date and use the voucher before it expires. You will need to have a current adult CPR/AED certification on file to register for the examination.
Do you still have questions about the exam or your preparation? Check out the ACE Answers page for more information.
by