The American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT) offers the Computed Tomography exam for certification purposes. This test measures a candidate’s knowledge and comprehension of the responsibilities that staff technologists in this specialized field would generally need to do. Candidates must meet specific ethical and academic requirements before taking this test.
The content of the test is broken down as follows:
31 questions on patient care, as follows:
- Patient preparation (2)
- Patient assessment (4)
- IV procedures (5)
- Contrast agents (10)
- Radiation safety and dosimetry (10)
6 questions on imaging procedures – each section has items regarding sectional anatomy, contrast media, scanning procedures and special procedures. The areas are as follows:
- Head (13)
- Neck (7)
- Chest (14)
- Abdomen (23)
- Pelvis (6)
- Musculoskeletal (13)
58 questions on physics and instrumentation, broken down as follows:
- CT system principles, operation and components (17)
- Image processing (10)
- Image display (10)
- Informatics (5)
- Image quality (10)
- Artifact recognition and reduction (6)
Every test also includes 20 extra questions, which are not scored; these are pre-trial items which may be used on future exams. Candidates will not know which items are scored and which are not. The raw score (the number answered correctly) will be converted to a scaled score in a 1 to 99 range. The minimum scaled score needed to pass is 75.