Part of the expanding PassProfessor catalog: The Certified Athletic Trainer credential — the ATC — is awarded by the Board of Certification (BOC) to candidates who complete a professional athletic training program accredited by CAATE and pass the BOC Certification Examination: 175 scored and unscored items in four hours, built on the BOC Practice Analysis, 8th Edition, across five domains led by Assessment, Evaluation and Diagnosis and Therapeutic Intervention at 25.6% each. Scores are reported on a 200–800 scale with a passing score of 500, as the BOC publishes it. PassProfessor’s Certified Athletic Trainer program is in development.
This program is part of the expanding PassProfessor catalog — join the notify list and we’ll email you when enrollment opens.
The BOC examination is the last gate between an athletic training student and the credential, and it is built the way the profession is built: a quarter of it is evaluating what is wrong, a quarter is intervening to fix it, and a fifth is managing the incident where everything happens at once. It is also an examination most candidates sit while still enrolled, in the final stretch of an accredited program, which makes preparation a scheduling problem as much as a knowledge problem. PassProfessor’s Certified Athletic Trainer program is in development as part of the expanding PassProfessor catalog, built on the BOC’s published Practice Analysis content outline for this examination only. Join the notify list below and we will email you when enrollment opens.
Which credential is this?
This page covers the BOC Certification Examination for the Certified Athletic Trainer (ATC) credential, awarded by the Board of Certification for the Athletic Trainer — and only that examination. Two distinctions matter. First, the bodies: the BOC certifies; CAATE accredits the education programs that make candidates eligible; and the NATA is the profession’s membership association — three different organizations with three different roles, routinely blurred in casual usage and kept separate here. Second, the credential and the job: BOC certification is the national credential, and most states that regulate athletic training rely on it for licensure or registration under their own laws — but the license itself is the state’s, and certification alone does not authorize practice in a state that requires its own credential. ATC is a certification mark of the BOC, used on this page as a factual reference to its examination.
What will the program cover?
Practice mapped to the published outline, domain by domain. The program is being built on the BOC’s own published content outline for the Practice Analysis, 8th Edition (PA8) — the outline in effect for examinations from the March/April 2023 window — organized around the five domains the outline defines, as recorded in the table below. Preparation time lands where the examination puts its emphasis: evaluation and intervention together are just over half the examination, and the program’s shape says so.
Results you can read by domain. Because practice will be organized by the outline’s domains, your results can be read domain by domain — a thin domain shows while there is still time to repair it, instead of hiding inside an overall score.
Original questions, written from the outline outward. When the program opens, every question will be an original PassProfessor practice question written to the published outline and current authoritative sources for this field, including scenario and case-style items of the kind the examination uses. None will be an actual examination item, a recalled item, or another provider’s material, and no question will ask you to recite a code, section number or citation — knowledge is tested, citations never are.
Timed practice at the real sitting’s shape. Four hours and 175 items, mixing stand-alone questions with focused case groupings, is a pacing problem as much as a knowledge test. The program’s design includes timed practice at that shape so pacing is trained rather than discovered on the day. That design is PassProfessor’s preparation choice; the real examination’s own facts stand in their own table.
The real exam at a glance
| Fact of record | Detail |
|---|---|
| Credential | Certified Athletic Trainer — ATC |
| Awarding body | Board of Certification (BOC) for the Athletic Trainer; education accredited by CAATE; state licensure or registration is separate, under state law |
| Items | 175 items — a combination of scored and unscored (experimental) items that cannot be distinguished, as the BOC publishes the format |
| Administration | Computer-based examination in scheduled testing windows during the year; four hours allowed |
| Item types | Multiple-choice questions, stand-alone alternative item types, and focused testlets — scenarios followed by sets of related items — as the BOC publishes the construction |
| Content | Five domains under the BOC Practice Analysis, 8th Edition (PA8), in effect from the March/April 2023 window (see outline below) |
| Scoring | Scores reported on a 200–800 scaled score; the passing score is 500, as the BOC publishes it. The scaled score is not a percentage |
| Eligibility | Enrollment in the final term of, or graduation from, a CAATE-accredited professional athletic training program, with program director endorsement, as the BOC publishes; professional programs are delivered at the master’s level under CAATE’s current standards (see below) |
| Maintenance | Continuing education on the BOC’s two-year reporting cycle (50 Continuing Education Units), current Emergency Cardiac Care certification, and the annual certification requirements the BOC publishes |
How will practice map to the outline?
| Domain | Share of the examination |
|---|---|
| Domain II — Assessment, Evaluation and Diagnosis | 25.6% of the examination per the BOC PA8 content outline |
| Domain IV — Therapeutic Intervention | 25.6% of the examination per the BOC PA8 content outline |
| Domain III — Critical Incident Management | 20.8% of the examination per the BOC PA8 content outline |
| Domain I — Risk Reduction, Wellness and Health Literacy | 20.0% of the examination per the BOC PA8 content outline |
| Domain V — Healthcare Administration and Professional Responsibility | 8.0% of the examination per the BOC PA8 content outline |
The BOC outline distributes its content items across the five domains (125 items in the outline’s distribution: 25 / 32 / 26 / 32 / 10); the examination as delivered presents 175 scored and unscored items in four hours.
What does Risk Reduction, Wellness and Health Literacy cover? (20.0% of the examination)
Prevention as a discipline: identifying risk factors through preparticipation screening, assessments, examinations and history review; implementing evidence-based plans that reduce risk — conditioning, equipment and environmental controls, and monitoring of conditions such as heat and lightning; and promoting health literacy by educating patients and stakeholders. This domain examines the work that happens before anything goes wrong, and its items reward the candidate who can connect a risk factor to a proportionate, implemented countermeasure rather than a poster on a wall.
How should you prepare for Risk Reduction, Wellness and Health Literacy? Study each risk as a chain — factor, screening method, intervention, education — and practise recognizing which link an item is testing before answering. Survey the domain early, note where your reasoning breaks down, and return with focused practice rather than rereading.
Prevention items are won on implementation: the option that does something measurable beats the option that merely says something true.
What does Assessment, Evaluation and Diagnosis cover? (25.6% of the examination)
The diagnostic quarter of the examination, tied for the largest domain: obtaining histories, performing examinations and assessments, applying special and functional tests, interpreting findings, and arriving at diagnoses and differential diagnoses across the body’s systems and injury types. Items present patients — on the field, in the clinic, days after the mechanism — and examine the sequence: what to ask, what to test, what the finding rules in or out, and what the working diagnosis obliges next, including referral.
How should you prepare for Assessment, Evaluation and Diagnosis? Study each region and condition as an evaluation sequence, not a fact set: mechanism, history questions, observation, palpation, range and strength, special tests, and the discriminating finding that separates the two diagnoses the item is really choosing between. Practise in timed blocks, and log every miss by stage — history missed, test misselected, finding misread, or diagnosis right with wrong next step.
Evaluation items test the order of operations: the discriminating test chosen second is a point spent, even when the diagnosis at the end is right.
What does Critical Incident Management cover? (20.8% of the examination)
The emergency fifth: recognizing and managing critical incidents — the collapsed athlete, the spinal concern, the heat stroke, the fracture and dislocation, the deteriorating patient — through immediate assessment, emergency action planning, stabilization, and disposition, including when and how the patient moves to higher care. This domain is deliberately weighted far above its frequency in practice, because its failures are the profession’s irreversible ones; its items examine prioritization under the worst conditions the entry-level athletic trainer will face.
How should you prepare for Critical Incident Management? Study emergencies as rehearsed protocols with decision branches: recognize, activate, assess in the published order, intervene, re-assess, transport or monitor. Drill the time-critical recognitions — exertional heat stroke, cardiac events, cervical spine, catastrophic bleeding — until the first three actions are automatic, then practise the items timed, because this domain’s knowledge is worthless at deliberation speed.
In critical incident items, the correct first action outranks the correct complete plan. Practise answering the question “what now, in the next sixty seconds?”
What does Therapeutic Intervention cover? (25.6% of the examination)
The intervention quarter, tied for the largest domain: designing, implementing and progressing therapeutic interventions — exercise rehabilitation, modalities, manual and pharmacological considerations within scope — matched to the diagnosis, the healing phase and the patient’s goals, with reassessment and criteria-based progression and return-to-participation decisions. Items examine the plan across time: what begins the day after evaluation, what changes at each phase, and what objective criteria — not the calendar — authorize progression.
How should you prepare for Therapeutic Intervention? Study interventions phase by phase: for each condition, the acute-phase goals, the subacute progressions, the functional criteria for advancing, and the contraindications that phase imposes on modalities and loading. Pair it in mixed practice with the evaluation domain, since the examination interleaves them and a rehabilitation item often conceals an evaluation decision inside it.
Progression is criteria, not calendar. The items reward the candidate who asks “what must be true before this advances?” over the one who counts weeks.
What does Healthcare Administration and Professional Responsibility cover? (8.0% of the examination)
The smallest domain and the profession’s operating system: healthcare administration — documentation, record-keeping, facility and program management, regulatory and accreditation compliance — and professional responsibility: ethics, legal duties, scope of practice, and professional conduct. At 8% it is compact enough to close completely with focused study, and it is the domain coursework treats most lightly relative to its question share per hour of content.
How should you prepare for Healthcare Administration and Professional Responsibility? Study it as a closed set — the documentation standards, the legal and ethical rules, the administrative systems — drilled to recognition. Because the domain is small and rule-bound, a deliberate block finishes it; concede nothing here that preparation controls.
Eight percent is ten outline items’ worth of certainty. Earn all of it; the larger domains offer no such bargain.
How is the BOC examination scored?
The BOC reports scores on a scaled score range of 200 to 800, and the passing score is 500, as the BOC publishes it. Scaling converts each candidate’s raw performance — correct answers among the scored items — onto the common scale so that the passing standard represents the same level of competence across examination forms and windows that may differ slightly in difficulty; the scaled score is therefore not a percentage, and 500 is not “five-eighths correct.” The delivered examination mixes scored and unscored experimental items indistinguishably, so every item is answered on its merits. Results and retake eligibility follow the BOC’s published candidate policies for each window — confirm the current handbook’s timing and attempt rules when you schedule, because window calendars govern when a retake can actually be sat.
Who can take the BOC examination, and what does certification require?
Eligibility, as the BOC publishes it, runs through accredited education: the candidate must be enrolled in a CAATE-accredited professional athletic training program — students apply in their final semester or quarter, with the program director’s endorsement confirming their standing — or have graduated from one. One structural fact shapes every current candidate’s path: under CAATE’s 2020 Standards, professional athletic training programs are delivered at the master’s degree level, so today’s eligibility route is a master’s-level accredited program (candidates educated under earlier arrangements and internationally educated candidates follow the routes the BOC publishes for them, including its international arrangements). Certification itself requires passing the examination and completing the BOC’s certification requirements, including current Emergency Cardiac Care certification as the BOC publishes it. Most states then require their own license or registration to practice, typically built on BOC certification. Maintenance runs on the BOC’s two-year continuing education cycle — 50 Continuing Education Units per cycle, with current ECC and the annual requirements the BOC publishes.
How should you use this page while the program is in development?
- Join the notify list today. Enrollment is not open yet, and the notify list is how you hear the moment it is. While you wait, read the Certified Athletic Trainer exam guide — it walks the outline domain by domain and lays out eligibility, scoring and study planning in full.
- Plan around your window now. Eligibility opens in your final term with your program director’s endorsement; aligning your examination window with your program’s calendar is useful work today.
- When the program opens, survey every domain first. Early practice should touch each domain, so your first domain-by-domain picture of yourself is honest rather than flattering.
- Drill the domain that costs you. Let results, not preferences, set the next block of study — outlines reward the candidate with no thin domain.
- Finish with timed, mixed practice. Sit full timed practice at the real sitting’s pace — 175 items inside four hours — and test when your practice is consistently strong across domains.
Frequently asked questions
What is the BOC examination? The certification examination of the Board of Certification for the Athletic Trainer: passing it, together with the BOC’s other requirements, earns the Certified Athletic Trainer (ATC) credential for entry-level practice.
How many questions are on the BOC examination, and how long do I have? 175 items — scored and unscored experimental items mixed indistinguishably — in four hours, in scheduled testing windows during the year.
What score do I need to pass? A scaled score of 500 on the BOC’s 200–800 scale, as the BOC publishes it. The scaled score is not a percentage of items answered correctly.
Who is eligible to take the examination? Students in the final term of a CAATE-accredited professional athletic training program, with their program director’s endorsement, and graduates of such programs. Under CAATE’s current standards, professional programs are delivered at the master’s level.
What are the largest domains on the examination? Assessment, Evaluation and Diagnosis and Therapeutic Intervention, tied at 25.6% each under the Practice Analysis, 8th Edition — together just over half the examination.
Does BOC certification license me to practice athletic training? No. Certification is the national credential; most states separately license or register athletic trainers under state law, typically relying on BOC certification. Confirm your state’s requirements with its board.
What is the difference between the BOC, CAATE and the NATA? The BOC certifies individuals, CAATE accredits education programs, and the NATA is the profession’s membership association. Three different bodies with three different roles.
How do I stay certified? By completing the BOC’s continuing education requirement on its two-year cycle (50 Continuing Education Units), maintaining current Emergency Cardiac Care certification, and meeting the annual requirements the BOC publishes.
Are these the BOC’s actual examination questions? No. When this program opens, its questions will be original practice questions written by PassProfessor to the BOC’s published Practice Analysis content outline. We never use actual examination items, recalled items, or another provider’s material.
When will enrollment open? The program is in development. Join the notify list on this page and we will email you when enrollment opens.
Disclaimer
PassProfessor is an independent exam-preparation provider; this program is not endorsed by, affiliated with or sponsored by the Board of Certification. The credential name is used on this page as a factual reference to the certifying body’s examination. This program is examination preparation only: examination details on this page are drawn from the official sources recorded in the companion guide and are current as of November 2026; the certifying body’s official publications govern if anything here differs from them. The credential is awarded by the Board of Certification alone when its requirements are complete; this program confers no certification or license.