Practice decks
Batches of generated cases dealt fresh every play — screen a waiting room, classify a caseload, name tympanograms and otoscopy findings — with a breakdown on the result.
Practice (the Practice tab of the Library, Theta Pro) is where the repetition lives. Each deck is a batch of patients dealt together: pick one, choose how many you want (up to 20), work through every patient, submit, and read a result card that says not just how many you got right but which kind of mistake you made. Then deal again — the next run is a different set of patients in a different order.
The decks
| Deck | What you do |
|---|---|
| Hearing screening | A hearing screening at the standard protocol (500 Hz at 25 dB HL; 1, 2 and 4 kHz at 20 dB HL). Twenty percent of the patients must be referred; the refers vary in side, degree and shape. You present, decide, and record Pass or Refer per ear per frequency. |
| Audiogram classification | Completed audiograms drawn from a realistic caseload. For each ear you name the degree, the type and the configuration. |
| Tympanogram types | Both ears of every patient, every type equally likely (A, As, Ad, B, C and the small and large ear-canal-volume flats) — ten patients are twenty tympanograms. You name each one. |
| OAE screening | Patients screened with DPOAEs at 2, 3, 4 and 5 kHz (pass at three present), twenty percent of them refers. You read each DP-gram and call each ear Pass or Refer. |
| Otoscopy identification | Ears, each a fresh image, every finding equally likely (never "Other"). You name each finding. |
Each card has a How many …? picker above its Play button — patients for the screenings and tympanograms (each tympanogram patient is two ears), audiograms for classification, ears for otoscopy. It suggests 10 the first time and the size of your last run after that. The two screenings (hearing and OAE) run 5 to 20 patients, so every run has a referral to find; the other decks go from 1 to 20.
The mix is dealt exactly over the number you pick: twenty percent of ten is exactly two refers, never one, never three, and twenty percent of three rounds to one. Only where a share rounds down to nothing — twenty percent of two patients is 0.4 of a refer — is it a coin weighted to match: two patients get one refer four times in ten and none the rest. Screening decks also check their patients: a "refer" refers at at least one screened frequency, a "pass" passes at all of them. The audiometer itself is not restricted. You have to dial to the screening level yourself, and the report shows whether you did.
Playing a run
A run opens in the simulator with one tab per patient — Patient 3 of 7 for a run of seven — and you can move between them freely with Back, Next, or the tabs. Nothing is scored until you submit. Walk away mid-run and the deck's card offers to Resume it next time, at the size it was dealt, rather than dealing a second batch on top — the picker comes back once it's finished. Don't want it? Discard this run under Resume throws it away, answers and all, so a fresh one can be dealt. Play again on the result deals the same number of fresh patients; change the number on the hub.
The result card
Submitting a screening deck shows:
- Overall — how many of your Pass/Refer calls matched the answer.
- Sensitivity — of the frequencies that should have been referred, how many you referred. A learner who calls everything "refer" scores 100% here.
- Specificity — of the frequencies that should have passed, how many you passed. The same learner scores 0% here. The pair is what separates a careful screener from a coin flip.
- Unanswered — frequencies you never called. They count against the overall score but are left out of sensitivity and specificity rather than being booked as a miss or a false alarm.
- One line per patient: the expected and recorded call for each ear.
A classification deck shows accuracy per field — degree (min and max), type, configuration — and one line per audiogram.
An OAE screening deck shows the same overall / sensitivity / specificity / unanswered tiles, counted per ear. A tympanogram deck shows overall accuracy over every ear and the type you missed most; an otoscopy deck shows overall accuracy and the finding you missed most. Each lists one line per case.
Every run is recorded. The deck card on the hub shows how many times you've played it, your best, and your last; a run is marked clean at 90% or better. Runs also appear in your submissions list, with the full report. There is no leaderboard — Practice is self-paced.
For instructors
The same batches can be built into any lesson from the designer's Add a batch… button, with your own count (up to 20), refer rate and screening protocol (what a refer looks like is fixed), or your own mix of tympanogram types or otoscopy findings — see Audiometry → Batches. In a course, every learner gets the number you built; only Practice lets the learner choose. Assign the lesson in exam mode like any other to lock it down (attempt limit, open and close dates).