ABR-NMP-P2 Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts

Exam Snapshot: Format, Timing, and Rules

If you need a single reference before exam day, this is it. The ABR Nuclear Medical Physics Part 2 Qualifying Examination is administered by the American Board of Radiology as a remotely proctored, computer-based exam completed in one session. Registration happens through myABR, and the exam is predominantly multiple-choice, though ABR preparation materials also describe image-location items filed under Drag and Drop - clicking on an anatomical site, equipment component, or a specific region of a graph.

According to the July 23, 2026 remote-exam guide, Nuclear Part 2 consists of 130 questions with 4 hours 1 minute of answering time. Add 20 minutes for the tutorial/practice period and 25 minutes of break allowance, and the total allotted session time comes to 4 hours 46 minutes. Note that the "answering time" figure reported on the exam line does not include tutorial or break minutes - they're tracked separately.

Breaks come with a catch: starting one locks your responses to every previously viewed question, including anything unanswered or flagged. Excess break time is deducted from your answering time, and you must keep your webcam and remote connection active throughout. Plan bathroom and stretch breaks accordingly - don't let a long break eat into the clock you need for calculation-heavy items. For a deeper walkthrough of how this format affects pacing strategy, see the ABR-NMP-P2 Study Guide.

The Five Domains at a Glance

The official Nuclear Medical Physics Part 2 Content Guide organizes material into five domains, and the guide's source order is preserved here. ABR does not publish percentage weights for these domains, so treat any topic distribution you see elsewhere - including in practice materials - as an editorial estimate, not an official breakdown.

For a full breakdown of subtopics within each domain and how they interrelate, the ABR-NMP-P2 Exam Domains Guide goes deeper than a cheat sheet can. If you're still weighing how demanding this exam actually is relative to your current preparation, How Hard Is the ABR-NMP-P2 Exam? addresses that directly.

Fees, Eligibility Windows, and 2027 Dates

Budgeting and scheduling mistakes are avoidable if you lock in the numbers early. The Part 2 examination fee is USD 640, due at registration. This is separate from the standard initial medical physics certification application fee of USD 250, which is a distinct pathway charge. If you fail on a first attempt, ABR lists a one-time USD 250 re-examination fee for Part 1 and/or Part 2. All fees are nonrefundable, though prepaid exam fees tied to a cancellation or nonattendance roll forward to your next available exam date.

Standard eligibility requires passing both the General and Clinical sections of Part 1, and completing (or being on track to complete) a CAMPEP-accredited residency or Doctor of Medical Physics program by August 31 of the exam year. Your residency must begin within 10 years of passing Part 1, and board eligibility runs six full calendar years from residency completion or Part 2 approval, whichever comes first. Already-certified medical physicists pursuing Nuclear Medical Physics as an additional specialty follow a separate pathway involving ABR-approved prospective, supervised clinical training. Full mechanics live in ABR-NMP-P2 Requirements, and the complete testing calendar is tracked in ABR-NMP-P2 Exam Dates. For a line-by-line cost breakdown, see ABR-NMP-P2 Certification Cost.

Calculator, Whiteboard, and Constants List

The exam is closed book, but ABR supplies a list of constants and physical values you'll need for calculations across all five domains. Critically, ABR does not guarantee that list contains every value you'll need, so review its organization ahead of time rather than assuming full coverage. Familiarize yourself with calculator practice exercises covering radioactive decay and Mo-99/Tc-99m generator calculations - these are practice exercises only, not actual exam questions, but the calculation patterns they reinforce (decay correction, generator elution timing) show up conceptually throughout Domains 2, 4, and 5.

Permitted tools are narrow: an embedded on-screen calculator or an ABR-approved handheld calculator, and a compliant physical erasable whiteboard. That whiteboard must be completely clear at both the start and end of your session. Scratch paper and study notes of any kind are prohibited - plan your mental math and unit-tracking habits around a whiteboard-only workflow well before exam day.

High-Yield Facts by Domain

Because ABR does not publish domain weighting, treat every domain as fair game rather than betting heavily on any single area. Still, certain fact clusters recur across the content guide's structure and deserve dedicated review blocks:

• Domain 1: Internal and fetal dosimetry formulas, CT dose indices, shielding barrier calculations, and how professionalism/ethics questions are framed as scenario-based judgment calls rather than pure recall.
• Domain 2: The full PET correction chain - attenuation, scatter, randoms - plus how PET/CT quantification and acceptance testing protocols differ from routine annual QC.
• Domain 3: Intrinsic vs. extrinsic performance testing distinctions for scintillation and solid-state cameras, collimator geometry tradeoffs, and SPECT/CT-specific QC steps.
• Domain 4: Dead-time correction models, well counter and dose calibrator calibration procedures, and statistical concepts (chi-square, minimum detectable activity, error propagation) applied to counting data.
• Domain 5: Matching imaging protocols to clinical indications across cardiac, pulmonary, bone, brain, thyroid, and lymphatic studies, plus radionuclide therapy and brachytherapy dose planning basics.

Because the exam blends image-location items with traditional multiple-choice, don't neglect visual pattern recognition - knowing what a normal versus artifact-laden SPECT slice or PET attenuation-correction map looks like matters as much as the underlying formula.

Week-Before Review Schedule

A generic multi-month study plan belongs elsewhere - see the ABR-NMP-P2 Study Guide for that. What belongs on a cheat sheet is a compressed final-week sequence built around the exam's own domain order, so your last review pass mirrors how the content guide is structured.

Scoring, Results, and Retakes

Part 2 uses criterion-referenced pass/fail scoring against a predetermined standard - you're measured against a fixed bar, not ranked against other candidates. Results are typically posted in myABR with email notification roughly one month after the exam. If you don't pass, the entire Part 2 exam must be retaken; there's no partial credit carried forward by domain. For a data-grounded look at how ABR reports Medical Physics Part 2 outcomes - and why those published figures are all-specialty aggregates rather than nuclear-specific results - see ABR-NMP-P2 Pass Rate. If you want the exact scoring mechanics spelled out further, ABR-NMP-P2 Passing Score covers it.

After Passing: What Part 2 Does and Doesn't Confer

Passing Part 2 is a milestone, not the finish line. Full initial certification requires passing Parts 1, 2, and 3 in the standard pathway - Part 2 alone does not confer board certification. Once you do complete the full certification pathway, maintenance shifts to ABR's Continuing Certification program: professional standing through licensure or attestation, 75 qualifying Category 1 CME or equivalent credits per rolling three-year period, one Practice Quality Improvement project per rolling three-year period, and participation in Online Longitudinal Assessment (at least 52 answered questions per year, with the passing standard met by year five of the cycle, or an alternative Continuing Certification Exam in year four or five). The annual Continuing Certification fee is USD 205. None of this is a "renewal" of Part 2 itself - it's what full-certification maintenance looks like down the road.

Employers hiring for nuclear medicine physics roles typically look for board eligibility or certification alongside CAMPEP-accredited training, so understanding where Part 2 sits in that broader pathway matters for career planning. If you're evaluating whether the full certification track is worth the time and fees involved, Is the ABR-NMP-P2 Certification Worth It? lays out the considerations, and ABR-NMP-P2 Salary Guide discusses compensation data sourced from AAPM's own survey population rather than invented figures. For a broader look at how this credential compares to the distinct ABSNM certification pathway, and for job-market context, see ABR-NMP-P2 Jobs.

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