MHP Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts

Quick Facts at a Glance

This cheat sheet condenses everything a candidate needs to recall the night before sitting for the American Board of Medical Physics (ABMP) Part II Medical Health Physics specialty exam. It's not a substitute for deep preparation - for that, see the full MHP Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt - but it is the fastest way to confirm you have the logistics, blueprint weights, and eligibility details locked in.

Exam Format & Registration Mechanics

Part II is administered at a designated test venue, but you bring your own laptop loaded with ExamSoft software - there's no shared testing-center hardware to worry about, which means compatibility checks matter as much as content review. Budget the full four hours; the mixed formats (straightforward multiple choice, matching sets, choose-all-that-apply items, and shared-stem "Type S" clusters that hang several questions off one clinical scenario) mean pacing is uneven across the exam rather than a steady one-question-per-minute rhythm.

For the 2026 cycle, the fee is $690 if you pay by check or $715 if you pay through PayPal - a $25 gap worth planning around if you're budgeting early. A full breakdown of every cost tied to the credential, including what happens if you need to retake, is covered in MHP Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown.

The Nine-Domain Blueprint, Weighted

The current online blueprint (linked to an information booklet revised May 2025) organizes Part II content into nine weighted domains. Memorizing these weights lets you allocate study hours proportionally instead of spreading effort evenly across topics that don't carry equal exam weight.

For deeper coverage of each content area, including how questions are typically framed within each domain, see MHP Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 9 Content Areas.

The "Big Five" 15% Domains

Standards and Regulations, Structural Shielding, Radiation Oncology, Diagnostic Imaging, and Nuclear Medicine each carry 15%, together making up 75% of the entire blueprint. This is the single most important structural fact about Part II: three-quarters of your score rides on five domains, while Instrumentation, Laboratory Design, Radiation Biology, and Non-ionizing Radiation combined account for only 25%.

This weighting also explains why candidates who come from a strong oncology or diagnostic imaging clinical background sometimes still struggle on shielding calculations or regulatory citations - the exam rewards breadth across all five heavyweight domains, not depth in just one or two. A candidate's employer context (radiation oncology department, diagnostic imaging practice, nuclear medicine service, or a multi-site health system) often determines which of these domains feels intuitive and which requires deliberate outside study.

Eligibility Checklist

Before you can sit for Part II, ABMP requires several pieces to be in place:

• A relevant graduate degree in medical physics or a closely related field
• Supervised clinical experience, with the amount depending on your degree level and residency status
• An endorsement from a board-certified physicist
• An endorsement from a board-certified physician
• A completed MHP Training and Education Form

The typical sequence runs Part I credit (or an approved waiver), then Part II, then Part III oral examination. Qualified Certified Health Physicists have a separate direct-to-oral pathway that bypasses the standard written sequence. If any of these pieces are unclear for your specific situation, the full breakdown is in MHP Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify.

Recertification at a Glance

Certification isn't a one-and-done credential. Renewal occurs every five years and requires 125 continuing education credits total, with at least 65 of those as Category 1 credits and no more than 60 as Category 2 credits. Plan your CE tracking from day one rather than scrambling in year four.

Last-Mile Review Schedule

If you're in the final weeks before your test date, structure review around blueprint weight rather than the order topics were taught in school. This is the one place where a generic study technique - spaced repetition on flashcards - earns its keep, but only when it's mapped to the domains that actually move your score.

For a broader gauge of how much overall effort this exam demands relative to other physics board exams, read How Hard Is the MHP Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026, and pair it with the historical pass-rate trends in MHP Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows.

It's also worth remembering why candidates pursue this credential in the first place. Employers hiring for radiation oncology departments, diagnostic imaging practices, and nuclear medicine services look for board certification as a marker of clinical competence and regulatory fluency. If you're weighing whether the time and fee investment make sense for your career stage, Is the MHP Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 and MHP Salary Guide 2026: Complete Earnings Analysis walk through the considerations, while MHP Jobs covers the kinds of roles that typically request this certification.

Once you've confirmed your eligibility timeline against ABMP's testing calendar, check MHP Exam Dates 2026: Testing Windows, Deadlines & Scheduling so your CE tracking, endorsement collection, and application submission line up without a last-minute crunch. And if you're still building foundational familiarity with the credential itself before diving into blueprint weights, the primer at What Is MHP Certification? is a useful starting point, alongside MHP Training for a look at how supervised clinical experience typically gets structured.

Whatever stage of preparation you're at, running timed practice questions that mirror the real mix of single-answer, matching, choose-all-that-apply, and shared-stem formats is one of the highest-leverage things you can do before test day. You can start building that habit now over at the main practice test platform, which is built around the same nine-domain structure covered here.

Frequently Asked Questions