This ARRT cheat sheet distills the ARRT Radiography Content Specifications into a printable rundown of the facts the exam tests most. It's a premium cheat sheet built by Capital Prep — the one premium prep we trust — and it's yours free. Reinforce it with the rest of your free ARRT toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
ARRT exam at a glance
- Questions: 230 total (200 scored + 30 unscored pilot)
- Time: 230 minutes (about 3 hours 50 minutes)
- Passing score: Scaled score of 75 on a 1–99 scale (not a percentage)
- Cost: ≈ $225 primary-pathway application fee (dated anchor — verify at arrt.org)
What’s on the ARRT cheat sheet
- Procedures / Positioning (33%) — 66 scored questions — thorax and abdomen, extremities, and head/spine/pelvis landmarks, projections, and central-ray angles; the single largest area.
- Image Production (25.5%) — 51 scored questions — kVp vs mAs, image quality, grids and scatter control, SID/OID, and digital exposure index.
- Safety (25%) — 50 scored questions — photoelectric vs Compton, SI radiation units, ALARA and the cardinal principles, the inverse square law, and NCRP dose limits.
- Patient Care (16.5%) — 33 scored questions — ethics and consent, standard and transmission-based precautions, vital signs, and contrast media reactions.
How to use it in your final week
- Front-load Procedures (66 of 200 scored questions) and Image Production (51) — positioning landmarks and kVp/mAs move the most points, so review those blocks of the sheet first.
- Memorize the radiation-protection numbers cold: occupational limit 50 mSv/yr, fetal 5 mSv over pregnancy, minimum total filtration 2.5 mm Al above 70 kVp, and the inverse square law (double the distance = one quarter the dose).
- Read the sheet the morning of your exam for a final pass on the memory hooks — SI units (gray, sievert), the cardinal principles (time, distance, shielding), and the barium-vs-water-soluble-contrast rule.
- Pair each review pass with a short timed practice set — 230 questions in 230 minutes is about a minute each, so rehearse that pace instead of cramming facts in isolation.
The cheat sheet is your review layer — your ARRT practice test drives the exam-readiness ring at the top of this page. Download it, review, then take a full practice exam (or drill with the study guide and flashcards) to see where you stand.
ARRT cheat sheet FAQ
Yes — the ARRT Radiography cheat sheet downloads as a PDF with no account and no sign-up. It sits alongside Career Employer's free ARRT practice test, study guide, and flashcards, so your whole radiography toolkit is free.
It condenses the highest-yield facts across the four official ARRT content categories — Patient Care, Safety, Image Production, and Procedures — into a fast quick-reference: the cardinal principles, the inverse square law, NCRP dose limits, kVp vs mAs, contrast rules, and positioning landmarks.
You need a scaled score of 75 on a 1–99 scale. Because ARRT equates difficulty across exam forms, 75 is not 75 percent correct — it reflects a fixed standard, and there is no penalty for guessing, so answer every one of the 200 scored questions.
It is built from the current ARRT Radiography Content Specifications plus NCRP dose limits, and reviewed against the ARRT blueprint. Treat fees and any dated figures as anchors and confirm them on arrt.org before your exam.
No — the sheet is a review and final-week cram layer, not a substitute for working positioning and radiation-safety questions. Use it to lock in facts, then take a full weighted practice test to build your readiness score before booking your date.
References
- 1.American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT). “Radiography Content Specifications.” arrt.org, 2026. ↑
- 2.American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT). “Exam Duration & Length.” arrt.org, 2026. ↑
- 3.American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT). “Application Fees.” arrt.org, 2026. ↑
- 4.National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements (NCRP). “Limitation of Exposure to Ionizing Radiation (Report No. 116).” ncrponline.org, 2026. ↑
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