Attending a live training / review session is optional, and not every category has live training. Live sessions are offered during the winter months (January – April). The review sessions start at about 8:10 a.m. Presenters highlight some of the important information in your training manual. There is a break for lunch. Following some more presentations, an exam proctor from DATCP will give the certification exam. Before you attend, you must do both of the following:

• Register to receive a current edition training manual, and
• Register to attend a specific live session (walk-ins are not permitted, you may not have a seat or test if you do).

These review sessions are not a substitute for reading the manual itself but, rather, supplements the manual by highlighting some of the most important aspects of pesticide use and pest management found in your manual. The manual covers pesticide use in even greater detail and, as a consequence, experience shows that you are more likely to pass the exam if you read and review the training manual before coming to the session. Success of passing the exam is greatly reduced if you don’t read and study the manual. Remember, the tests are written from the manual and the learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter. Attending a training helps to refresh that material. If you are being exposed to the material for the FIRST time at the review, however, it may be hard to commit the material to memory just before the exam.

Benefits of Attending
Higher Success Rate of Passing the Exam: Commercial applicator exam scores show that applicators attending UW-PAT Program review sessions have a 13% greater chance of passing the exam the first time than those who do not attend training.

Highly Rated by Applicators
Surveys show that 99% of the nearly 1,500 commercial applicators who have attended UW-Extension review sessions have said the session was helpful. The same surveys also show that 97% have learned or increased their knowledge in at least one of the 10 subject areas covered during training. About half of the 1,500 attendees were recertifying. Of the recertifying applicators that have attended sessions in the past, 81% have indicated that the sessions have improved.

The optional one-day pesticide applicator training / review sessions, are available in only the following pest control categories (can vary year-to-year).

Private Applicators – go to the Private Applicator Training Sessions page for information on training sessions.
General Farming (100)

Commercial Applicators – go to the Commercial Applicator Training Sessions page for information on training sessions.
Field & Vegetable Crops (1.1)
Forestry (2.0)
Turf & Landscape (3.0)
Right-of-Way (6.0)
Structural (7.1)
Aquatic & Mosquito (5.0)