The Best Study Guides and Books to Buy.
Here I will list and review some study materials for the exam. As a disclaimer, I am Amazon affiliate, so I will get a commission if you decide to buy anything through these links. This will help me keep this site going. However, I will give an honest review of everything and I am in no way obligated to give any item a positive review.
Quick Review Cards for Medical Laboratory Science by Polansky
Overall Rating:
(5/5)
These cards were by far my favorite tool to review my knowledge for the ASCP exam. To note: these cards are in black and white and feature mainly tables of information, not Q&As.
Organization:
(5/5)
These review cards are organized into 9 sections: Laboratory Operations, Clinical Chemistry, Clinical Microbiology, Hematology, Immunology, Immunohematology (Blood Bank), Urinalysis & Body Fluids, Molecular Diagnostics, and Management & Education. Having these are small cards on a jump ring allows for easy card removal. When studying, you can remove sections at a time for study or remove cards you are already confident on.
I would recommend buying some colorful sticky tabs to easily separate the sections.
Value for Money:
(5/5)
As of April 2026, these review cards cost about $70. As far as ASCP review materials go, that is fairly average. They cover a multitude of subjects with useful tables and charts.
Purpose:
Review
Learn
These are quick review cards, meaning they are not suitable for learning the material if you don’t already know it. However, it is really good at helping you discover what you don’t know. Don’t try to memorize these cards. Instead, use them as a tool. The weeks before I took my test I would spend hours with these cards laid out on the floor, just going through and reviewing everything. Whenever I encountered something I didn’t recall, I knew that was what I needed to study.
For:
Lab Techs
Students
The format of these cards makes them very useful for students but impractical for lab techs. There are nearly 600 cards held together by a large keyring, making them too unwieldy for the bench.