Time management during NCCAOM exam — how fast are you supposed to go?
Did a full timed practice test today and ran out of time with 12 questions left. Definitely have a time management problem.
The (NCCAOM) National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine exam has 100 questions and the time limit is 125 minutes by my understanding. That works out to roughly 59 seconds per question — which should be doable except I keep stopping on "NCCAOM exam" type questions.
My bad habit: I over-analyze questions I'm unsure about rather than making a best guess and moving on.
Any strategies that worked for you? Specifically:
- Do you go through once and skip hard questions to come back to?
- How many questions on "NCCAOM" should I expect — is it worth the time investment?
- Is the real exam usually easier to pace than practice tests, or harder?
I'm good enough on the content, I think — it's purely pacing that's failing me.
Passed NCCAOM 6 months ago. Happy to share what I remember.
On the "NCCAOM exam" stuff specifically — I found the practice tests here were actually harder than the real exam on those questions. Which was great because going in I felt more prepared than I needed to be.
The time pressure is real though. I came in with maybe 8 minutes to spare and that was after skipping the ones I wasn't sure about and coming back.
Don't try to cram the night before. Seriously. Last-minute stress makes you second-guess things you actually know.
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