ATDH timing strategy — how do you manage all 4 sections without running out of time?
I'm taking the ATDH in 5 weeks and my biggest issue right now is timing. My practice scores are decent — around 73% overall — but I keep running out of time on the Reading Comprehension section and rushing through the last 10 questions. The Natural Sciences section feels fine at around 78%, but it eats up too much of my mental energy early in the sitting.
I've been using an ATDH Practice Test to simulate full-length sittings, which has helped me spot the pacing issues, but I'm still not sure how to fix them. Does anyone know if the section order is fixed or if you can jump around during the exam?
Currently studying about 90 minutes a day, 6 days a week, and I feel like I'm making progress but slowly. If anyone who's been through this recently has advice on what really pushed their score over the line, I'd love to hear specifics.
5 weeks is enough time. I crammed the final 2 weeks hard at 2 hours a day after a lighter prep period and still scored a 76%. If you're at 73% on practice you mostly need to stop the time bleeds, not rebuild your knowledge base.
I passed with a 79% after 7 weeks of prep at about 80 minutes a day. Natural Sciences was my strongest section too but I deliberately paced myself slowly on the first 5 questions to settle my nerves, then picked up speed through the rest.
The section order is fixed when I took it — you can't jump around. I'd focus on building speed in Reading Comprehension specifically; try doing 3 to 4 timed RC sections per week as standalone drills rather than always doing full tests.
If RC is dragging you down, try practicing with a hard 90-second-per-question cap. Sounds brutal but it forced me to stop re-reading paragraphs twice and just commit to my first interpretation, which was usually right anyway.