Time management during PANCE exam — how fast are you supposed to go?

The honest answer is: it depends a lot on your background.

If you're already working in this field, the PANCE exam is testing knowledge you probably use daily. The "PANCE" sections will feel familiar.

If you're coming in from outside, give yourself an extra 2 weeks and really focus on the practical application questions.

The practice tests here are worth doing repeatedly — I did the same test bank multiple times and found new questions I'd missed each time.

Coming back to this thread because I just passed my PANCE yesterday. Everything people said about the smarty pance section is spot on — that was the hardest part for me too. For anyone still studying, don't skip the applied questions in the pance endocrine system. They're the closest to what you'll actually see.

Failed my first attempt, came back to this thread for motivation. The advice about really understanding why wrong answers are wrong — not just memorizing the right ones — is the single best piece of advice I've seen for the PANCE. Rebuilding my prep around that principle now. Using pance test for the concept review.

I work full time and studied for the PANCE mostly at night after my kid went to bed, so I get the time crunch. Honestly the per-question math fooled me too. On paper 57 seconds sounds like plenty, but it isn't really, because some of those questions have a paragraph of history and labs you've gotta actually read before you can even start thinking. The trick that saved me was practicing in the same messy conditions I'd actually be taking it in. I'd set a timer for 30 questions, no pausing, no looking things up, even when I was tired. That's the part that mattered. Doing untimed questions when you're fresh teaches you almost nothing about pace.

The biggest thing though was learning to let go of the hard ones. I used to sit and stew on a question I wasn't sure about and that's exactly how you end up with 14 left and no clock. Now I flag it, pick my best guess, and move. You can come back if there's time. Most of the time my first instinct was right anyway. Give yourself a hard rule, like if you've spent more than 90 seconds you commit and go. It feels wrong at first but it builds up a buffer for the long ones. You're not aiming to nail every question perfectly, you're aiming to finish with your brain still working.