What SMSTS score do you need to pass? Breaking down the numbers

Late to this thread but wanted to add — the practice test section trips up more people than any other part. If you're scoring below 75% there in practice, treat it as your only focus for at least a week before moving on. Breadth at the expense of depth in that area is a common mistake.

This is exactly the thread I needed. I sit for my SMSTS in 4 weeks and have been second-guessing my prep. The practice test area you mentioned is definitely my weak spot. Thanks for the honest breakdown.

The part about reviewing wrong answers thoroughly is so underrated. Most people just move on after getting something wrong. Going back to understand the concept is what actually builds retention for the SMSTS.

Honestly I almost didn't bother sitting it. I'd done a handful of practice tests and kept landing in the low 70s, right around that 72% line, and every time I thought one more bad day and I'm done. It messed with my head more than the actual material did. But I kept grinding the mock questions, mostly the ones on legislation and risk assessments because that's where I bled the most marks.

What turned it around for me was treating the practice scores as a warning system, not a verdict. Once I was consistently hitting low 80s on the mocks I stopped panicking. The real thing felt calmer than any practice run, weirdly. So if you're sat there in the 70s thinking you're not cut out for it, you probably are. Don't read too much into one bad score. Just keep showing up to the questions and let the average climb.

Yeah I failed my first go, got something like 68% and honestly I walked in way too confident. My problem wasn't the knowledge, it was that I didn't practice the timing or the wording of the questions. The real exam phrases things differently than you expect and I kept second guessing myself on the multiple choice bits.

Second time around I changed how I prepped completely. I stopped just reading the notes over and over and started doing full timed practice tests until I was hitting low 80s consistently, then I'd go back and actually understand why I got things wrong instead of just memorising the right answer. The risk assessment section is where I lost most of my marks first time, so I drilled that hard. Passed comfortably on attempt two. If you're scraping 72 on your practice runs you're cutting it too fine, give yourself a buffer.

This is exactly the mindset shift I needed. I failed my first attempt because I was doing flashcards and just drilling the right answers over and over. Didn't help at all when the real questions came at me from a different angle. What actually worked was going back through every wrong answer and asking myself why it was wrong, not just flagging it and moving on. The smsts/questions/health and welfare 3 set was a good one for this since a lot of the distractors look really plausible if you haven't thought through the reasoning.

Once I started doing that, my practice scores jumped from around 68% to consistently hitting 78-80%. It's slower. Way slower. But you actually understand the material instead of just pattern-matching answers you've seen before, and that's what gets you through the real thing.