Pacing a 40-minute ESAT module

Why 89 seconds isn't a plan

Forty minutes for 27 questions works out at about 89 seconds a question. That's worth knowing as a warning, but you can't pace yourself by it. One question might take 25 seconds and another might be worth 140. What you're practising is telling them apart early enough.

Think of your first pass through the paper as collecting the marks that are there for you. Holding out on one stubborn question earns nothing extra, and it takes time from questions you could have answered.

A rough split of the 40 minutes

It helps to think of the module in three stretches. Use them as a guide, and adjust them once you have a few of your own mocks to look at.

In the opening stretch, early questions can feel easy, and that's when it's tempting to check every line twice. Do the check that matters, such as the sign or the units, then choose and move on. If something stalls this early, flag it straight away. A question you leave at minute 4 can still be picked up at minute 34 with a clearer head.

• Minutes 0 to 12: pick up the quick marks and don't over-check early questions.
• Minutes 12 to 30: keep a steady pace and flag anything unresolved quickly.
• Minutes 30 to 40: finish the first pass, then go back to the flags most likely to give you a mark.

Where you should be at minute 20

Halfway through the time, an even pace would put you at about question 13 or 14. If you want to finish your first pass with five to seven minutes left, you need to be a little further on, nearer question 15 or 16. Those numbers are just the arithmetic. Your own mocks will show where you tend to be.

At minute 20 you want to be moving steadily, with a few questions flagged and an answer selected for each of them. If you're well behind, reading faster won't help. Look at your flags. Being behind often means one or two questions took four minutes each, and the change to make is moving on from those sooner.

If you're well ahead, check you haven't been skimming. Slow down enough to read each question fully, especially the last line, which tells you exactly what to find.

Choosing an answer before you move on

A wrong answer costs nothing in the ESAT, so a blank has no value at all. Choosing an answer before you flag keeps a chance at the mark and leaves you free to get on with the questions you can solve.

Even when you can't solve a question, the options can help. Are some positive and some negative? Are they in order of size? Do the units rule any out? Does an extreme case, like a mass of zero or a very large distance, make one impossible? A choice made for a weak reason still beats a blank.

The last five minutes

Aim to reach question 27 with five to seven minutes left. When you get there, go back to your flags in a sensible order. Start with the ones where you'd already crossed out options or got partway through a method. Those are the most likely to turn into marks in a minute or two.

Leave the questions you guessed from nothing until those are done. Starting a hard question from the beginning with four minutes left tends to end with the same guess and no time for anything else.

In the final minute, stop starting new work. Check that every question has an answer selected, including any you skipped without flagging. If you were confident about an answer when you chose it, leave it as it is.

Checking your pacing after a mock

When you mark a mock, look at three numbers as well as your score: questions you got right, questions you got right but slowly, and questions you got wrong after spending a long time on them. The last two are where your pacing improves fastest.

Noetra's timing view is built to show that difference. Say you got 7 out of 9 on a topic but every answer was slow: that topic needs speed work. If you got 3 out of 9 and answered quickly each time, you need to go back over the content. Those two topics need different plans for the next week.