Bumping this up for 2019 takers. Interesting to see the post-exam reaction from 2018. Some of these folks left 12+ points blanks on the AM and still came out on top. Varying opinions on the AM from fairly easy to soul crushing. Really can’t have many holes in your knowledge going in.
as a retaker who left 38 points blank:
as far as points left blank, i think the “panic threshold” is around 20 points. Which is pretty much an entire question. IMO you can leave up to 20 points completely BLANK and still pass, assuming 2 things:
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your average score on essay mocks is around a 60% (and i mean a REAL 60, not an inflated 60 because youre grandma grading yourself)
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Your MC score is at least a 42/60. which is probably a slightly above median score for all candidates, and a below median score for passers.
60% x (160 points that you answered) equals 96/180 on the essay. add that to a 42/60 on the MC (which is 129/180) and you end up with a 62.5% total score, which, although you want more breathing room than that, is most likely a fairly decent pass.
Wow, 38 points blank? You were either taking a dare, like to live dangerously, or just not prepared for the exam :)…
Let’s juts say u like to live dangerously!
i screwed the pooch.
last year I spent 50/50 of my study time on MC/vs Essay (dumb)
I also didnt truly finish reading the material until 30 days prior to gameday (lazy)
and (the dumbest of all) i only practiced 2 full timed mocks in 180 minute conditions. all the other mocks i would do question by question, as in, i would time myself like 24 or 20 minutes at a time, depening on how long the question was (very very dumb)
Doing a question a time can enhance knowledge, so I wouldn’t dismiss that, but of course doing 10 questions in a row in 3h is a different beast. For me, by the time I get to like the 4th or 5th question, I really want to take a break…but I can’t. After that your performance goes downhill, you are not reading the question properly (you realize you miss out some info when you grade yourself).
So it comes down to quality vs. quantity. Do you want to, say do 8 questions properly, or complete all 10 questions when your brain is all mashed up and desperately needs a break?
I have two friends who don’t know each other leave 3 questions each blank on the AM exam last year and they both passed. I believe they would have been diligent in answering the other questions and both did well on the PM.