Lessons · Teaching · planning backwards from the test date
Planning backwards, and practising the weak thing
A study plan for this test has three parts: a diagnostic to find out where you actually are, a schedule that spends most of its time on the weakest section, and a full timed paper near the end to find out whether you can do it under a clock. Most people skip the first and the third and do the middle one on their strongest subject.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by a state certification officer. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
The mathematics section is where most candidates lose, and it is the section people avoid practising, for the ordinary human reason that practising something you are bad at feels bad. A plan exists to overrule that feeling. It is the same argument you will make to a nine-year-old about their times tables, and it is true for the same reason.
How to think about it
Sit one untimed diagnostic before reading anything, and mark it honestly by topic rather than by score. Give the weakest section half your total study time and the other two a quarter each. Two weeks out, sit one full paper under the real clock with no notes, because stamina and timing are separate skills from knowing the material.
Worked example
Diagnostic first, marked by topic: 'geometry 3 of 9' is useful, '58 per cent' is notA percentage tells you how you feel. A topic breakdown tells you what to do tomorrow.
Six weeks, twelve hours a week: six hours on the weak section, three each on the othersHalf and two quarters, which is the split the diagnostic earned rather than the one that feels fair.
Short and often beats long and rare: four evenings of ninety minutes beats one Sunday of six hoursThe same spacing argument this whole product is built on, applied to your own preparation.
One full timed paper two weeks out, then use the remaining two weeks on what it exposedA paper sat the night before tells you something true and leaves no time to act on it.
Your turn
Name the share of study time the weakest section should get.
Give the weakest section of the total study time
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Reading review material and counting it as practice. Reading a page about semicolons produces the feeling of knowing semicolons. Only answering questions about semicolons and marking them produces the knowledge, and the gap between the two is where a month disappears.