Online Exam Break Strategies?
Hi All, I am queuing up to take PPD online next week (and PDD online shortly after) and am wondering what strategies have worked for others regarding the timing of breaks and the inability to revisit seen questions after returning from the break?
I felt like I had a good system back when taking the exams I person and so now I’m looking to see how best to refine my test taking plan in light of the updates. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!
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- I’d try to not take a break. If you have the stamina for 3 or 4 hours of continuous test-taking, go for it. Many universities have final exams of approximately that duration, so college students do it all the time. That way you can keep your access to old questions while simultaneously maintaining your access to the case studies. It’s remarkable how often a case study or subsequent question can help you on a previous test item that stumped you. But this is a game-time-decision: you know yourself, and if during the exam you feel like the cognitive benefit of a stretch/food/clear-your-head break outweighs the benefit of using subsequent problems to solve prior ones—then be sure you haven’t left any questions that you started unanswered. . . and take that break without feeling guilty.
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I am curious to hear strategies too! I felt like this change really up-ended my typical approach, but after taking my first online exam, I realized that you can still apply the same strategies - just scaled down to a portion of the questions.
I saw someone else mention this on the forum, and gave it a try for my recent online PPD exam: Divide the questions into "sub-sets" based on how many breaks you plan to take, and treat each sub-set of questions like its own mini-exam. You can include Case Study questions within this group if you want to view the resources (I viewed and answered the first question in each of the Case Studies during my first sub-set). Give yourself a goal for the amount of time and number of questions in that sub-set. Within that sub-set you can flag and go back, or use your typical strategies. Then when you are ready to take your break, you will feel confident to "lock-in" your answers AND you will know that you have an equal amount of time to spend on the next sub-set of questions.
This is the timeline I created for myself for my PPD exam:
* the time in the boxes is a countdown and formatted the same way you see the the time in the exam
Pros: I got through every question and felt that I answered them to the best of my ability. I was able to take two breaks - which allowed me to snack, use the restroom, stretch - and it really helped me keep my energy and focus. This timeline might be a little overkill for some people, but it helps me focus and feel less nervous to have a plan. And I passed the exam!
Cons: I felt like I was looking at the clock a lot, and was stressed about staying on schedule. It felt a little weird to answer only one question for each of the Case Studies at the beginning - and I didn't get any benefit from viewing the resources there. I might suggest starting with the regular questions, and only open a Case Study if you hit a question that might benefit from a resource. (That being said, the questions are designed to be answer-able on their own, so the resources probably won't help). Because I took two breaks, they both felt a little bit rushed. I might recommend taking one break. (Some people talk about taking no breaks at all - which I could not handle, haha).
A note on the Prometric break protocol: To take your break you will need to chat with your proctor (you might need to notify them to get their attention), then click "Break", then hold up your webcam to show the blue "On Break" screen. You may then leave to take your break. When you return, your proctor might be waiting for you already and speak to you immediately to start your check-in process (if not, I assume you will need to notify them via chat again). You must go through a quick version of the check-in process each time. This is my experience, but even within the one exam, there were slight variations on the two breaks, so I don't know if they have one clear protocol on their end - Just stay flexible, calm, and realize that the check-out/check-in process will take a few minutes.
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I found the other post that informed my PPD strategy. Brandon's comment was really helpful:
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