7.1. Exam Strategy

💡 First Principle: A scenario exam is won by elimination, not recall. Most questions present multiple options that are individually true; your job is to find the one that fits every stated requirement. The filters and traps are your elimination engine — run them, don't reread the stem hoping for certainty.

Time management. You have 100 minutes for roughly 40–60 questions — budget ~1.5–2 minutes each. Scenario and case-study items take longer; simple recall items take seconds, so bank time on the easy ones. Don't let one dense scenario eat five minutes.

Flag-and-return. If a question isn't yielding after ~90 seconds, choose your best-filtered answer, flag it, and move on. Later questions sometimes clarify terminology or jog the right framing. Returning with fresh eyes beats grinding.

Read every requirement clause. The single most common scenario trap is an answer that satisfies most clauses but ignores one ("...and look up the live ticket status" or "...within the EU"). Underline each distinct requirement mentally; an option that misses even one is wrong.

Beta-aware reading. Where a question hinges on a specific preview API surface you're unsure of, fall back to the durable concept (what should the design do) rather than memorized method names — the concepts are stable even where SDK details churn.

⚠️ Exam Trap: Spending equal time on every question. Scenario case studies and quick recall items have wildly different time costs; treating them equally either rushes the hard ones or wastes the easy ones.