Planning your preparation backwards from your sitting: twelve weeks, three phases

A plan is built from the date of the exam, not from the first page of a textbook. An example over twelve weeks, to adjust to your diagnostic.

Published on September 27, 2026 · 3 min read

Many candidates open a textbook at page one and work through to the last. The blueprint suggests something else: the domains do not weigh the same, and preparation time is limited. Planning means deciding in advance where the hours will go, then letting the measures correct the plan.

First, the diagnostic

Twenty-five minutes, one question per competency of the blueprint. The diagnostic does not say whether you are ready; it says where to start. A plan built without it spreads the hours at random.

Also choose your exam sitting in your profile: it is the finish line, and the plan reads backwards from it.

The weights decide the order

Part I weighs its six domains as follows:

Half of the exam is clinical care. But a light domain is not to be neglected: the readiness index requires a floor in every domain, because a weakness is not offset by a strength elsewhere. The targets, however, differ: the exam does not ask for the same mastery everywhere.

Three phases, over twelve weeks

Weeks 1 to 4 — cover. One sprint a day, chosen by the platform: first the competencies under their floor, then those where the work pays off most. The time of every answer is measured from the first day, without a visible timer if you do not want one. When a competency falls behind, targeted reinforcement lets you work on it alone.

Weeks 5 to 9 — consolidate and set the pace. The budget is about 81 seconds per question: this is the time to show it. Timed blocks enter the week, with their feedback at the end only. When the same trap comes back, the Réflexes series takes it up. The review is read for time as much as for answers.

Weeks 10 to 12 — get into exam conditions. The mock exams: two hundred questions, 4 h 30, on a reserve you have never seen. The index opens the door when your map is ready; otherwise it names what is left to work on, and that is the plan for the week. Between two mock exams, the sprints return to the competencies that fell behind. The last week consolidates; it opens nothing new.

Fewer than twelve weeks, or more

With less time, shorten the first phase, never the last: exam conditions are learned, and they are not learned the night before. With more time, lengthen the second: that is where mastery becomes a reflex.

Either way, regularity matters more than intensity. Ten questions a day for twelve weeks build more than ten hours in the last week: that is the spacing effect, one of the most solid findings of memory research. It is why a sprint is short and daily.

What the calendar does not decide

No plan says whether you are ready. The readiness index does, after every session — building, progressing, confidence zone — with your work priorities. It decides when to move from one phase to the next, not the date on the calendar. The calendar says how many weeks you have left; the index says what you are making of them.