Stage 6 Pacing, Decision & Lookup-Triage Strategy
The pacing math
100 questions / 90 minutes = 54 seconds per question on average.
That does not mean every question must take exactly 54 seconds. Easy recognition items should create time for a smaller number of harder discrimination/lookup items.
Checkpoint targets
| Block | Target time | Average pace |
|---|---|---|
| 10 questions | ~9:00 | 54 sec |
| 25 questions | ~22:30 | 54 sec |
| 50 questions | ~45:00 | 54 sec |
| 100 questions | 90:00 | 54 sec |
Three decision categories
This comes directly from the Mastery Lab open-book strategy.
1. Know immediately
Use memory and elimination for: - core concepts; - major roles; - high-weight distinctions; - familiar processes/sequences; - obvious best-answer clues.
Target behavior: answer and move. Do not spend 45 seconds looking up something you already know.
2. Verify quickly
A lookup can be rational when the uncertainty is narrow: - exact wording/list member; - less-common metric; - precise DMBOK distinction; - a detail you know where to locate quickly.
Target behavior: use a strict lookup budget. If the source is not found quickly, return to reasoned elimination.
3. Do not chase
Do not burn minutes searching for: - a vaguely remembered paragraph with no known location; - confirmation of an answer already strongly supported by the stem; - an obscure detail when three options can already be eliminated; - speculative nuance not required by the wording.
Target behavior: choose the best supported answer, flag if the interface allows, and preserve time.
Internal first-pass method
This is a study tactic, not an official DAMA instruction.
- Read the stem for the decision word: BEST, FIRST, MOST, primary, governance, business, logical, physical, current, target, etc.
- Name the topic before reading options when possible.
- Eliminate by deciding clue, not by which option sounds sophisticated.
- Commit if one option is clearly best.
- If two remain, ask: What changed fact would make the other one correct? This often exposes the decisive qualifier.
- Lookup only if the uncertainty is narrow and the location is known.
Changed-answer rule
Change an answer only with new evidence—a stem clue you initially missed, a source lookup, or a corrected conceptual rule. Do not change because a simple answer suddenly feels “too easy.”
Track: - initial answer; - final answer; - whether changed; - evidence for change; - outcome.
Confidence calibration
Use 1–5: - 5: immediate and can explain all distractors. - 4: strong answer; minor hesitation. - 3: two plausible options; deciding clue found. - 2: weak elimination / would verify if cheap. - 1: guess or major knowledge gap.
A confidence-5 wrong answer deserves more repair priority than a confidence-1 wrong answer because it signals a faulty rule, not mere uncertainty.
What to record after every timed set
- score;
- total time;
- unanswered;
- questions >75 sec;
- lookups attempted / successful;
- answer changes and whether they helped;
- confidence for each question;
- error type: knowledge, vocabulary, confusion pair, role, sequence, missed qualifier, misread stem, poor elimination, overthinking, changed answer, time pressure, source-lookup failure.
Do not build personalized Artifact 08 from this template until actual results exist.