the NYC Bridge Exam:
exam timing and pacing

Seconds per question, section by section

108 questions over 138 minutes averages out at about 77 seconds each, and that average describes almost none of this exam. Comfortable in one section, brutal in the next. Knowing which is which before you sit down is most of what pacing practice buys you.

Where it squeezes

Attention to Detail is the tightest section here, at about 73 seconds a question. Written Comprehension is the loosest at roughly 80. Six sections of eighteen questions, none of them under seventy seconds a question. The pressure here is length, not speed.

If you run out of time it will be in attention to detail, and the answer is not to read faster. It is to decide faster. Nothing is deducted for a wrong answer here, so a marked guess and a candidate who has moved on beats a perfect answer that cost two other questions.

What the City publishes, and what is ours

DCAS names 6 abilities for this title. What the notice does not give is a question count or a time limit, for this title or any other. Nobody outside the City has those two numbers, so a site quoting them is quoting a guess.

The 6 sections above are the City's. The 108 questions and the 138 minutes are ours. We picked them so the practice sitting feels like the real thing, and we would rather tell you that than let you assume the City set them.

How to practice the clock

Start with one timed section rather than a full paper. A full sitting tells you your score. A single timed section tells you where the score came from, and here that means finding out what attention to detail feels like at 73 seconds a question.

Then sit all 138 minutes in one go, at least a week before the real one. One sitting, seven lists. It is worth sitting even when no single title on it is the job you actually want.