United States
Hong KongHow to practice lookups
Time your lookups. Work practice questions against the clock with the books, and measure how long each one takes. The target is under a minute, and getting there is a matter of rehearsal rather than reading.
Nobody practices this and it is the skill the exam actually measures.
The drill
Take ten questions you cannot answer from memory. Start a timer. Look each one up. Write down how long each took.
The first session will be humbling. Four minutes a question is normal at the start, and at four minutes you cannot finish the paper.
What to measure
| Metric | Target |
|---|---|
| Time to choose the right book | Under 10 seconds |
| Time to reach the provision | Under 30 seconds |
| Total lookup time | Under a minute |
| Proportion needing a lookup at all | Falling over time |
That last one matters. As you practice, more answers come from memory and the lookups you do need get faster. Both trends are improvement.
When something takes three minutes, do not just find it and move on. Tab it, label it in your own words, and note what you were searching for. The drill is how the index gets built.
Practice the first-pass strategy too
Take a set of 25 mixed questions and do two passes: everything answerable without a book first, then the rest.
Time both passes separately. Knowing that your first pass takes 15 minutes and covers 15 questions tells you exactly how the real paper will divide.
Practice with the actual books
Not a summary, not a course workbook, not a PDF on a laptop. The physical books you will carry into the room, tabbed the way they will be tabbed.
The muscle memory is specific to the object.
Common questions
How do I practice for an open-book exam?
Time your lookups. Work questions against the clock with the actual books and measure how long each takes.
How fast should a lookup be?
Under a minute in total, with under ten seconds to choose the book.
What do I do about a slow lookup?
Tab it and label it in your own words. Slow lookups are missing tabs.
Should I practice the first-pass strategy?
Yes. Two timed passes on a mixed set tell you how the real paper will divide.
Can I practice with a PDF?
Poorly. The muscle memory is specific to the physical books you will carry in, tabbed as they will be.