Day 10 — Papers 04 & 05
Plan
Date: Thu Sep 17, 2026 · Mode: timed, closed book, no venv
Papers: paper-04.md (operators + dynamic circuits) · paper-05.md (primitives nuance)
Second papers day, same shape as Day 9. Today's pair is the most conceptual of the half-length set: Paper 04 leans on §2 and the dynamic-circuit half of §1, Paper 05 on the fine print of §4 and §5.
Both papers: 34 questions, 45 minutes, pass mark 24.
Timing
| Block | Time | What |
|---|---|---|
| Morning review | 15 min | Redo yesterday's misses from day-09.../debrief.md |
| Paper 04 | 45 min | Strict timer, closed book |
| Grade 04 | 45 min | paper-04-answers.md |
| Break | 60 min | Away from the desk |
| Paper 05 | 45 min | Strict timer, closed book |
| Grade 05 | 45 min | paper-05-answers.md |
| Debrief | 15 min | Fill in debrief.md |
What each paper is testing
Paper 04 — operators and dynamic circuits. SparsePauliOp label ordering,
.to_matrix(), Statevector/Operator behaviour, gate identities, and
expectation values, crossed with if_test/for_loop/while_loop/switch.
The characteristic miss is reading a Pauli label left-to-right when Qiskit reads
it right-to-left.
Paper 05 — primitives nuance. SamplerV2 and EstimatorV2 at the level of
detail the exam actually asks: PUB shapes and broadcasting, BitArray access,
data.<creg> naming, precision vs shots, evs/stds, and which options belong
to which primitive. Questions here look almost identical to ones you have
already answered correctly — the difference is one keyword.
Targets
- ≥25/34 (74%) on both. One better than Day 9; the trend matters more than either number on its own.
- Red flag: no improvement over Day 9. Two flat days means paper practice has stopped teaching you anything and the gap is knowledge, not exam technique. Day 11 exists for exactly this — take it seriously rather than reaching for Paper 06 early.
- Sections 1–5 are 73% of the exam. A weak §6/§7/§8 is survivable; a weak §1–§5 is not.