Day 14 — Dress Rehearsal
Plan
Date: Mon Sep 21, 2026 · Mode: strict exam conditions
Papers: paper-09-FULL.md and paper-10-FULL.md — 68 questions, 90 minutes, pass mark 47 each
The last day. Two full-length papers under conditions as close to the real exam as you can make them, then the cheatsheet, then stop.
Nothing new gets learned today. The purpose is to have already sat this exam twice before you sit it for real tomorrow morning — the format, the length, and the specific tiredness that arrives around question 50.
Timing
| Block | Time | What |
|---|---|---|
| Warm-up | 15 min | final-review-cheatsheet.md, skim only |
| Paper 09 | 90 min | Full length. Strict. No pauses, no lookups, phone in another room. |
| Grade 09 | 60 min | paper-09-FULL-answers.md |
| Break | 90 min | Proper break. Eat. Go outside. |
| Paper 10 | 90 min | Full length, same conditions |
| Grade 10 | 60 min | paper-10-FULL-answers.md |
| Debrief | 20 min | Fill in debrief.md |
| Final read | 20 min | final-review-cheatsheet.md once, properly |
| Stop | — | By 9pm. No exceptions. |
Conditions
Match the real thing as closely as you can: 90 minutes on a visible timer, answers written down, no venv, no docs, no cheatsheet, no phone, no pausing to look one thing up. A rehearsal you interrupted does not tell you what you need to know.
Paper 10 is the harder and more integration-heavy of the two. Sitting it second, tired, is the point.
Pacing plan — rehearse this today, use it tomorrow
68 questions in 90 minutes is about 79 seconds each.
- First pass, ~60 min. Answer everything you know. Anything taking more than 90 seconds gets an answer anyway and a flag — never leave a blank, there is no penalty for a wrong guess.
- Second pass, ~25 min. Return to the flagged questions.
- Buffer, 5 min. Confirm nothing is unanswered.
If the first pass overruns today, that is the single most valuable thing to fix, and you have a second full paper this afternoon to fix it in.
Targets
- ≥47/68 on both papers — the real pass mark.
- ≥52/68 on at least one. A margin above the line on a paper harder than the real exam is what "ready" looks like.
- Finish inside 90 minutes both times, with the second pass actually completed rather than abandoned.
The traps, one last time
Little-endian everywhere · Sampler needs measurements, Estimator must not have
them · observables need apply_layout · primitives require ISA circuits ·
resilience_level is Estimator-only.
Tomorrow — Tue Sep 22, exam day
Cheatsheet for 20 minutes in the morning and nothing else. No new material, no last paper, no re-reading a lesson. You have done the work; tomorrow is just collecting on it.