Reference
Study Schedule
Goal: PASS (47/68 ≈ 69%). Not mastery — passing. This replaces Initial-Plan.md (which targeted a Jan–Mar window and a topic split that doesn't match the real exam).
Strategy for passing with 10 days:
- The exam is an API exam, not a physics exam. Every day is built around "what does this code print / which call is correct," because that's what's asked.
- Sections 1–5 of syllabus.md are 73% of the marks — days 1–6 hammer those. Getting ~85% of just those sections nearly passes you on its own.
- Every day ends with the question bank for that day; wrong answers get re-done next morning (spaced repetition, 15 min).
- Last 4 days = sample papers under timed conditions. Format familiarity is worth 5+ points.
Daily rhythm (≈4–5 h/day):
| Block | Time | What |
|---|---|---|
| Morning review | 15 min | Redo yesterday's wrong answers |
| Lesson | 90 min | daily-practice-sessions/day-XX/lesson.md + linked docs |
| Coding lab | 60–90 min | Labs inside the lesson — run everything in .venv (source .venv/bin/activate) |
| Question bank | 60 min | question-bank.md, closed-book, then grade with solution-bank.md |
| Log | 5 min | Note weak topics in the day's folder in my-notes.md |
The Plan
Day 1 — Fri Jul 25 · Circuits I: construction & gates (§1.1) — 18% section
daily-practice-sessions/day-01-circuit-basics/
- QuantumCircuit anatomy, registers, all gate methods, measure/barrier/reset, compose/append/inverse, circuit properties (depth, size, count_ops), Bell/GHZ construction.
- Watch: Qiskit cert 2.0: How to Prepare (once, for orientation).
Day 2 — Sat Jul 26 · Circuits II: parameterized, dynamic, transpilation (§1.2–1.4)
daily-practice-sessions/day-02-parameterized-dynamic-transpile/
- Parameter/ParameterVector/assign_parameters; if_test/for_loop/while_loop/switch; generate_preset_pass_manager, optimization levels 0–3, transpiler stages, ISA circuits.
- This day closes out the biggest exam section.
Day 3 — Sun Jul 27 · Quantum operations (§2) — 16% section
daily-practice-sessions/day-03-quantum-operations/
- Pauli & SparsePauliOp (little-endian!), .to_matrix(), Statevector/Operator, gate effects on states, entanglement, gate identities (HZH=X…), expectation values.
- Skim Watrous PDF (artifactory
ebooks/) only where the lesson file says so — do NOT read 498 pages.
Day 4 — Mon Jul 28 · Running circuits (§3) — 15% section
daily-practice-sessions/day-04-run-circuits/
- QiskitRuntimeService, backends, least_busy; job vs batch vs session (memorize the decision table); primitives instantiation, PUBs, broadcasting; local testing with StatevectorSampler & fake backends.
Day 5 — Tue Jul 29 · Sampler primitive (§4) + results (§7a)
daily-practice-sessions/day-05-sampler-results/
- SamplerV2 end-to-end: PUB shapes, BitArray/get_counts/get_bitstrings, data. naming trap, shots; dynamical decoupling & twirling options; job retrieval, statuses, service.job(id).
Day 6 — Wed Jul 30 · Estimator primitive (§5) + error mitigation
daily-practice-sessions/day-06-estimator-mitigation/
- EstimatorV2: PUBs with observables, apply_layout trap, evs/stds; precision vs shots; resilience levels 0/1/2, ZNE (noise_factors/extrapolator), TREX, PEC awareness; suppression vs mitigation.
Day 7 — Thu Jul 31 · Visualization (§6) + OpenQASM (§8)
daily-practice-sessions/day-07-visualization-qasm/
- draw(), plot_histogram, plot_bloch_multivector (entangled ⇒ zero vector), qsphere (color=phase); qasm3 dumps/loads, QASM2 interop, reading QASM programs, REST API awareness.
- Two smaller sections (17% combined) — one day is enough.
Day 8 — Fri Aug 1 · Official sample test + gap day (§7b + weakest areas)
daily-practice-sessions/day-08-official-sample-gaps/
- Morning: official Sample Test (
resource-artifactory/official/C1000-179_SAM_SampleTestQiskitv2.pdf) closed-book, timed 25 min. Grade it. Note: official key for Q16 is disputed — twirling is also applied at resilience 2 (Qiskit docs issue #4298). - Afternoon: re-study your 3 weakest topics from the log + finish §7 odds and ends.
- Evening: Sample Paper 01 (half-length, 45 min).
Day 9 — Sat Aug 2 · Sample papers day 1
- Papers 02, 03, 04, 05 (half-length, 45 min each, timed, closed book). Grade immediately; after each paper, re-read solution explanations for every wrong answer.
- Target: ≥75% by paper 05. Below 70% on any section → redo that day's question bank.
Day 10 — Sun Aug 3 · Sample papers day 2 + full dress rehearsals
- Morning: Papers 06, 07 (half-length).
- Afternoon: Papers 09 and 10 — FULL LENGTH, 68 questions, 90 min, strict timing. These are the dress rehearsals.
- Evening: read
daily-practice-sessions/final-review-cheatsheet.mdonce. Stop by 9pm. Sleep. - (Paper 08 is a spare — use it only if you want a third half-length rep.)
Day 11 — Mon Aug 4 · EXAM DAY
- Morning: cheatsheet only (20 min). No new material.
- Pacing plan: 68 Q / 90 min → flag anything taking >90 s and return later. First pass ~60 min, second pass ~25 min, 5 min buffer.
- Remember the top traps: little-endian everywhere · Sampler needs measurements, Estimator must not have them · observables need
apply_layout· ISA circuits required ·resilience_levelis Estimator-only.
Milestones / abort criteria
- By end of Day 6: question-bank scores ≥70% on days 1–6 material. If not, Day 7 morning becomes review (visualization/QASM can survive on half a day).
- By end of Day 9: ≥75% on half-length papers. If not, Day 10 morning = targeted question-bank redo instead of papers 06–07.
- Official sample test score is your single best predictor — treat anything <70% there as a red alert and rebalance Day 8–9 accordingly.