The 2026 test delivery software split the exam day into more blocks, each shorter. The content and the total length did not change. For studying, this is a small adjustment rather than a rethink, but it is one worth actually making rather than assuming it does not matter.
Match your practice to the new shape
Most question banks let you choose how many items go in a block. Set that to match the exam rather than leaving it at whatever the default is.
This is not fussiness. Pacing is a trained reflex, and it is trained by the conditions you rehearse. Someone who has spent three months doing blocks of forty has an internal clock calibrated to a checkpoint that arrives at question twenty. Sitting an exam where the block ends at question twenty means that reflex fires at the wrong moment all day.
What gets easier
A bad stretch is cheaper. Under the old structure a block that fell apart cost an hour and left you carrying it. Now the reset arrives sooner.
The pacing sum is simpler. Twenty items in thirty minutes is easy to check against at the halfway point without doing arithmetic under pressure.
For anyone whose weakness is rumination after a hard question, the shorter unit is a genuine help. The damage from one bad question is usually the three that follow, and a block boundary interrupts that.
What gets harder
More transitions. Every block start costs a little attention while you settle, and there are now more of them. If you are slow to find rhythm, practise the start of a block specifically: the first two or three questions after a break, done deliberately rather than drifted into.
More decision points about breaks. The allowance did not grow, but the number of opportunities to spend it did. Left to the moment, most people will take a short break at more boundaries than the budget allows and then find themselves rushed later in the day.
Decide the plan in advance. Something like a short pause after every second or third block and one longer break around the middle, written down before the day rather than improvised during it.
What does not change
Review time. The rule that review should take roughly as long as the questions did is about how learning works, not about block length. Two short blocks still need the same careful walk through each error afterwards.
Nor does the daily volume that is actually sustainable. Two or three blocks with full review was a realistic ceiling before, and dividing the same questions into smaller units does not create extra hours.
A practical setup
Run your practice as several short blocks in sequence rather than one long one, with a brief pause between them, then review the whole set together. That rehearses both the block rhythm and the stamina across a sequence, which is where the real exam gets hard.
If your bank reports by system and discipline rather than as a single figure, the combined review is more useful, because a pattern across several short blocks is easier to see than within one. QBankly breaks results down that way, which suits the new structure reasonably well.
Do not overthink it
This is a change to the container, not the contents. The exam asks the same questions, in the same number, over the same hours. If your preparation was working, the only thing that needs adjusting is the block length setting and your break plan.
Frequently asked questions
Should I still do multiple blocks back to back?
Yes, and it matters more now. Stamina is built across the day rather than within a block, so several short blocks in sequence is closer to the real thing than one long one.
Does shorter mean I should go faster?
No. The time per item is broadly similar. What changes is that the pacing checkpoint arrives sooner, which makes it easier to notice you are behind.