Just passed my BMS exam — here's what actually helped

The 6-week timeline is almost exactly what my instructor recommended too. I'm currently at week 4 and feeling decent about the BMS - Bachelor of Mortuary Science material but CMT - Certified Mortuary Technician topics are still shaky. Did you find the practice tests here covered both subjects pretty thoroughly?

Thanks for this post — bookmarking it for motivation when I hit a wall during studying. The point about understanding reasoning over memorizing is huge. I started doing that recently and my practice test scores jumped about 12 points.

Congratulations!! This is so encouraging. Can I ask — how many practice tests did you take total before the real exam? I'm about 3 weeks out and trying to figure out how much more practice I need.

I also passed using a similar approach! The scenario-based questions are where most people struggle. One tip I'd add: read the entire question before looking at the answers. It sounds obvious but under exam pressure you start scanning for keywords and miss the nuance.

Honestly the biggest thing that turned it around for me was changing how I used practice questions. For the longest time I'd take a quiz, see my score, and just glance at the right answers and move on. That doesn't stick. What actually worked was sitting with every question I got wrong and figuring out why the wrong choice was wrong, not just why the correct one was correct. With BMS so much of it is close calls. Two answers look almost identical and the difference comes down to one detail about embalming chemistry or a legal requirement or proper procedure.

Once I started treating the wrong options as the real lesson, things clicked. You start seeing the traps they set and the same patterns show up over and over on the actual exam. I've been doing funeral work for three years and I still got humbled by some of those distractor answers. So my advice is don't just chase the green checkmark. Slow down, read why each wrong answer is a trap, and explain it back to yourself like you're teaching someone. That alone bumped my scores way more than rereading notes ever did. Good luck, you've got this.