Time management during ITE exam — how fast are you supposed to go?

The honest answer is: it depends a lot on your background.

If you're already working in this field, the ITE exam is testing knowledge you probably use daily. The "ITE" sections will feel familiar.

If you're coming in from outside, give yourself an extra 2 weeks and really focus on the practical application questions.

The practice tests here are worth doing repeatedly — I did the same test bank multiple times and found new questions I'd missed each time.

Coming back to this thread because I just passed my ITE yesterday. Everything people said about the ite exam section is spot on — that was the hardest part for me too. For anyone still studying, don't skip the applied questions in the ite pulmonary and critical care questions and answers. They're the closest to what you'll actually see.

For anyone finding this thread later: the ITE is passable with consistent effort, even working full time. I studied 62 minutes a day for 12 weeks. The ite pulmonary and critical care questions and answers kept me honest about where my gaps were instead of just drilling things I already knew.

Honestly I almost quit halfway through my prep because I kept running out of time on practice tests and figured I just wasn't fast enough. What actually helped me was stopping trying to "manage" time and just getting comfortable with moving on. If you don't know it in 30 seconds, mark it and go. You can always come back and most of those flagged questions end up clicking when you revisit them with fresh eyes.

I passed with a few minutes to spare and I still left like 8 questions flagged at the end. The thing nobody tells you is that the anxiety about the clock slows you down more than actually being slow. Just trust your first instinct more, it's usually right, and don't spiral on the hard ones. It gets better the more full-length practice tests you grind through.

Just wanted to share a quick update since I've been dealing with the same issue. I took a practice set last week and scored 74%, which I'm cautiously optimistic about — my goal is to sit the real exam in early August. What helped me most was drilling by subspecialty instead of doing giant mixed blocks, especially for trickier stuff. If you haven't tried it, free ite pulmonology questions are a solid place to start since pulm tends to show up a lot.

On the timing thing, 60 seconds sounds brutal but it's actually doable once you stop second-guessing yourself. I started flagging anything that took more than 45 seconds and just moving on. You build speed faster than you'd think.

I've been in the same boat honestly. Just finished a 129-question timed block yesterday and hit 112 before time ran out, which was actually an improvement from my first attempt where I only got through like 95. Current score is hovering around 58th percentile so not terrible but definitely not where I want to be.

Planning to sit the real thing in October so I've got a couple months to tighten up the pacing. What's helped me most is not second-guessing after the first 30 seconds on a question — if I don't know it I mark it and move on. It sounds obvious but I wasn't actually doing it until recently.