A Seven-Day NYC TLC Exam Study Plan

Before day one: book the exam properly

If you have not already scheduled the exam, do it before you start studying, and place it early enough in your 90-day application window that a retake would still fit. This is the highest-value fifteen minutes in the whole plan.

Also decide your exam language now. If you will sit it in Spanish or Bengali, every practice session in this plan should be in that language.

Day one: a cold, full-length, timed test

Sit a full 80-question timed test before studying anything. Do it in one sitting, with no notes, exactly as if it were the real thing.

Then write down your score for each of the five categories. That table is the plan for the rest of the week — not a generic syllabus, but your actual gaps. Almost everyone is surprised by at least one of the numbers.

Days two and three: your two weakest categories

Take the two lowest scores from day one and spend these days entirely on them, in category mode rather than full tests.

Work in blocks: a set of questions, then read every explanation — including for the questions you answered correctly. Keep a written list of every figure or rule you guessed at. That list, not the questions themselves, is what you revise.

If one of your weak areas is rules and regulations, this is where the biggest, fastest gains are available, because the material is mostly specific figures that reward memorisation directly.

Day four: the next two categories, plus your first re-test

Move to the third and fourth weakest categories and do the same thing. Then re-test one of the day-two categories.

The gap matters. Re-testing a category two days later, rather than immediately, is what tells you whether the material actually stuck or whether you were still holding it in short-term memory. Anything that does not survive the gap goes back on the list.

Day five: a full timed mixed test, and an honest review

Sit another full-length, timed, mixed test. Compare the category breakdown against day one.

Expect the weakest categories to have moved a lot and something else to have slipped slightly — that is normal, not a setback. The purpose of this test is to check two things: whether the gains held under mixed conditions, and whether your pacing works. If you finished with time to spare, good. If you were rushing at the end, pacing is now part of what you practise.

Day six: geography, pacing and a second full test

Geography is the one section that rewards frequent short exposure, so it should have been running in the background all week. Today it gets a dedicated block, focused on connections rather than lists: crossings, airports, expressways and Manhattan's numbering logic.

Then sit one more full timed test. If your score is comfortably above the pass mark on both of the last two tests, you are in good shape. If one category is still dragging you down, tomorrow's light session belongs to it.

Day seven: light revision, then stop

The day before the exam is not for new material, and it is definitely not for a fourth full test. Read your list of previously-guessed figures once, run a short category session on your weakest area, and stop early.

Get the logistics ready instead: confirm the test centre location and time, work out your travel with time to spare, and sort out the identification you need to bring. Arriving unhurried is worth more marks than an extra hour of revision.

• Day 1 — cold full-length timed test; record scores by category.
• Days 2-3 — the two weakest categories, in category mode, with explanations.
• Day 4 — the next two categories, plus a re-test of a day-two category.
• Day 5 — full timed mixed test; compare against day one; check pacing.
• Day 6 — geography block, then a second full timed test.
• Day 7 — light revision of your guessed-figures list, then logistics and rest.

If you have longer than a week

The same sequence works over a longer period — diagnose, drill the weak areas, prove it with timed mixed tests. Extra time is best spent adding more re-tests with longer gaps between them, rather than adding more reading.

The readiness signal does not change with the calendar: several consecutive full-length mixed tests comfortably above 70%, with no single category collapsing.