That’s a tough question. I was told by a former supervisor that practice tests were critical in preparing you. I wasn’t super concerned with the scores per se, but just acclimating to different questions in different content areas and improving over time. I found practice tests to be very helpful just to practice the setting and test environment and engage my recall abilities. I don’t think I would’ve felt ready at all without any practice tests as benchmarks for increased learning. That doesn’t mean you have to get high scores on the practice tests to feel ready, though, as long as your scores are improving as you study—that is a more important factor than the raw scores, I think. Many folks say they get 60s and 70s on practice tests and pass the EPPP.
But yes, some forms of the EPPP will have extremely difficult questions, but the test is scaled differently to make it easier to pass with the harder forms. For some, this means that the questions will look completely different than practice test questions because they’ll assess more esoteric knowledge. Don’t forget there are also 50 test questions in there that won’t be scored because they’re experimental questions they threw in. Some folks find their version more straightforward, some find their version very challenging.
Try not to overthink it too much. I studied until I felt burned out with studying and my anxiety decreased to the point at which I lost interest in reviewing the materials yet again because I felt like I knew it well enough. That was when I knew I was ready. For some, that’s studying for 20-30 hours, 50 hours, or 100+. I hit my “I’m ready” point at 90 or so hours, but I may have overdone it because understudying would’ve been the bigger mistake there.
