In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with IStructE before applying.
Plan your time as carefully as your structural solution. Use the marks available to decide how many minutes to allocate to each section.
Start from marks per minute
The Institution's own preparation guidance recommends building a personal timetable and reviewing it after mock exams. The arithmetic behind any such timetable is the same, and you can do it yourself:
- The Chartered and Incorporated papers give 420 minutes of writing for 100 marks: 4.2 minutes per mark.
- The supplementary paper gives 210 minutes for 80 marks: 2.6 minutes per mark.
Multiply each section's marks by that figure and you have a first-cut timetable. Then adjust it, because a raw mark-proportional split is not quite right:
- Reserve time up front for reading and choosing. Ten to fifteen minutes thinking about the scheme before committing is time repaid several times over. Deciding you picked the wrong scheme at 14:00 is unrecoverable.
- Reserve time at the end for checking. Half an hour is a common allowance, and it is the first thing candidates sacrifice and the last thing they should.
- Drawings usually take longer than their marks suggest. They are physical work at a fixed speed.
- Calculations usually run over. Set a hard stop and honour it.
The Institution publishes an indicative timetable in the Exam Preparation Guidance. Build your own from your own mocks rather than adopting anyone else's: the point is that it is personalised.
Commit early, and stop optimising
Reopening the scheme decision can take time away from the remaining sections. Once you have chosen, everything downstream (calculations, drawings, details, method statement) depends on it. Changing at midday means restarting three sections.
Choose the question you can answer completely, not the one that looks most interesting. Aim to complete all parts of the question you select.
When you fall behind
If time becomes short, record the essential points and attempt every part, using brief notes where necessary.
That advice is arithmetically sound. Marks are distributed across five sections, and the early marks in any section are the easiest to earn. A method statement sketched in ten minutes scores; a method statement never started scores nothing, however good your calculations were.
Sit full mocks, in real conditions
Sit complete mock papers under exam conditions: no phone, packed lunch, the folder you intend to bring, the full duration. Pick questions you have not looked at beforehand so that opening the paper on the day is not a new experience.
For the supplementary paper, mock to 3½ hours with no break. Rehearsing a seven-hour day for a three-and-a-half-hour paper is the commonest planning error on that route.
The first ninety minutes
- 01
09:15: read, mark nothing
Fifteen minutes of reading time, during which you may not make marks on the paper. Read all the options, then re-read the one you think you will take, looking for the constraints that will decide the scheme.
- 02
09:30: state your codes and assumptions
Which codes and standards you are using goes at the start of the paper, and any assumptions or design data adopted go at the beginning of the answer. Doing it now costs three minutes and prevents an inconsistency later.
- 03
Think before you commit
Ten to fifteen minutes deciding your two schemes (or your one) and sketching their stability. This is the cheapest insurance in the day.
- 04
Write your timetable on the answer pack
The clock time you intend to start each section. You cannot always see a wall clock, so bring a watch.
- 05
Then do not renegotiate it
Move on at the time you set, even mid-sentence. Sections you have not started cost far more than sections you have finished imperfectly.
Minutes per mark, by paper
| Situation | Writing time | Marks | Minutes per mark |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chartered | 420 minutes | 100 | 4.2 |
| Incorporated | 420 minutes | 100 | 4.2 |
| IM–CM supplementary | 210 minutes | 80 | 2.6 |
The preparation timetable calculated from the published timetables and mark allocations. Reading, thinking and checking all have to come out of these totals, so treat the figure as a ceiling rather than a budget.
Managing the day
Look for
- Write your section start times on the answer pack before you begin
- Bring a watch: you cannot always see a clock
- Spend ten to fifteen minutes deciding the scheme before committing
- Reserve about half an hour at the end for checking
- Move on at the time you set, even mid-sentence
Watch for
- Re-open the scheme decision after the morning
- Let calculations run over into the drawing time
- Leave any section unattempted
- Choose the most interesting question over the one you can finish
- Plan the supplementary paper on a seven-hour timetable
Official sources
Selected publisher pages were rechecked in September 2026. Other source records were last checked in July 2026. Open the latest official document before relying on a requirement.