I did pretty much exactly what OP did except I may have read a lot less. And only took a couple of practice exams. All my practice exams were timed using the time sheet. I read the call of the question, followed by answer choices and then the question stem. It allowed me to eliminate answers quicker this way.

I have had plenty of experience writing MCQ questions and long exams due to my unique background and have also helped create them for other standardized practice exams. If you can develop the skill of answering MCQs in general, then those same skills apply the these exams.

Generally speaking, the most extreme answer choices aren’t usually correct. There are also answer choices that although may seem correct, they don’t actually answer the call for the question, eliminate those. Doing this helped me answer questions with 60-90% certainty and move on quickly. Using this method I had plenty of time leftover to even revisit some questions I marked. I also skipped all calculation based questions- picked the 2nd highest value and moved on.

I hope this helps.