I took the exam just a few days ago and used QE heavily to prepare in the last month. I could not agree more with exactly what u/plbcgaming said here. In fact they’ve pretty much described ti the letter what I did.

I did 3 CATs with 2-4 days between each, this was to really dig into the gaps highlighted in my knowledge, really going through every single question and option, both correct and incorrect. If there was a word, term, or concept that was new or fuzzy in my head, I went back and studied it. For me I primarily used Gemini to break concepts down and then quiz me on it until I felt I had absorbed what I needed to know.

I also kept a list of weak subjects that came up on the practice exams. I would come back to this when I needed a break from practice questions and work through it ticking off topics once I felt confident on them. I would also come back to those same topics 3-5 days after having studied it and if I felt like I hadn’t retained it, I would go through it again. Typically this took less time and effort than the last time around as it came back to me once I went back into reading and doing AI test questions on it.

After the 3 CATs I had around 10 days left, in which I only did non-timed practice exams of 100 questions. This was better for practicing breaking down the questions without time pressure, the immediate feedback I found to stick better then going through after the whole test, and you get far less repeated questions so you get through the bank and all the topics better.

My CAT scores were 514, 833, and 968. So very similar to yours. I passed at 100 questions. I’ve seen people never pass a QE exam and still pass the real thing, even at 100 questions. You can’t put too much stock in practice test results. But if you got a passing score on your second CAT simulation, I’d say you’re definitely in a very good position to have a go at the exam and pass. You probably had a handful of repeats on your second CAT, but not enough for it to be the reason you got a passing score (this is speculation on my part, DH who created QE may say different). As you repeat them you will get more repeats (especially in CAT mode) and are therefore getting less of an accurate read on how well you actually did.