The quiz turns your answers into a study mix and a set of needs, scores every package against them, and shows the best package you can buy at each provider. Whether a provider pays us plays no part.
The eight questions
- Which level you are sitting.
- How many hours a week you can study.
- When your exam is.
- Where you are starting from: first attempt, part-way through, retaking, or topping up a course you have.
- How you learn best, a first and a second choice: lessons, notes, questions or mocks.
- What you want when you are stuck: to work it out alone, an instructor online, or live classes.
- Whether you want a study plan.
- Your budget.
Your study mix
Your first choice of how to learn gets 40 points, your second 30, and the other two 15 each. If you are retaking or topping up, 10 points move from lessons to questions and mocks, because a second pass is mostly practice.
Each package's mix
Every package's mix comes from the hours in it, worked out the same way for every provider:
- Video: the hours as stated. All recorded video counts as video, whatever a provider calls it.
- Notes: 3 minutes a page.
- Questions: 2.5 minutes each, counting up to 2,000. Beyond that a bank is bigger than most candidates will use.
- Mocks: 6.5 hours each, to sit and mark.
Where a provider does not state a figure, we use an estimate from its own pages and mark the mix as estimated.
The scale behind the order
Four things are requirements: your level, your starting point, your budget and your exam date. Every package shown meets all four, and that is 40 of the 100 points. The other 60 are shared like this:
| Study mix | 27 | How close the package's mix is to yours. |
|---|---|---|
| Time | 12 | Its teaching hours, video and notes, against the hours you have before the exam, and against what a full course at your level usually holds. |
| Support | 12 | Whether it gives the help you asked for when stuck. |
| Structure | 9 | Whether it includes a study planner, if you asked for one. |
The package with the most points left is your closest match, and the best package at the next provider is your second. We show the order and not the score, because the figures behind it are not precise enough for us to stand behind a number. When the top two are within a few points, the result says it was a close call.
Two rules on time
- More material is a good thing. A full course with far fewer teaching hours than is usual for its level loses up to 6 of the time points, in proportion to how far short it falls. A top-up is meant to be small, so this never applies to one.
- A course that runs past the hours you have loses time points in proportion, and loses all 12 only when it runs past them by 2 times over. Not every page gets read, so the slope is gentle.
Stated figures count for more
Where a provider states its video hours, notes pages, question count and mocks, the package is scored on those figures. Where it does not, we estimate from its own pages, mark the mix as estimated, and the package loses 5% of the mix and time points. A stated figure counts for more than our working. This rewards publishing, not paying.
When we do not know
If a provider does not state something the score needs and we cannot estimate it, the package gets the average for that part, and the result says the fact is not stated. A gap in our research never counts against a provider, and never for it.
Why it names a provider and a package
The match is with a provider, judged by the best package you can buy from it. That package is named as where to start, because packages at one provider run from a few hundred dollars to over a thousand. The first and second match are always different providers. A package just over your budget, or with access that ends before your exam, is shown below as a near miss with the reason.
What plays no part
- Who pays us. Some providers pay us a commission when you buy. Those links are marked. It changes nothing in the score.
- How big or well known a provider is. A famous name is not a fit.
- Our own opinion of a course. We compare what each one contains.
- Pass rates. We quote none.
PrepProviders research. Last updated 25 Sep 2026.