WSET Exam Day: A Candidate's Practical Checklist

You have studied for months. The theory is in your head. Then the week of the exam arrives, your sleep goes sideways, and you realise no one told you whether you can bring water, what to eat for breakfast, or why coffee wrecks your palate. This WSET exam day checklist is the tactical layer on top of the study work — the packing list, the 48-hour countdown, and the small calls that separate a Pass from a Pass with Merit.

Applies to all three levels. We flag where Level 3 tasting changes the calculus.

T-48 hours: stop studying hard, start studying smart

Two days out, the knowledge you have is the knowledge you have. New cramming at this point displaces consolidation and raises cortisol, which hurts recall. Instead:

• Run through your flashcard deck once, slowly. Note the three weakest cards.
• Re-read your own notes on those three topics. Do not open the textbook.
• Sit one final 20-minute MCQ drill. Nothing longer.
• Plan your morning-of logistics: route to venue, transport backup, breakfast, what to wear.

If you have not already done a timed mock, do not start one now. You will score badly under fatigue and shake your confidence. For drills that do move the needle earlier in prep, see WSET exam tips.

T-24 hours: the pre-exam protocol

The day before the exam is a rest day with light touches, not a study day.

• Sleep schedule. Go to bed at your normal time. Do not force an unusually early night; it disrupts sleep architecture. Aim for seven to eight hours.
• Food. Eat normally. Avoid heavy spicy food, excess alcohol, and anything new. Your stomach is not where you want problems tomorrow.
• Hydration. Drink water steadily through the day. Dehydration hits focus before it hits thirst.
• Bag prep. Pack everything the night before. See the list below.
• Screens. Phone and laptop off by 10pm. The blue-light thing is real but the doomscroll anxiety is worse.

For Level 3 candidates: taste one wine in the evening, blind, fill the full SAT grid. Just one. The goal is to wake up with the SAT vocabulary loaded, not to learn anything new.

The physical packing list

Pack this the night before, not the morning of. You will not be thinking clearly at 7am.

Required:

• Photo ID matching your exam registration (passport or driving licence in most jurisdictions).
• Your exam confirmation email, printed or screenshotted offline.
• Two black ballpoint pens. Not blue, not gel, not fancy. Black ballpoint is the WSET default for scannable answer sheets.
• A reliable watch, analogue preferred — most exam rooms have a clock, but you want one on your wrist. No smartwatches, which are banned.

Recommended:

• Water in a clear bottle. Labels may need to be removed at the venue.
• Tissues. You will want them for the tasting if there is one.
• A light jumper. Exam rooms are reliably cold.
• A plain snack for after the exam. A banana or cereal bar. You will be starving.

For Level 3 tasting:

• Nothing extra. The venue provides the glasses, the wines, and the SAT answer sheet. Do not bring your own glass or reference card.

Explicitly banned:

• Phones in most venues. Leave it in your bag and switched off.
• Notes, loose paper, books, annotated SAT cards.
• Strong perfume or aftershave. It affects your neighbours' tasting as well as your own.

Morning-of: the two-hour window

Assume a 10am exam start. Adjust timings accordingly.

• 7:30am. Wake up, shower, dress. Layers. Plain clothes, nothing distracting. Comfortable shoes — you will sit still for two hours at Level 3.
• 7:45am. Breakfast. Protein plus slow carbs. Two eggs on toast, porridge with nut butter, a greek yoghurt with granola. Avoid pastries and pure sugar; the crash hits 90 minutes in, which is exactly the wrong moment.
• 8:15am. Brush teeth. This timing matters. If you have tasting in the same paper (Level 3), do not brush with strong mint toothpaste within 90 minutes of the exam — it will wreck acidity and sweetness perception for the first wine. Use a plain toothpaste or rinse with water only.
• 8:30am. No coffee before Level 3 tasting. Coffee dries the palate and shifts tannin perception. If you genuinely cannot function without caffeine, drink it earlier than normal and follow with a glass of water. For theory-only levels this matters less, but even at Level 2, over-caffeination raises baseline anxiety.
• 8:45am. Leave for the venue. Allow double your normal transit time. Traffic, trains, and unfamiliar venues eat minutes you do not have.
• 9:30am. Arrive at venue. You want 30 minutes on-site. Check in, find the exam room, use the bathroom, settle.

At the venue: logistics that cost marks if you get them wrong

• ID check. Your photo ID must match the name on your registration exactly. If you changed your name since booking, bring both documents. Mismatches get candidates turned away at the door every session.
• Arrival late. Most providers allow entry up to 30 minutes after the exam starts but you lose that time from your paper. After 30 minutes the paper is usually voided. If you are running late, phone the venue from the road — sometimes they can hold the start for a cohort.
• Seating plan. You do not choose your seat. Do not waste energy asking.
• Instructions. Read the cover sheet in full before you touch any question. Candidates lose easy marks every year by skipping a "do not write on this section" instruction.

Sitting a timed mock this week is the single highest-value thing you can do in the final seven days. Run a full mock now on Distinction Wines.

During the MCQ section: flag and return

The MCQ technique is the same across Levels 1, 2, and 3.

• First pass: answer every question you are confident on. If you read a question and the answer is not obvious within 10 seconds, flag and move on.
• Second pass: return to flagged questions. You will often find a later question nudged your memory.
• Third pass: guess on anything still open. There is no negative marking on WSET papers. Never leave a question blank.
• Target pace: 60 to 90 seconds per MCQ. Level 2 is 50 MCQs in 60 minutes (72 seconds each). Level 3 theory is 50 MCQ plus 4 short-written answers in 2 hours 5 minutes — see the Level 3 guide for that pacing.

If the paper feels unexpectedly hard, trust the curve. Everyone is finding it hard. Finish the paper, answer every question, and move on.

During Level 3 short-written answers

Four questions, roughly 20 minutes each, in the same paper as the MCQs. The common error is writing essays. WSET wants discrete factual points backed by cause-and-effect reasoning.

• Read the full question including all sub-parts before you start writing. The sub-parts usually ask different things.
• Write in short paragraphs or bulleted-like points, not flowing prose.
• Reference the grape, region, and style by name where relevant.
• Stop writing when you have made your points. There are no bonus marks for length.

During the Level 3 tasting

Thirty minutes. Two wines. Fifteen minutes each. The SAT grid is scored on adherence to WSET's fixed vocabulary, not on your guess of the variety.

• Smell both wines briefly before starting, then commit to the first one for a full 15 minutes.
• Fill the grid in WSET's order: appearance, nose, palate, conclusion. Do not skip around.
• Use WSET terms only. An accurate off-list descriptor still loses marks.
• The conclusion asks for a quality assessment with reasons and readiness for drinking. Do not attempt to name the variety unless explicitly asked.
• If the first wine feels off to you, note it on the grid ("some development", "reductive") and move on. Do not spend five extra minutes trying to rescue a puzzle.

The final-48-hours mistakes that kill candidates

A short list of things you can still avoid:

• Staying up late to learn a new region. You will retain almost none of it and you will be tired tomorrow.
• Drinking heavily the night before "to unwind". Your palate and your focus both pay the bill.
• Skipping breakfast because you are nervous. Low blood sugar kills recall.
• Showing up without ID. It happens every session.
• Changing your pen at the last minute to a gel pen that smudges the answer sheet.

Where to go from here

For deeper study technique and the drills that build the marks you will spend tomorrow, see WSET exam tips and how to pass WSET. If you are still deciding which level to sit, WSET levels explained walks through the differences, and the Level 2 guide and Level 3 guide go deep on each. If you fail — it happens — we have a retake strategy in WSET Level 3 retake strategy.

One week out? Distinction Wines runs timed mock exams under WSET conditions and auto-marks your weak topics. Start your free account at /onboarding.

FAQ

Can I bring a reference card or SAT cheat sheet into the Level 3 tasting? No. All papers are closed-book. Any notes on your person are grounds for disqualification.

What if I am ill on the morning of the exam? Contact your course provider immediately. Most will defer you to the next cohort, sometimes for a small admin fee. Do not sit the paper sick and fail; a deferral is much cheaper than a retake.

How strict is the no-phone rule? Very. Most venues require phones to be off and in bags under the desk. A phone in your pocket, even switched off, can void your paper if spotted.