Q.In the Harvard Step Test, the subject steps up and down at a rate of:
You're viewing a preview — the full solution, concept, methods & PYQ mapping are locked.
Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →(b) 30 complete cycles per minute for 5 minutes.
The subject steps up-up-down-down on a 20-inch bench (16-inch for women) at 30 cycles a minute — a metronome at 120 bpm, four beats to a cycle — for a full 5 minutes, i.e. 300 seconds.
What the test is measuring
The Harvard Step Test is a cardio-vascular endurance test. It loads the heart with a fixed, repeatable amount of work and then watches how quickly the pulse comes back down afterwards. For that comparison to be fair between two people, the work must be identical — which is exactly why the rate and the duration are fixed.
The prescribed protocol
- Bench height — 20 inches (50.8 cm) for men, 16 inches (40.6 cm) for women.
- Rate — 30 complete cycles per minute. One cycle is four movements: left foot up, right foot up, left foot down, right foot down. A metronome set to 120 beats per minute gives one movement per beat, so 120 ÷ 4 = 30 cycles per minute.
- Duration — 5 minutes, i.e. 300 seconds. If the subject cannot continue, the test is stopped and the actual seconds completed are recorded.
- Recovery — the subject sits down, and the pulse is counted for the 30-second window from 1 minute to 1.5 minutes after stopping.
PFI = (Duration of exercise in seconds × 100)/(5.5 × Pulse count from 1 to 1.5 min after exercise)
- Duration in seconds — 300 for a completed test; the real elapsed seconds if the subject stopped early.
- Pulse count — the raw 30-second count taken in the 1-to-1.5-minute recovery window. It is not doubled.
This is where the "5 minutes" in option (b) does real work. The duration is the numerator of the index, so it is not a decorative detail of the protocol — it is an input to the score.
Why the other options fail
- (a) 20 cycles/min for 3 minutes — both numbers are wrong; nothing in the protocol uses 20 cycles.
- (c) 30 cycles/min for 3 minutes — the rate is right, but the duration is wrong. Three-minute step tests exist (the Queen's College / YMCA family), but they are different tests with different scoring. …
Unlock everything free for 14 days
- Full step-by-step solutions
- Concept-first explanations
- Methods, shortcuts & mistakes
- PYQ mapping + timed mock tests
Full access for 14 days. No credit card required.