The class ahead of you helps you a lot for 4th week RLP, or at least ours did and then we helped the next class. They'll also come down and chat with you sometimes. Perhaps it happened more with me because I'm female and the female's in the other class came to say hi. And as for free time....after 4th week RLP you fall into a groove. And at night you find you actually do have free time. I wrote letters all the time! Some people spend all their time studying and staying up past taps to study more. I didn't do that. When taps came I was running for the bed to sleep. The trick is....because I slept I could stay awake in class and pretty much absorb all the test stuff. It's not hard. Just a look over the book the night before the test and I did great on them all.