A week is enough time to do well, if you spend it on the right things. Most students spend it rereading every chapter from the start. They run out of time before they reach the hard parts. This plan works the other way. You find your gaps first, then you spend the week closing them.
Plan on about two to three hours a day. Less is fine if you have other exams. Split long days into blocks of 25 to 50 minutes with short breaks.
Why this plan starts with a test
It feels wrong to take a test before you study. But a test on day 1 tells you where to spend the week. Without it, you guess, and most people guess that they need to reread everything. Testing yourself is also one of the best ways to learn. Dunlosky et al. (2013) rated practice testing and spaced practice as the two most useful study methods out of ten they reviewed. This plan uses both.
Don't worry about a low score on day 1. It's a map, not a grade. Research on pretesting (Richland, Kornell and Kao, 2009) asked people to answer questions before they studied. It helped them learn, even when they got the questions wrong.
Day 1: gather and test
- Collect everything: syllabus, slides, notes, readings, old quizzes, and any study sheet.
- Write down the exam format. Multiple choice, short answer, essay, or a mix.
- Take one practice test on all the material. Don't look anything up.
- Sort topics into three groups: know it, shaky, and lost.
Making that first test by hand takes a long time. A practice test generator can build one from your notes, slides, or PDF in a few minutes. Then day 1 goes to testing, not typing.
Days 2 to 4: learn the weak topics
Start with the lost topics. Then do the shaky ones. Spend little or no time on the topics you already know. Each day follows the same loop:
- Review yesterday's flashcards first, before anything new.
- Study one or two weak topics. Read the source once, slowly, until it makes sense.
- Close the source and test yourself on those topics.
- Check every miss. Make one flashcard per miss.
- Before bed, run through today's new cards once.
The cards come back on later days, which is the point. Reviewing after a gap builds stronger memory than reviewing right away. See spaced repetition before an exam for how the gaps work. If you want help making cards, the flashcard generator works from pasted notes.
Day 5: mixed review
Today, no new topics. Review every card that is due. Then take a short test that mixes all topics, including the ones you knew on day 1. Mixing matters, because the real exam won't sort questions by chapter. Kornell and Bjork (2008) found that mixed practice helped people tell similar ideas apart. Note any topic that's still weak.
Day 6: mock exam
Take a full practice test like the real thing. Set a timer for the real exam length. Sit at a desk. Put your phone in another room. No notes. In Quizfix, a Mock exam has a timer built in. If you have old exams from your class, use one of those too.
Then check every miss and every lucky guess. Ask why you missed each one. Did you not know it, mix it up, or run out of time? What to do after a practice test walks you through this. Drill the misses as flashcards before you sleep.
Day 7: light review and rest
- Review due cards and the misses from day 6. That's it.
- Don't start a new topic. A topic you meet for the first time today won't hold well.
- Pack what you need: ID, pens, calculator, water.
- Check the time and room of the exam.
- Sleep at a normal time. Late night review rarely makes up for lost sleep.
On the morning of the exam, a 10 minute look at your hardest cards is fine. Don't take a full test that morning. A bad score right before the exam only adds stress.
If you fall behind
Life happens. If you lose a day, cut topics, not sleep. Drop the know it group from your review. Keep the daily card review even on a bad day, even if it's only 15 minutes. If you only have one night left, read how to study the night before an exam instead.
If you have two exams in the same week, run this plan for both, side by side. Do the harder subject first each day while you're fresh.