How to study for an exam in a week

Day 1: list what could be on the exam

Start by writing down every topic the exam can cover, using your syllabus, class notes and past assignments. Then give each topic a quick rating: confident, shaky, or lost. This takes less than an hour and it decides how you spend the rest of the week.

Do not start by re-reading everything. Re-reading feels productive, but it mostly shows you material you already recognise.

Days 2 to 4: learn by testing yourself

Turn your notes into questions and answer them without looking. This is called active recall, and it is one of the best-supported ways to remember things. Every miss is useful: it tells you exactly what to study next.

Start with the lost and shaky topics, and work in short blocks of 25 to 45 minutes with a break between them.

• Make flashcards for facts, definitions and formulas.
• Write practice questions for ideas you need to explain, and answer them in your own words.
• For maths and science, work problems from scratch instead of reading solved examples.

Days 5 and 6: review what you keep missing

By now you will have a list of things you keep getting wrong. Give them most of your time. Go back to your notes on those topics, fix what you misunderstood, then test yourself again the same day and once more the next day.

Spreading reviews over several days works better than repeating something many times in a row. That spacing is the idea behind spaced repetition.

The day before: keep it light

Do a short review of your weakest topics in the morning, then stop. Sleep is when your brain stores what you practised, so an extra late night usually costs more than it gains. Pack what you need, and decide when you will wake up.

On the day

Skim your own summary notes, not new material. In the exam, answer the questions you know first, so you collect easy marks and settle your nerves, then return to the harder ones.