How to study for an exam in a week, a day by day plan

A week feels short, but it leaves room for three or four passes on each topic. That is what counts. A meta-analysis of 839 measures shows that spacing reviews beats massing them all at once (Cepeda et al., 2006). And the best gap depends on the date of the test. For an exam a week away, it is about 20 to 40% of the time left (Cepeda et al., 2008), so one to three days.

In practice, there are two traps to avoid. The first is keeping the last chapter for the night before, because it will only get one pass. The second is rereading the same pages every day, which feels like progress without ever testing your memory. The plan below does the opposite, everything is covered in the first three days, and the following days are for quizzing yourself.

Split the syllabus into thirds. On days 1, 2 and 3, learn one third a day, and start each session with ten minutes of questions on the previous day’s third. On day 4, quiz yourself on the whole syllabus with chapters mixed together, which forces you to recognise what kind of question you are facing, as Does interleaving, or mixed practice, really help you study? explains.

On day 5, go back over the mistakes from day 4 only. On day 6, sit a mock exam in real conditions, with the real duration and without your notes. On day 7, the day before, keep a short session on the mistakes from the mock exam, then stop early. The table below sums up this rhythm. For a different deadline, the page Spaced repetition calculator, your review dates up to the exam works out the dates for you.

Every pass in the plan is a question pass. In the study by Roediger and Karpicke, between a test 5 minutes later and a test a week later, students who had reread forgot 52% of what they knew, against 14% for those who had quizzed themselves (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006). A week is precisely the time you have before your exam.

Write your questions during days 1 to 3, one question per topic as you learn. On the following days you only need to go back to them. Answer from memory before checking, out loud or in writing. The page Active recall, why quizzing yourself beats rereading covers the method, and How to make flashcards that actually work shows how to write questions that make you produce the answer.

Sleep after learning helps consolidate memories, which is the conclusion of the review by Rasch and Born on sleep’s role in memory (Rasch and Born, 2013). Over a week, that is seven nights of consolidation. Giving them up to win study hours means learning more and keeping less.

The night before, the pull of an all nighter is strong. The page Does cramming the night before an exam work? explains why cramming feels like it works, and what it costs a week later. If you struggle to stay awake in afternoon sessions, the page How to study without falling asleep or zoning out gives measured options, and Sleep and memory, why sleeping after you study matters covers the link between sleep and memory.