Exam Prep Plan (2 Weeks)

Who this is for

A 14-day countdown to a major exam, built around spaced retrieval rather than rereading. It assumes you've attended the course and have materials — this is the consolidation fortnight, not a way to learn a syllabus from scratch.

Testing yourself beats reviewing notes

This is the most robust finding in the study literature and the one students most consistently ignore, because rereading feels productive and self-testing feels like failing. Retrieving an answer from memory strengthens it; recognising it on a page does not.

Close the book and write what you remember. Then check. The gap you find is the information you would otherwise have discovered in the exam hall.

Spread the sessions out

Two hours on a topic today is worth less than four half-hours across the fortnight. That's why the plan revisits material rather than blocking it — the forgetting between sessions is what makes the next retrieval work.

Working through the plan in three long days defeats its entire mechanism.

Simulate before you're ready

The practice-paper tasks should happen under real conditions: timed, no notes, no phone, handwritten if the exam is handwritten. Doing this early is uncomfortable and it's the point — it converts vague unease about a topic into a specific list of what to fix, while there's still time.

Sleep is part of the plan

Memory consolidates during sleep, so an all-nighter trades away the mechanism that makes the studying stick. The night before, stop early. Reviewing lightly and sleeping properly beats cramming, and it isn't close.

Timing

Turn on due dates and set the start exactly 14 days before the exam. The spacing is the template.