Exam Study Planner

This is a study planner designed for students who have exams coming and need a revision plan they can keep to.

Most study planners are a diary with boxes for each day. They do not know what your exams are, so they cannot tell you what to study or when. This one is built around the exam. You list your exams, break each subject into topics and rate how well you know each one. The pages then turn that into a week-by-week timetable for your revision (study for exams), with review dates, practice papers and a plan for the last week.

How it works

Set up once. It takes about an hour.

1. Write in every exam and its date. Count the days to go.
2. List the topics for each subject, from your course outline. Try one question on each and rate it red, amber or green: do not know it yet, partly know it, know it.
3. Do one short sum: the study sessions you have before the exams, against the sessions your topics need. Red topics get the most time.
4. Work backwards from the exam date: exam weeks, then the final week, then practice papers, then learning.
5. Each week, fill in one timetable page. Each topic comes back for three short reviews, about 2 days, 1 week and 3 weeks apart, and you tick each one off.
6. After each practice paper, write down the score and why you lost each mark.

The planner shows every page filled in by one example student, with three exams, before it asks you to fill in your own.

What is inside (65 pages)

• A study guide in ten short pages, each with a worked example: breaking a subject into topics, rating topics, working backwards from the exam date, fixed-length sessions with breaks, testing yourself instead of re-reading, spacing reviews out, sitting and marking practice papers, what to do when you fall behind, and the night before and the day.
• A full worked example: one student's exam list, topic tracker, twelve-week overview, a week, a day, two practice papers, mistakes list, key-facts sheet, final week, exam day and results. The numbers agree from page to page.
• Exam list and countdown, with the session sum.
• Topic trackers for 8 subjects, 16 topics each: rating at the start, three reviews with dates, rating at the end.
• A 12-week overview and 12 weekly timetables, seven days by three sessions, each with a short review of the week.
• Daily session sheets, practice paper records for 8 papers, a scores page with a chart, and a mistakes list.
• Key-facts sheets, ruled and squared, for formulas, definitions and diagrams.
• A final-week plan, an exam-day checklist and a results page.

What you download

• The planner in US Letter and A4, for reading on screen.
• A fillable edition in both sizes, for typing into on a computer.
• A print edition in both sizes, light on ink and clear in black and white, in one ZIP.

Good to know

• Undated: start in any week of any year. Use as many of the 12 weeks as you have.
• Works for school, college and university, in any country. No exam board or grading system is assumed: you write in your own dates, topics and scores.
• It is a planner and a study method, not notes for one subject. The topics come from your own course.
• Red, amber and green each have a letter and a shape as well as a colour, so the pages work in black and white.
• Write-in lines are at least 8 mm apart and tick boxes are at least 5 mm, so there is room to write.
• The fillable edition is made for a desktop PDF reader such as the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Many phone and tablet apps do not keep typed entries; to handwrite on a tablet, use the print edition.
• Print at 100% or "actual size", not "fit to page". Print more copies of any page when you run out.

The study advice is general and well established: test yourself, space your reviews out, sit practice papers. It cannot promise a grade. Your result depends on the work you put in and on the exam itself.