The role of 30, 14, 7 and 1 days
| When | Main role | What to prioritise |
|---|---|---|
| 30 days before | Diagnose | Gather the scope and make weak points visible |
| 14 days before | Fix | Solve, explain and write about priority weak points |
| 7 days before | Rehearse | Solve in the real format and reduce repeated mistakes |
| The day before | Prepare | Short recall, check what to bring, sleep |
Change the role of revision depending on the days left
Simply splitting 30 days into four equal blocks may not work. Far from the exam you can diagnose broadly, but right before it the range you can fix is limited.
Dunlosky and colleagues' review of study techniques sets out spaced practice and practising recalling things yourself as effective methods, compared with cramming the same content in one go. For exam preparation too, a plan is easier to build if you find weak points early and leave room to retest later on.
Use the number of days not as a deadline but as a marker for when the role of your study changes.
30 days before: make the scope and where you stand visible
The aim at this stage is not to memorise perfectly, but to know what comes up, where you get stuck and how much needs fixing.
First, gather the official syllabus or exam scope, class materials and past papers in one place. Then divide the topics into three.
- I can solve it on my own
- I can solve it if I look at the explanation
- I do not know where to start
Do not stop at colour-coding; judge by solving short diagnostic questions. Reading your notes can make you feel you understand, but explaining or solving without looking reveals gaps. Build the 30-day plan not around pages per day but around three stages: diagnose, fix and retest. Then, when the plan slips, it is easier to decide which stage to move.
14 days before: narrow down weak points and increase output
If you try to go through the whole range once more in the last two weeks, you tend to spend too much time on strong areas. From here, prioritise weak points that lead to marks and weak points that are prerequisites for later topics.
In maths, for example, rather than looking at formulas, solve one problem without looking anything up and record where in the working you stopped. In English, rather than just reading a word list, change to a flow of hiding the meaning and answering, using the word in a short sentence, and re-checking in the passage.
Past papers and practice questions are not only tools for producing a score. They are material for diagnosing whether you misread the question, lacked knowledge, ran out of time or lacked ways to write the answer. If the reason for a mistake is different, the next practice is different too.
At this stage, it is easier to act on if you make clear which questions you will retest from the materials you already have, rather than adding materials.
7 days before: check you can reproduce it in the real conditions
From one week before, rather than adding knowledge, check whether you can use it in test conditions. Time yourself, close your materials and solve questions close to the real format.
Cambridge International Education's learning and revision guide, for international curricula and exams, describes using past papers and sample questions as practice for the real thing, assessing yourself against the marking criteria and going back to weak points. However, the number of questions, how you choose answers, what you can bring and what devices you may use differ by exam, so also check the official guidance for the exam you are taking.
If you do a mock test every day at this stage, you can run out of time to review. The day after a mock, narrow down to the two or three largest losses and fix them. Then add a short retest to check you do not make the same mistake for the same reason.
This is the time to look at whether the same mistakes are decreasing, rather than the score itself.
The day before: do not add; get yourself ready to retrieve
What you can do the day before is not rebuild the whole scope. It is enough to briefly recall formulas, vocabulary, procedures and the places you often get wrong, and check the answers.
New reference books and long mock tests tend to add anxiety about unfinished work. The day before, finish these three things first.
- Check the admission ticket, ID, stationery and any devices
- Check the venue, start time, route and official rules
- Decide what time to stop studying, working back from bedtime
The amount of sleep needed differs by age. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's sleep guide gives 9 to 12 hours a day for ages 6 to 12 and 8 to 10 hours for ages 13 to 18 as a guide. Leaving yourself able to concentrate the next day is part of preparation, not just how much you study right before.
If you are behind, start from what is easy to recover, not everything
Even if you did not follow the plan from 30 days out, you can rebuild to fit the days left. If you are unsure, check these four.
- Is it likely to come up, or worth many marks?
- Is it a prerequisite for solving other topics?
- Can it be fixed in a short time?
- Once fixed, is it easy to prevent it recurring?
Things that are worth many marks, are prerequisites and can be fixed quickly go up in priority. Conversely, for content that takes a long time to master and carries little weight in this exam, it may be right to keep to a minimum check. This is not a line for giving up. It is a way of sorting so that you reduce the most causes of lost marks in the time left.
What parents can do is organise what to decide on, rather than check progress
Before an exam, rather than asking every day "how many pages did you finish?", checking whether the next action has been decided makes the conversation more specific.
- What did you solve today, and where did you get stuck?
- When will you redo the same question?
- What one cause of lost marks do you want to remove by tomorrow?
Even when you are behind, just adding study time can mean tiredness comes first. If you are stuck because priorities are not decided, you do not know how to review a mock test, or you have too many subjects to divide time between, making the unit of the plan smaller gets things moving better than scolding.
What Petra Tutors looks at when making a plan
When Petra Tutors thinks about a study plan, we do not decide by the days left alone. We look together at the current score, the type of lost marks, the exam format, the time available and overlap with school assignments.
Even at the same 7 days out, a student who has the knowledge but cannot finish in time and a student with gaps in basic topics need different practice. For the former it is time management and choosing questions; for the latter, high-value basics and short retests.
What we want to check first is not how long you study, but which type of lost marks your recent answers are concentrated in. If looking at answers or mock results does not tell you the next move, classifying them together makes planning easier.
A checklist for 30, 14, 7 and 1 days
Summary
Exam preparation is not a system where the day you studied longest wins. At 30 days, diagnose broadly; at 14 days, fix weak points; at 7 days, check you can reproduce it in the real thing. The day before, rather than adding knowledge, put yourself in a state where you can bring out what you have prepared.
We put this theme together from the doubt that comes up again and again near an exam: the closer it gets, the less you know where to start. Even with the same days left, the order you need changes with the answers and the exam format. If it is hard to sort out at home, you can ask us, starting from laying your recent answers and schedule side by side and deciding the next move.
References
- Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58.
- Cambridge International Education | Learning and revision
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | Sleep and Health
