Free tool

Study plan generator for exams

Type your topics, the exam date and how many hours you can study on a normal day. The generator spreads the topics across your days, brings each one back for practice and recall, and keeps the last days for mock papers and a light review.

Online course lesson quest art from XP Tracker, Necromancer version

Make your study plan

How the plan is built

The generator counts your study days from the start date to the day before the exam, leaving out your weekly rest day. It divides your daily hours by the session length plus its break to get the number of sessions per day: 2 hours of 45-minute sessions with 10-minute breaks gives 2 sessions.

About the last fifth of your days, up to a week, is kept for timed past papers and fixing weak spots. The day before the exam is a light review and an early night. The rest of the days go to topics.

Each topic first gets a Learn session. After that the topics rotate, so each one comes back a few days later as Practice questions, then as Recall from memory. Starred topics enter the rotation twice as often.

Online course lesson quest art from XP Tracker, Bard version — One topic per session, back again a few days later.

Why it mixes and repeats topics

Two study methods have unusually strong evidence behind them. In a 2013 review in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, John Dunlosky and colleagues rated practice testing and distributed practice (spreading study out over time) as the two most useful of ten common techniques. Rereading and highlighting rated low. Roediger and Karpicke (2006, Psychological Science) found that students who tested themselves on a passage remembered more a week later than students who reread it, even though the rereaders felt more confident.

That is why the plan spreads each topic across different days, and why most sessions after the first are questions or recall instead of reading your notes again.

An example week

This is the first week the generator makes from the example topics, with 2 sessions a day and Genetics starred as hard.

MondayLearn: Cell biology. Learn: Genetics.
TuesdayLearn: Ecology. Learn: Human body systems.
WednesdayLearn: Evolution. Practice questions: Cell biology.
ThursdayPractice questions: Genetics. Practice questions: Ecology.
FridayRecall from memory: Genetics. Practice questions: Human body systems.
SaturdayPractice questions: Evolution. Recall from memory: Cell biology.
SundayRest or catch up.

Common mistakes

Planning 6 hours a day you won't do. A plan you keep at 2 hours beats one you drop at 6.
Only rereading. In recall sessions, close the book and write down what you know first. Then check.
No buffer. The rest day doubles as catch-up. Keep it.
Phone on the desk. Put it in another room for each session. The guide to staying focused while studying has more ideas, and the focus timer runs the blocks for you.

If exams are your whole life right now, the page for students studying for exams covers sleep, food and the bad days too.

Do this today

Make the plan, print it or put it in your calendar, and do today's first session within the hour. Start with the topic you are most tempted to skip.

Questions people ask

How far before an exam should I start revising?

It depends on how much there is to cover, but for a major exam many students do well starting three to six weeks out with one to three hours a day. Starting earlier lets you study each topic several times with gaps in between, which tends to help it stick better than cramming the same hours into the last few days.

How many hours a day should I study?

Count the hours you can keep up on a normal day, not your best day. Two focused hours with breaks often get more done than six distracted ones. Use the session length to break your time into blocks, such as 25 minutes on and 5 off.

What do the session types mean?

Learn is your first proper pass through a topic. Practice questions means working problems or past questions on it. Recall from memory means closing your notes and writing or saying all you can recall, then checking what you missed. Later sessions come back to topics you studied days before.

What if I fall behind the plan?

Don't try to catch up by doubling tomorrow. Move the missed session to your rest day or swap it for the next recall session on that topic. If you keep falling behind, regenerate the plan with the hours you really manage.

Can I use it for several exams?

Yes. Put the topics from all your subjects in the list and use the date of the first exam, or make a separate plan for each exam and combine them in your calendar. Mark the topics you find hardest with a star so they get more sessions.