Finals study schedule: four exams, different dates, one plan
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Sources checked on by Alexandre Doumergue, founder of Paced.
Start from the exam dates, not from the syllabus
Put the four dates on one line. They decide everything else: which course starts first, how many review passes each topic can get before its exam, and which days are too full. Count backwards from the last exam and mark the days you cannot study (work shifts, travel, the exams themselves). In a survey of 324 undergraduates, self-testing and scheduling one's study were associated with grades, and all students — low performers most — were driven by impending deadlines (Hartwig & Dunlosky, 2012): a correlation, not a promise, and the reason to put the dates down first.
Turn each course into topics
A topic is something you can first-study in one sitting of one to two hours and review in a fraction of that: a lecture week, a chapter's problem type, a set of cases. Five topics per course is a workable grain for a semester's final; fewer and each topic is too big to review, more and the plan becomes a to-do list.
Interleave the first studies
Do not study course A for five days, then course B. Rotate: A1, B1, C1, D1, A2, B2… Each course then gets its first reviews while you start the next one, and every course has been touched within the first two days. Mixing kinds of problems in practice also helps on problems that look alike, because you have to choose the method rather than follow the chapter you are in (Rohrer, Dedrick & Stershic, 2015).
Reviews that stop at each exam
A review the day after an exam is wasted time for that course. Each topic gets the passes of its pace — here Paced's Intensive pace, D+1, D+2, D+4, D+7, D+12… — that fall before its exam, and nothing after. In the example, that keeps 91 reviews and drops 89 passes that would have fallen after their exam. The tighter pace suits a deadline two or three weeks away: the best gap shrinks when the test is near (Cepeda et al., 2008). A review of ten study techniques rated spaced practice and practice testing as high utility and rereading as low (Dunlosky et al., 2013): each review here is a recall session, not a reread.
The worked example: four finals in three weeks
Four courses, five topics each, 1 h 30 per first study, two first studies a day for ten days in rotation, Intensive pace, reviews stopped at each exam. Our calculation, with Paced's default review lengths (27 min, 23 min, 20 min, 16 min, 13 min… for a 90-minute topic):
| Week | First studies | Reviews | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 21 h | 11 h 14 | 32 h 14 |
| 2 | 9 h | 16 h 42 | 25 h 42 |
| 3 | 0 | 3 h 04 | 3 h 04 |
Hours per day
The heaviest days are days 8 to 10, at 5 h 52. With a five-hour budget, 6 days are over.
What the last days look like
After day 10 there is nothing new to learn: the days before each exam hold only short reviews of that course's topics, and every topic of the first course was last reviewed 1 to 4 days before its exam. The last week is not a cram, because the cram happened in small pieces two weeks earlier.
When it does not fit
The fixes, in order of how much they cost you:
- Start earlier. The same plan spread over 13 days instead of 10 peaks at 5 h 25 and has 3 days over five hours instead of 6.
- Make topics smaller. A 60-minute first study gives 18 min first reviews instead of 27 min.
- Use a lighter pace for the course you know best. Fewer passes, longer gaps.
- Drop the least valuable topic, not the reviews of all the others.
Try your own dates in the study schedule maker, or one topic at a time in the spaced repetition calculator.
Law school finals and 1L
A 1L is graded on a few exams at the end of the semester, on material taught from week one: cramming in the reading period means relearning September in December. The semester version of this plan: after each week's classes, write that week's doctrine into your outline (one section per course), then review earlier sections on growing gaps — a rule statement from memory, one short hypothetical, then a check against the outline. For a 1 h 15 section, Paced's default review lengths are 23 min, 20 min, 16 min, 14 min, 10 min, 8 min.
| Week | Outlining | Reviews | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 h | 2 h 52 | 7 h 52 |
| 2 | 5 h | 3 h 56 | 8 h 56 |
| 3 | 5 h | 4 h 52 | 9 h 52 |
| 4 | 5 h | 4 h 52 | 9 h 52 |
| 5 | 5 h | 5 h 32 | 10 h 32 |
| 6 | 5 h | 5 h 32 | 10 h 32 |
| 7 | 5 h | 5 h 32 | 10 h 32 |
| 8 | 5 h | 5 h 32 | 10 h 32 |
| 9 | 5 h | 5 h 56 | 10 h 56 |
| 10 | 5 h | 6 h 04 | 11 h 04 |
| 11 | 5 h | 6 h 04 | 11 h 04 |
| 12 | 5 h | 6 h 04 | 11 h 04 |
| 13 | 5 h | 6 h 04 | 11 h 04 |
| 14 | 0 | 3 h 12 | 3 h 12 |
| 15 | 0 | 1 h 18 | 1 h 18 |
| 16 | 0 | 8 min | 8 min |
Reviews overtake outlining from week 5, and the plan peaks at 11 h 04 a week, outside class and reading. Stopping each course at its own final keeps 275 reviews and drops 141 that would have fallen after it. In the reading period and the finals weeks it leaves most of your time for practice exams, because the outlines have been reviewed all semester; the dates above then work as in the four-exam example. After 1L, the bar exam study schedule applies the same method to the bar.
Paced holds every course and every exam date in one plan, places first studies and reviews inside the hours you actually have, stops each course's reviews at its exam, and warns you before a day goes over. The web plan is free for up to 8 active topics, 7 days ahead, with no card; the iPhone and iPad app needs Plus. Try it without an account.
Questions
How do I plan finals on different dates?
Write the exam dates, split each course into topics, rotate the first studies so the earliest exam starts first, give each topic short reviews on growing gaps until its exam, and check the hours per day before you commit.
How many hours a day should I study for finals?
It depends on the number of topics and how long each takes. In our four-exam example the plan needs between 3 h and 5 h 52 on the ten days of first studies, then much less. Count your own before deciding.
Should I study one subject at a time for finals?
Rotating subjects is better: every course gets its first reviews while you start the next, and switching makes you choose the method, as the exam will.
How do I study for finals in college with exams on consecutive days?
Finish first studies early, so that the days between exams hold only short reviews of the next exam's topics.
Can I make a final exam study schedule from my own dates?
Yes: the study schedule maker builds a final exam study schedule from your own exam dates and courses, with no sign-up, and exports it as a calendar file or a spreadsheet.
Sources
- Cepeda, N. J., Vul, E., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., & Pashler, H. (2008). Spacing effects in learning: A temporal ridgeline of optimal retention. Psychological Science, 19(11), 1095–1102. More than 1,350 learners, review gaps up to 3.5 months, final tests up to a year later.
- Rohrer, D., Dedrick, R. F., & Stershic, S. (2015). Interleaved practice improves mathematics learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(3), 900–908. Seventh-graders whose practice problems were mixed across kinds did better on a delayed test than those who practised one kind at a time.
- 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. Review of 10 techniques: practice testing and distributed practice rated high utility; rereading and highlighting low.
- Hartwig, M. K., & Dunlosky, J. (2012). Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement?. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(1), 126–134. Survey of 324 undergraduates: self-testing and scheduling were associated with GPA; low performers studied late at night more often and all students were driven by deadlines.
- Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. Meta-analysis of 839 assessments in 317 experiments: the gap that maximises retention grows with how long you need to remember.