How to Study for a Test: A Simple 5-Day Plan

How do you make a test plan with Sweet Study?

Sweet Study is in Strawberry Notes on your iPad and iPhone. It turns your notes into a plan that ends on the day you choose.

1. Open Sweet Study in the sidebar and tap New study plan.
2. Under What do you want to study?, add what the test covers: My notes, a PDF or file, a Photo or scan of paper notes, a YouTube lecture, a Recording or Paste text. Your handwritten notes work too.
3. Got an old test or a review sheet? Add it under Past test or practice questions.
4. Under What kinds of questions should we practice?, pick what your test will ask: Multiple choice, Short answer, Essay or Problems to solve.
5. Answer When do you want to finish studying? with the day before the test, then choose Which days can you study?.
6. Tap Build my plan.

Before it builds anything, Sweet Study shows you how long each day will take and what the plan will cost in AI credits. The plan teaches everything you added, so nothing gets skipped. It's in beta, so tell us what you think with Feedback in a plan's ••• menu.

What do you do each day?

Open the plan and tap Continue. Each day is a short mix of learning something new and testing what you learned before:

• Lessons with pictures that you work through, not just read.
• Questions in your test's format. You answer from memory, tap Check, and only then see the answer. Stuck? Show the solution.
• Flashcards that come back right before you'd forget them.
• A practice test near the end, when there's time.

Don't get something? Tap Ask and the tutor explains it.

Rather skip the picture lessons? The bar at the bottom of the plan turns the whole plan into Notes to read, a Quiz on one chapter or all of it, Flashcards, or a Podcast to listen to.

Why is five days better than one long night?

Cornell University's Learning Strategies Center has a simple rule: don't cram, start five days before. Their advice splits studying into two jobs:

• Prepare: make something new from your notes, like a study guide, flashcards or your own practice questions. Copying your notes out again doesn't count.
• Review: find out what you really know with a blank page, a quiz or a practice test.

They also say to mix the two jobs every day, instead of preparing everything first and reviewing at the end. Their example: one hour a day for 20 days beats 10 hours a day for two days. Short sessions spread over several days beat one long session the night before.

Why does testing matter so much? Notes you've read before feel familiar, and that feeling is easy to mistake for knowing them. Here's why testing yourself beats rereading.

Is 2 days enough to study for an exam?

It depends on how much the test covers. A short quiz on one chapter, maybe. A unit test on six chapters will be hard to fit in.

If two days is all you have, you can still make a plan. In Sweet Study, the finish date can be as early as tomorrow. It still teaches everything, so the days get longer, and it tells you so. A later finish date makes each day shorter, so start the plan as soon as you know the test date.

Want to plan it by hand?

Cornell's plan works on paper too. Here's a simple way to set it up:

1. Split what's on the test into about four chunks, by chapter, topic or lecture.
2. Plan about two hours on each of the five days.
3. Each day, do both jobs: prepare something for one chunk, and review a chunk you prepared earlier.
4. Keep the last day for review only: a blank page and practice questions.

For the review part, try the blurting method: write everything you remember on a blank page, then fill the gaps in red. Turn what you missed into flashcards with Create Flashcard. Got several tests at once? Here's how to study for finals.