Guide
Short on time: how to cram well for an exam or assessment
Tell the app how much time you have and what you know. It builds a plan of attempt, mark, repair and retest steps, sets a time to stop for sleep, and says plainly what will not fit.
6 min read
The best way to cram is not to reread. It is a tight loop of retrieval: attempt exam-style questions from memory, mark them, repair the gaps you find, and test those gaps again after you have worked on something else — while protecting your sleep. The cram planner turns that into a list you can work down. It is always there: “Build a cram plan” sits beside “Plan a session” on every subject page, and once you have a plan it changes to “Open cram plan” with a “Your cram plan” reminder above the tabs, and on every school task's plan. Today and the Calendar's Next up card also offer it once a date is within a week.
What the research does and does not say
These methods are well supported by research. The timings are a practical template, not a proven timetable, and no plan can promise a mark.
Building your plan
- Say how many days you have, from today up to seven. Seven days is the most a cram plan covers. A saved exam or task date fills this in for you; without one, you pick it.
- Say how much study time you have today, and on each day after that.
- Say what time you need to be up on the day. The plan works back nine hours of sleep and half an hour to wind down, shows you a stop time, and never schedules past it. If it is already past that time, you get one 20-minute pass and a nudge to bed.
- Rate each area: Shaky, Getting there or Confident. Open an area to rate a single point differently. Where you have already answered questions, your results decide instead of your rating.
- Not sure? Run the check first: a few short questions spread across your areas, answered on the ordinary question page. The result sits beside your own rating and you can swap it in.
- Press Build my plan. It is saved to your account, so it is there on your phone as well as your laptop.
How your points are sorted
The aim is recoverable marks, not the hardest topic.
| Group | What it looks like | What the plan does |
|---|---|---|
| Secure | You get it right on your own, closed book, on more than one day. | One quick recheck near the end. If you only said you were confident, with no results behind it, the recheck comes first instead. |
| Recoverable | Partly right: a forgotten detail, a shaky method, a predictable slip. | Most of your time, heaviest and weakest first, mixed across areas. |
| Major gap | Little to build on and nothing attempted. | Only after every recoverable point has had a turn, starting with the basics, and never on the last day of a plan that runs over several days. |
The loop for each point
- Attempt without help. Questions when the point has them, a brain dump when it does not.
- Mark it against the solution and label the miss: didn't know it, misread the question, wrong working, careless slip or ran out of time.
- Repair only that gap, from the note or the worked solution, then close it and reproduce the fix.
- Retest after at least two other steps, or first thing the next day, with a different question on the same idea.
What you get for the time you have
| Time left | The plan |
|---|---|
| Two or three hours | A handful of recoverable points, each attempted, repaired and retested, then a short wrap-up. No full paper: there would be no time to mark it. |
| One full day | The recoverable points first, retests threaded through, one timed mixed set once you have worked a few points, then the wrap-up. It stops at your stop time. |
| Three to seven days | The same loop spread out. Each day opens with the retests from the day before; the last day is for retests and rechecks, not new material. |
Match the practice to the exam
| Exam type | Practise this | Not this |
|---|---|---|
| Maths and calculation-heavy science | Solve questions on your own, check the working, fix the recurring error, then a small mixed set. | Watching solutions without attempting the problem. |
| Content-heavy subjects | Recall definitions, processes and comparisons, then write explanations that apply them. | Memorising definitions you never practise using. |
| Essays | Plan arguments for different prompts from memory, retrieve your evidence, write timed paragraphs. | Memorising one essay and forcing it onto another question. |
| Multiple choice | Answer before you look, then say why each wrong option is wrong. | Recognising the answer once you have seen the key. |
Do
- Check what is actually assessed first: the scope, the question types, the time allowed and what you can bring.
- Answer from memory before you look. Write the answer or do the working. Recognising a solution is not recalling it.
- Mark against the marking guide, line by line. Roughly right loses marks.
- Label each miss: didn't know it, misread the question, wrong working, careless slip, or ran out of time. The label tells you what to fix.
- Repair only that gap. Read the one explanation you need, close it, then reproduce it without help.
- Retest after you have worked on something else, with a different question on the same idea.
- Practise in the exam's format and under time: calculations for a calculation paper, paragraphs for an essay.
- Mix topics as you go. It feels harder than finishing one topic at a time, and it sticks better.
- Plan breaks, meals and travel into the day. A plan that ignores them fails by lunchtime.
Don't
- Reread or highlight as your main activity. Use them briefly to fix one gap.
- Rewrite your notes or build a perfect summary. It uses the time you need for practice.
- Do paper after paper without marking them. Unreviewed mistakes stay mistakes.
- Use flashcards for everything. If the exam asks for reasoning, working or writing, practise that.
- Mistake “this looks familiar” for “I can produce this”.
- Spend the whole evening on the one hardest topic, or only on the ones you like.
- Bet on a topic because it is “due”. Check the stated scope.
- Memorise one essay and force it onto a different question.
- Start a new revision system on the last day.
- Pull an all-nighter. It trades recall and attention for a few tired hours.
Sleep
- Aim for 8 to 10 hours. That is the Australian guideline for 14 to 17 year olds. Your plan sets a stop time and does not schedule past it.
- Giving up sleep to study more than usual tends to backfire. In a study of 535 high-school students, those nights were followed by more trouble understanding class and worse results on tests the next day.
- Sleep across all the days you are studying, not just the last night. One bad night before the exam will not sink you; a week of short nights will.
- Get up at the same time each day. Irregular sleep went with lower marks in the study that tracked it.
- No coffee, cola or energy drinks in the six hours before bed. In one small trial, caffeine six hours out still cut sleep by over an hour, and people did not notice.
- Screens off an hour before bed. Pack your bag and lay out what you need instead.
Good to know
- The plan is a snapshot. It does not reshuffle while you work; press Rebuild plan to plan again from where you are now and the time that is left.
- “Not in this plan” lists the points your time does not reach. That is the plan being honest, not a list to feel bad about.
- A school task's plan practises from its revision packs, an exam's from past-paper questions.
- The minutes for each step are a template. If a point needs longer, take longer and tick it when it is done.
Sources
- Dunlosky et al. (2013): ten study techniques rated; practice testing and spacing rated high, rereading and highlighting low →
- Yang et al. (2021): quizzing raised classroom achievement across 222 studies →
- Rohrer et al. (2020): mixed (interleaved) maths practice, randomised trial in 54 classes →
- Gillen-O'Neel, Huynh & Fuligni (2013): the academic cost of trading sleep for study →
- Okano et al. (2019): sleep quality, duration and consistency and academic performance →
- Drake et al. (2013): caffeine taken 0, 3 or 6 hours before bed →
- Paruthi et al. (2016): recommended sleep for children and teenagers →