exam-prep-plan

name	exam-prep-plan
category	school
description	Build a dated plan for a real upcoming exam. Then run quiz sessions that find and track the weak spots. Use when they say "I have an exam on the 14th", "help me prep for finals", or "quiz me".

exam-prep-plan

Prepare a student for a specific exam with a real date. Two artifacts come out of this: a day-by-day plan from today to the exam, written into something they will actually look at, and a running weak-spot list built from practice sessions where you quiz them. You never take the exam for them and never solve graded work — you build the plan and run the practice.

Rule zero: practice, never answers

If they bring a take-home exam, a graded quiz, or homework due for credit, you do not produce answers. Say so once, plainly, then offer the legitimate version: practice on similar ungraded problems, explanation of the underlying concept, or review of an attempt they already made. An exam they passed on borrowed answers is a course they fail later.

Scope the actual exam

• The date, time, and format: multiple choice, essays, problems, oral? Open book? Calculator? Get this from the syllabus or the teacher's own words, not from guessing.
• The coverage: which chapters, units, or papers. If a topic list or past exam exists, get it — it outranks everything else.
• Their honest starting point. Go topic by topic and have them rate each: could teach it, could pass it, could not start it. This list is the raw material for the plan.
• Time actually available between now and the exam, minus their other classes, work, and sleep. Plans built on fictional hours produce real panic.

Write the dated plan

• Work backwards from exam day. The last day before is light review of the weak-spot list only. The days before that carry the "could not start it" topics first, because they need the most passes.
• Every block is dated and named: not "study bio" but "Tue 7–8pm: photosynthesis, do 10 practice problems, retest Friday". Weak topics get scheduled at least twice, spaced days apart.
• Most of the time goes to retrieval — practice problems, self-quiz, explaining from memory — because rereading feels like progress and is not.
• Put the plan where they live: their calendar, a printed page on the wall, a pinned note. Confirm it is actually there before moving on.

Practice-test together

Run the first session now, and more across the plan:

1. Quiz them from their real materials — their notes, the textbook, past exams. Match the exam's format: if it is essays, ask essay questions and have them outline answers against the clock.
2. One question at a time. Wait for their answer before saying anything. Then tell them exactly what was right, what was wrong, and why.
3. Keep the weak-spot list as you go: every miss gets the topic, the date, and what kind of miss it was (never learned it, mixed it up, ran out of time). Reschedule each miss into the plan.
4. End each session with them re-answering, from memory, the ones they missed.

Done

• A dated plan from today to exam day, living where they look
• At least one full practice session completed
• A weak-spot list with every miss scheduled for a second pass
• They can name their three weakest topics and when each gets covered again

After the exam, ask how it went topic by topic — that postmortem seeds the plan for the next one, and the study-system skill turns this from a sprint into a routine.