Whenever I ask a new student how they study, I hear some version of this:
“I review the night or two before.”
And when I ask what that actually means, it usually comes down to reading and re-reading notes, sometimes making flash cards, and hoping it sticks.
That’s the problem.
They haven’t learned yet that acing exams isn’t about how many hours they study. It’s about how effectively they study.
High-achieving students don’t focus on putting in more time. They approach studying as a process, not a task. And that process is anchored in 3 things:
1. Start early
The average student asks: What’s the latest I can start studying and still do OK?
If their test is on May 26th, for example, they’ll decide to start studying around May 22-23.
High-achievers ask: What’s the earliest I can reasonably start on this?
If their test is on May 26th, they’ll get started on May 8-9.
NOT to study more overall but to give themselves the time and space to genuinely learn, understand and retain the material.
Spreading out the learning matters even more when teens are juggling multiple exams at once. Last-minute studying across subjects is ineffective, creating unnecessary stress and weakening retention.
A student’s start date is one of the clearest indicators of how strong their study strategy actually is. Importantly, this isn’t about adding more hours studying. It’s about removing the need to cram and the stress that goes with it.
And if we zoom out a bit, this is exactly the skill we ultimately want our kids to develop: the ability to plan ahead, prepare early, and manage workload without panic. Whether it’s a test, a project, or eventually something in university or work, success rarely comes from last-minute effort. It comes from early, strategic preparation.
2. Study more often, not longer.
Many students focus on one subject at a time and unintentionally let everything else slide (e.g. long study sessions for one exam often come at the expense of prep required elsewhere).
High-achieving students do the opposite. They manage multiple subjects at once, not by studying everything equally in one night, but by rotating through subjects in shorter, focused blocks.
For example, instead of saying:
“I’m going to study only Math from Monday to Thursday, then switch to English.”
The thinking is more along the lines of:
“I’ll do a work period in Math, take a break, then switch to English, daily from Monday - Thursday.”
This is what “managing competing priorities” looks like in an exam prep context - allocating time to make meaningful progress on more than one item in a given stretch.
The exact scheduling mechanics don’t matter as much as the pattern of shorter, repeated exposure over days or weeks - this is what enables genuine understanding and builds retention far more effectively than isolated study marathons.
3. Work strategically, from start to finish
A lot of what students do that feels productive - reading notes, highlighting, making flashcards - isn’t actually effective learning.
High achieving students understand this. They know there’s a difference between feeling productive and genuinely being prepared for an exam.
Instead of relying on passive review, they focus their studying around one goal: can I recall and apply this in writing without looking at my notes?
In practice, this includes:
Turning source content (e.g. slides, class notes, textbook) into a study guide if one isn’t provided
Breaking material into smaller sections
Learning one section at a time, then immediately testing themselves on it in a way that mirrors the actual test (e.g. in writing, timed, with multiple questions).
A high-achiever might use flashcards to help them learn and retain definitions, but they know that’s just the starting point.
They move beyond “I know this definition” to “can I apply this knowledge in context?”
E.g. Can I write about it in a short-answer question? Can I connect this with other definitions or themes?
Once they know they can apply their knowledge in practice questions, they move to a practice test that simulates the real exam. If a full exam is 60 minutes and 50 questions, their practice test might be 30 minutes and 25 questions.
The key difference is this: students who consistently perform well on exams don’t study to recognize or recite information, they study to retrieve and apply it in writing, under timed conditions.
The question we want to ask our students isn’t “Did you study?” but rather “How are you testing yourself?”
***
Any student can incorporate these principles into their exam prep. It’s not about effort or intelligence; it’s about the approach they’re choosing to use.
It’s about building their learning skills so that studying doesn’t revolve around cramming or guesswork, but instead follows a repeatable process that enables them to earn high grades across subjects.
Wishing your child a strong and steady exam season this term 🚀
Talk soon,
Kelsey
Resources & Opportunities
Launch Your Future With NASA - Internships Webinar. Registration for this webinar closes TODAY, the webinar itself is tomorrow May 7. Join to “ explore available opportunities…and learn how to make your application stand out.” There are some unique internships for college students with deadlines later in May, like this one for Moon Tycoon Lunar Simulation Software Development, this Moon Base Program Strategic Communications Internship, or OSTEM for short, project-based learning.
NBC Saturday Night Live Internship. This paid internship is for the 2026-27 academic year, for university students in at least their sophomore year who can work at minimum 24 hours/week in New York. Incredible opportunity for the right student! Deadline is May 8. There are also a bunch of other internships you can check out here.
4H Youth in Action Program Scholarship. This is for 4H participants to share their story for the chance to win a bunch of cool prizes: $5,000 for college, a year of personal and professional development, all-expenses paid trips. If you haven’t heard of 4H, it’s a fantastic youth development organization run by a co-op of 100+ public universities in the US, worth checking out for your teen here.
