How to Spread Revision Across the Weeks You Have
With five weeks and four subjects, the obvious plan is a week per subject plus a spare. It is also the plan that leaves you unable to answer questions on the first subject by the time the exam arrives, because four weeks is long enough to lose most of it.
The Study Planner distributes subjects across the available weeks. This article explains the spacing principle behind that, so you can judge or override the result.
Quick answer
Memory fades fastest right after learning, so the first revisit should come soon and later ones can be further apart. In practice that means every subject appears in most weeks rather than in one block, with the gap between appearances growing as the exam approaches. The same total hours produce much better recall when distributed than when concentrated.
Why blocking feels right and works badly
A block gives a sense of completion. You finish a subject, tick it off, and feel progress. The feeling is real, but it measures exposure rather than retention. What you can recall a week later is what matters, and a block leaves nothing scheduled to protect it.
Blocking also makes the decision about what to study next trivial, which is part of its appeal. The cost is that each subject gets one encounter, and one encounter is not enough to keep material available.
How the spacing should look
The first revisit should come within a few days of first learning something, because that is when the steepest loss happens. Subsequent revisits can be spaced further apart: days, then a week, then two. By the final revisit the material is being recalled rather than relearned, which takes much less time.
This is why a subject can appear every week while taking less time each week. The early passes are long, the later ones are short checks. Total hours stay similar, and the outcome is different.
Making it work across subjects
- List the subjects and give each a weighting if the exams are not equal.
- Decide how many study sessions you have per week in total.
- Give every subject at least one session in the first week, so nothing waits too long for its first contact.
- In later weeks, give more sessions to the subjects closest to their exam and to the ones you are weakest in.
- Keep at least one session per subject in the final week, even if it is only a short recall check.
The weighting matters more than the exact pattern. A subject examined in week two needs its revisits pulled forward. A subject examined in week five can take its heavier sessions later.
When a block is acceptable
Some work is genuinely one-off: reading a text for the first time, or working through a topic you have never seen. That first pass can be concentrated, because the point is coverage rather than retention. Just do not count a concentrated first pass as revision. It is the starting point, and the spaced revisits are what make it stick.
For the wider planning method, see How to Build a Revision Timetable That Survives Contact. For how much time to allocate overall, see How Many Hours a Day Should You Actually Revise.
Set the exam date and subject list in Study Planner and check that no subject appears only once in the weeks before its exam.
Common questions
How long should the gaps between revisits be?
Short at first, then longer. Revisit within a few days of first learning something, because that is when loss is steepest. Later revisits can be a week apart and then two, since each pass takes less time as the material becomes recall rather than relearning.
Is blocking a subject ever acceptable?
For a first pass over unfamiliar material, yes, because the aim there is coverage rather than retention. The mistake is counting that first pass as revision. The spaced revisits are what make the material stay available.
How do I spread subjects when the exams are not at the same time?
Weight each subject by when its exam falls and how weak you are in it. A subject examined early needs its revisits pulled forward, while a later one can take heavier sessions later in the plan. The weighting matters more than the exact pattern.