How To Study for Exams at Home

Short answer: To study for exams at home, set up an organized, distraction-free study space, put a daily study time on your calendar, and focus each session on one or two goals, starting with the hardest. Use spaced repetition to review, take short purposeful breaks, eat healthy snacks, get enough sleep, and get a tutor for topics you’re stuck on.

Studying at home gives you control over where, when and how you prepare for exams. These six habits turn that freedom into better results.

Key points

• Build a home base: Keep a quiet, organized study space with everything you need.
• Schedule it: Treat study time like a practice you can’t skip.
• Hardest task first: Tackle the most challenging goal while you’re fresh.
• Review on a schedule: Spaced repetition moves material into long-term memory.
• Break with purpose: Short, intentional breaks beat scrolling social media.
• Sleep comes first: Staying up late to study can make exam results worse.

How do you create an organized study space at home?

An organized study space is your “home base” for exam prep. If you sit down to study and find you don’t have something you need, it’s easy to get off track searching for supplies.

You want to spend your productive time studying, not looking for notecards. To create an organized study space, try the following:

• Pick the right spot. Start with a desk or study table and a comfortable, but not too comfy, chair. Set it up in a quiet location without distractions, such as video games.
• Clear the clutter. Get rid of anything you don’t need for your current classes.
• Store supplies. Use a desk organizer or drawers for paper, pens, pencils, sticky notes, folders and other materials.
• Hang a wall calendar. Track due dates, exam dates, extracurricular activities and other commitments.
• Color code. Use colors to organize materials for different subjects.

How do you build a study routine and stick to it?

Consulting your calendar, set aside time to study each day that doesn’t conflict with other activities. If your schedule is too packed to allow study time, you may need to drop some other commitments.

If you don’t prioritize study time, it won’t happen. Write your study time on your calendar and treat it like you would soccer practice: when it’s time to study, you should be in your study space, ready to work.

How should you plan each study session?

Focus on one area of study material at a time. Start each session by creating a study plan:

1. Set two or three objectives. It might be reading a chapter, reviewing a study guide, or practicing a new type of math problem, depending on the length of your session.
2. Start with the hardest task. Work on the most challenging objective while you’re fresh.
3. End by reviewing past concepts. A few minutes of review is an excellent way to finish every session.

What is spaced repetition?

Spaced repetition is the most effective way to learn something long-term. It’s the process of reviewing something right before you’re about to forget it.

You review concepts more frequently at first, then spread the review over longer periods as the information moves from your short-term to your long-term memory.

Even if you don’t have an exam coming up, build a few minutes of review into each study session. You can quiz yourself on past material or use a tool like Anki. For more ways to make material stick, see our memorization techniques.

Tutor tip: For math and physics, “studying” means working problems on your own, not rereading notes. Use your review minutes to redo a few old problems from scratch. Our guide on how to study for math walks through the full method.

How long should study breaks be?

Studying for long periods without a break is the quickest way to burn out. Purposeful breaks during your study session can help you stay focused and accomplish more.

Keep breaks short and intentional, so they don’t turn into an excuse to quit studying altogether. Breaks can be anywhere from five minutes for a short study session up to one hour if you’re studying most of the day.

A purposeful break doesn’t include scrolling on social media, which can hinder your productivity and performance. Instead, consider activities like:

• Taking a short walk
• Doing some stretches
• Listening to music
• Getting outside in nature
• Taking a shower
• Eating a healthy snack
• Calling a friend
• Spending a few minutes squeezing a stress ball

How do food and sleep affect studying?

Munching on chips and candy while you study can hurt your health and leave you tired and stressed, which is not an ideal study state. Instead, choose healthy snacks, such as fruits, vegetables, and whole wheat carbohydrates, to maintain your energy.

Leave time in your schedule to get enough sleep, too. Depending on your age, you need between eight and 12 hours of sleep every night.

Night owls often struggle since school starts so early. Over 70% of high school students don’t get enough sleep on school nights.

A lack of sleep makes it harder to learn. It’s associated with lower grades, trouble concentrating, anxiety, and depression, so staying up too late to study can actually make you do worse on an exam.

Tutor tip: Set a hard “pencils down” time the night before an exam. An extra hour of sleep will usually help your score more than an extra hour of cramming.

When should you get a tutor?

If you’ve made an effort to study on your own and still aren’t making progress, a tutor can give you the edge you need. A tutor can provide extra practice and explain things in a way that’s easier for you to understand.

Teachers have to stick to their lesson plans and teach to the entire class. A tutor provides individualized instruction and makes sure you understand concepts before moving on, and can even help you follow an approved home study course.

You can learn anything if it’s explained well enough and you’re willing to invest the time and effort. One-on-one online learning with a tutor is usually more effective than being one of many in a classroom.

At Alexander Tutoring, our tutors help students succeed in math and physics with a personalized study program. If nerves are part of the problem, read our guide to identifying test anxiety, and for more habits see 7 study tips for more effective studying.

Frequently asked questions