Ace
Short answer: wake at your usual time, eat a normal breakfast, have your usual coffee or tea and no more, and do a short warm-up of practice questions on topics you know, not new material. Pack everything the night before, arrive early, and if you're nervous, spend a few minutes writing your worries down before you go in: in experiments, that simple step helped anxious students perform better.
Should you study the morning of an exam?
A little, the right way. Exam morning isn't for learning new topics: anything you cram now is shaky, and finding something you don't know raises panic. Instead, do a 15–20 minute warm-up of practice questions on topics you already know well. Answering questions gets your brain into retrieval mode, the same mode the exam needs, and getting them right is a confidence boost.
Skip rereading your whole notes. It's slow, and the familiarity it gives you is not the same as being able to recall it. See active recall vs rereading.
What should you eat before an exam?
Your normal breakfast, at your normal time. Something with protein and slow carbs, such as oats, eggs, yoghurt with fruit or wholegrain toast, keeps your energy steady through a long paper. Exam day isn't the day to try anything new. Take water and a small snack if you're allowed.
Caffeine helps, at your usual dose. The European Food Safety Authority gave a favourable opinion on caffeine for alertness and attention at around 75 mg, roughly one cup of coffee (reported by NutraIngredients, 2015). Have your usual cup, not a double: more than you're used to can make you jittery.
How do you calm exam nerves in the morning?
Write them down. In experiments published in Science, Ramirez and Beilock (2011) asked students to spend a few minutes writing about their worries just before an important exam. The anxious students who did this performed better than anxious students who didn't, and closed much of the gap with their calmer classmates. The idea is that worrying uses up the working memory you need for the questions; putting worries on paper frees some of it.
So on exam morning: take a scrap of paper, write down exactly what you're worried about for a few minutes, then put it away. A few slow breaths before you walk in help too.
What should you do on exam morning? A checklist
The night before
- Pack your bag: ID, pens, pencil, calculator (with working batteries), ruler, water, watch if allowed.
- Check the time, room and how long it takes to get there.
- Lay out clothes in layers; exam rooms run hot or cold.
- Normal bedtime. The sleep in the week before matters more than this one night, but don't waste it. See how to study the night before an exam.
The morning
- Wake at your usual time; no snoozing into a rush.
- Normal breakfast and your usual coffee or tea.
- 15–20 minutes of practice questions on strong topics.
- A few minutes writing down your worries.
- Leave early enough to arrive 15–20 minutes before the start.
- Avoid the corridor crowd comparing what they revised; it only spreads panic.
What should you do in the first five minutes of the exam?
- Read the instructions: how many questions, which are compulsory, and the marks for each.
- Skim the whole paper and plan your time by marks.
- Start with a question you can answer well, to settle in.
- On multiple choice, mark the ones you're unsure about and come back. See how to guess on multiple-choice tests.
For your morning warm-up, Ace turns your own lecture slides, PDFs or YouTube lectures into practice questions; pick a chapter you know well, play a short set, and walk in already in question mode.
Frequently asked questions
Is it good to study right before an exam?
A short warm-up of practice questions on familiar topics is good. Learning new material or rereading everything is not: it's shaky and can raise anxiety.
Should I drink coffee before an exam?
Yes, if you normally do: have your usual cup at your usual time. Caffeine supports alertness, but more than you're used to can make you jittery.
How early should I arrive for an exam?
15–20 minutes before the start: enough to find the room and settle, not so early that you spend half an hour absorbing other people's nerves.
Sources
- Ramirez, G. & Beilock, S. L. (2011). Writing about testing worries boosts exam performance in the classroom. Science, 331(6014), 211–213. ScienceDaily summary
- Harrison-Dunn, A. (2015, March 6). Alert vs insomniac: EFSA says caffeine effect can be both good and bad. NutraIngredients. nutraingredients.com
- Okano, K., Kaczmarzyk, J. R., Dave, N., Gabrieli, J. D. E. & Grossman, J. C. (2019). Sleep quality, duration, and consistency are associated with better academic performance in college students. npj Science of Learning, 4, 16. PMC
