Exam week. Peak on the right day.

Most IB students study hard for months, then sabotage themselves the final week with all-nighters, sugar, and caffeine. The science is clear: peak cognitive performance on exam day depends almost entirely on what you do in the 7 days leading up to it. This guide is the daily playbook used by top scorers.

Why exam week matters more than the months before

You've prepared for months. The content is in your brain. The question now is: can you access it under pressure? Three factors determine that on exam day:

• Sleep. A single night under 6 hours reduces cognitive function by 25-30%. After 4 nights of partial sleep, you perform like someone with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit.
• Cortisol. Chronic stress elevates cortisol, which directly impairs the hippocampus — the brain region responsible for retrieving learned information. This is why "blanking" happens.
• Glycemic stability. Sugar crashes during exams trigger panic responses indistinguishable from real anxiety. Your brain misreads "low blood sugar" as "danger" and shuts down higher reasoning.

This week isn't about cramming more content. It's about protecting access to the content you already have. Every action below is engineered to reduce cortisol, stabilise glucose, and preserve sleep architecture.

Day -7 · Strategic review begins

Focus: Map what you actually know

Today is for triage, not learning. You're identifying what's solid, what's shaky, and what's broken — so the rest of the week has clear targets.

• Pull every past exam paper, mock score, and IA feedback. List your weakest 5 topics by subject.
• Build a daily study schedule for the next 6 days. Each day = max 2 subjects, max 4 hours total. Anything more is performative, not productive.
• Schedule sleep: bedtime should already start aligning with your exam morning. If exam is 9am, you should be in bed by 11pm starting tonight.
• Stock the kitchen: protein, complex carbs, fruit, nuts, water. Remove energy drinks, sugary cereals, anything that spikes glucose.

What NOT to do: Start a new topic. Watch new YouTube tutorials. Reorganise your notes (you've procrastinated enough — your notes are fine).

ES tip: "Empieza fuerte sin agotarte" — start strong without exhausting yourself. The week is a marathon, not a sprint.

Day -6 · Active recall, not re-reading

Focus: Convert recognition into recall

This is the most important shift of the week. Re-reading notes feels productive but produces almost zero retention. Active recall — closing the book and forcing yourself to retrieve information — is 4-5x more effective per minute spent.

• For every topic, do flashcards or self-quizzing. Close all materials and write down everything you remember about a concept. Then check.
• For each weak topic from yesterday's list, do 30 minutes of focused active recall. Not more.
• Take a 10-minute walk between subjects. Movement consolidates memory.
• Eat breakfast within 1 hour of waking. Skip caffeine after 2pm.

What NOT to do: Highlight notes (it's the most common form of useful-feeling-but-useless studying). Read sample answers without trying to write your own first.

Day -5 · Targeted weakness drilling

Focus: Drill the 3 weakest topics with practice questions

By now your weakness map is clear. Today is for surgical strikes — not broad review.

• Pick your 3 weakest topics. For each, do 4-6 past exam questions under timed conditions.
• Mark your own answers using the markscheme. Identify the exact mark you would have lost and why.
• Re-attempt one question per topic, applying what you learned from marking.
• Begin tapering screens 1 hour before bed. Blue light disrupts melatonin and makes deep sleep harder.

ES tip: "Tu meta esta semana es exactitud, no volumen" — your goal this week is precision, not volume. One past paper done well beats five done sloppily.

Day -4 · Last full mock exam

Focus: One complete exam under real conditions

Today you simulate exam day. The goal isn't to score perfectly — it's to test your stamina and pacing.

• Take one full past paper for your most-feared subject. Real conditions: timed, no breaks beyond official ones, no notes.
• Mark it carefully against the markscheme. Identify command term mistakes (see our command terms guide).
• Review your mock exam strategy: 3-pass method.
• Eat dinner by 7pm. Heavy late meals impair sleep quality.

What NOT to do: Take a mock the day before the actual exam. The cognitive cost is too high — you need that energy for the real thing.

Day -3 · Review past mocks, no new content

Focus: Pattern recognition from your own mistakes

You've now generated weeks of mock data. Today you mine it for patterns.

• List the 5 most common errors across all your mocks. Likely candidates: misreading command terms, time mismanagement on long-response questions, forgetting to evaluate.
• Write a 1-page "exam day reminders" sheet for each subject. This is what you'll glance at 30 min before the exam.
• Light review of formulas, key dates, key thinkers, key processes. 90 min max per subject.
• Get outside for 30 min. Sunlight before noon resets circadian rhythm and improves sleep.

Day -2 · Wind-down begins

Focus: Reduce study time, increase recovery

Counterintuitive but critical: less is more starting today. Cognitive recovery now produces better exam performance than additional cramming.

• Maximum 2 hours of study, all light review (your reminders sheets, flashcards on weak terms).
• Pack your exam bag completely: ID, calculator with fresh batteries, water bottle, snacks, watch, layers (rooms can be cold).
• Walk through the route to your exam venue if it's unfamiliar. Logistics anxiety is a cognitive drain.
• No caffeine after 12pm.

Day -1 · The day before

Focus: Calm. The work is done.

This day is not for studying. It's for arriving in good shape. Trying to learn the day before is like trying to add ingredients to a baked cake.

• Maximum 1 hour of light review. Just glance at your reminders sheet. No new material.
• Do something mildly pleasant: a favourite show, a walk with a friend, music. Don't isolate.
• Eat a balanced dinner with complex carbs (rice, pasta) and protein. Carbs help sleep.
• Lay out clothes, snacks, water for tomorrow. Set 2 alarms.
• Bedtime by 10pm. Even if you can't fall asleep, lying in the dark for 8 hours produces 70-80% of the cognitive benefit of sleep.

ES tip: "El examen ya empezó: empezó hace 6 meses" — the exam already started: it started 6 months ago. Today, you only need to show up rested.

Exam day · Morning routine

The 90-minute pre-exam window matters

• Wake 2.5-3 hours before the exam. Your brain needs time to come fully online.
• Eat a balanced breakfast: protein (eggs, yogurt), complex carbs (oats, whole-grain bread), fruit. No sugary cereals. Sugar spikes lead to crashes mid-exam.
• 10 minutes of movement: walk, light stretching. Increases blood flow to the brain.
• 30 minutes before: glance at your reminders sheet. Don't try to learn anything new.
• Arrive at the venue 20-30 min early. Use the bathroom. Hydrate (but not excessively).
• In the 5 minutes before the exam starts: 6-second exhales, slow breathing. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system and reduces panic.

Bilingual quick phrases (EN/ES)

Mantras and self-talk for exam week. Use whichever language is your dominant inner voice.

The single biggest exam-week mistake

Studying through panic. When students feel underprepared, the instinct is to study more — often deep into the night, with caffeine, in panic mode. This produces almost no real learning while destroying the sleep, glucose stability, and emotional regulation that determine exam performance.

If you find yourself panicking 3 days before the exam, the correct response is counterintuitive: do less, sleep more, and trust the work you've already done. The exam is a measurement of what you know — and you can't add new knowledge in 72 hours nearly as much as you can lose access to existing knowledge through exhaustion.

Frequently asked questions