List your subjects with the days until each exam and how hard you find it, from 1 to 5. Enter the study hours you have each day and the rest days you want. You get the hours for each subject and a day-by-day plan for the first week. It works as a revision timetable, a study schedule or a study planner.
Enter your subjects and your study hours
Everything is worked out in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Your answer
Your plan shows up here once you list a subject and your study hours.
What to enter
- Subject lines
- One line for each exam: the name, the days until the exam, then a difficulty from 1 to 5. Use a comma between them.
- Days until the exam
- A whole number. The exam day itself is not a study day for that subject.
- Difficulty
- How much work you need on the subject. Give 5 to the subjects you find hardest or know least.
- Study hours each day
- The hours you can really study on a working day, not the hours you hope to.
- Rest days each week
- Days with no study. They fall on the last days of each 7-day block. Empty means one.
Worked examples
Three exams in the next four weeks
A student has Biology in 21 days (difficulty 4), History in 14 days (difficulty 2) and Maths in 28 days (difficulty 5). They can study 6 hours a day and take one rest day a week. These are made-up numbers.
- Count the study days before the last exam, leaving out 1 rest day in every 7. That is up to 28 days.
- On each study day, share your 6 hours between the subjects whose exams have not happened yet. A subject with difficulty 4 gets twice the time of one with difficulty 2.
- Add up each subject’s hours across the days. Your total is 144 hours.
Across 27 days the plan comes to 144 hours, and Maths gets the most. The first-week table shows how each day splits.
A single subject
A student has one exam, Chemistry in 10 days, with 4 hours a day and no rest days.
- Count the study days before the last exam, leaving out 0 rest days in every 7. That is up to 10 days.
- On each study day, share your 4 hours between the subjects whose exams have not happened yet. A subject with difficulty 4 gets twice the time of one with difficulty 2.
- Add up each subject’s hours across the days. Your total is 36 hours.
Chemistry gets all 9 study days, 36 hours.
An exam that is too close
A student lists English in 10 days and Geography tomorrow.
- Count the study days before the last exam, leaving out 0 rest days in every 7. That is up to 10 days.
- On each study day, share your 5 hours between the subjects whose exams have not happened yet. A subject with difficulty 4 gets twice the time of one with difficulty 2.
- Add up each subject’s hours across the days. Your total is 45 hours.
One or more exams are too close for any study time on this plan: Geography. The plan puts every hour into English.
How the hours are shared
Each study day, your hours are split between the subjects whose exams have not happened yet. A subject with difficulty 4 gets twice the time of one with difficulty 2. As earlier exams pass, the same hours go to what is left. That is why a late exam ends with a larger share of the total. The plan is a starting point, so move hours around as you learn what you know.
Call it what your school calls it
The same plan is a revision timetable in the UK, a study schedule in the US and Canada, and a study planner in Australia. The sums are identical. Only the name changes.
How it is calculated
- Count the days until the last exam and mark your rest days at the end of each 7-day block.
- On each study day, find the subjects whose exams are still to come, and add their difficulty scores.
- Give each of those subjects a share of the day’s hours equal to its difficulty divided by that total.
- Add each subject’s hours across all the days to get its total.
Subject hours = sum over study days of (daily hours × subject difficulty ÷ total difficulty of subjects still to sit)
Assumptions to keep in mind
- You study the same number of hours on every working day.
- The exam day is not a study day for that subject, and later days go to the exams still to come.
- Rest days fall on the last days of each 7-day block, starting from day 1.
- Difficulty is your own judgment. The plan does not know your syllabus or how much you already know.
- Time is split by difficulty, not by topic. Break each subject into topics yourself.
Mistakes that give the wrong answer
Scheduling hours you will not study
A plan with 10 hours a day fails in a week. Use the hours you can really do, on a normal day.
Giving every subject the same difficulty
If everything is a 3, the plan splits time evenly. Be honest about the subjects you know least.
Skipping rest days
Rest days are in the plan on purpose. A broken week costs more than a free day does.
Leaving a subject to the end
The plan gives the hardest, soonest exams more time early on. Do not shift everything to the last week.
Questions students ask
How do I make a revision timetable?
List each exam with the days left and how hard you find it, decide how many hours you can study each day, and share those hours between the subjects still to come. This page does that for you and shows the first week.
What is the difference between a revision timetable and a study schedule?
Nothing in the maths. Revision timetable is the UK name, study schedule is the US and Canadian name, and study planner is common in Australia.
How many hours should I study a day?
It depends on you, your courses and your other work. Use a number you can really keep. The study hours calculator shows what a credit load adds up to.
How do I set difficulty?
Give 5 to subjects you know least or find hardest, and 1 to the ones you are comfortable with. The plan gives the harder ones more of each day.
What if two exams are on the same day?
List both with the same number of days. Both get time until the exam day, and the plan shares each day between them by difficulty.
Why does my plan only show the first week?
The first week is the part you will follow now. The subject table shows the total for the whole period, and you can run the plan again next week with the days left.
