Two weeks out from a midterm, most students do one of two things: re-watch every lecture, or open the textbook at chapter one and start reading. Both feel responsible. Both are slow ways to prepare for an exam that will ask you to produce solutions, not recognize them. Here is the system I put students on instead. It assumes your other courses keep running — because they do.

Days 1–2: Build the map, then take a past exam cold

Before any studying, make the topic map: one page listing every topic the midterm covers, pulled from the syllabus, the lecture slides and the assignment list. Next to each topic, mark where the marks are — which topics appear on every past exam, which appear sometimes, which were mentioned once.

Then — and this is the part everyone skips — take one past midterm cold, under time, before you've reviewed anything. It will be uncomfortable. That discomfort is the entire point: you now have an honest measurement of what you can produce under pressure, instead of a vague feeling of "I should review everything." Grade it. Every lost mark gets tagged with its topic.

Days 3–9: Hunt weaknesses in priority order

You now have a list: topics, their exam weight, and your cold score on each. Study in that order — highest weight, weakest performance first. This is the opposite of how most people study (favourite topics first, hard topics "when I'm fresher," i.e. never).

For each topic, one day follows the same loop:

  • Relearn the move (30–45 min). From the lecture notes or the Guides — just enough to state the core method out loud.
  • Guided reps (60 min). Problems from the assignment set, with the solution available — but you attempt before you peek. Every peek gets marked.
  • Cold reps (45 min). A short set with no notes and no solutions, checked only at the end. The peeking rate from step two is your real readiness number.

One topic per day, two at most. Seven days covers five to eight topics — which, chosen by exam weight, is usually 80% of the midterm.

Days 10–12: Full exams under time

Three days, two full past exams (not three — you need repair time between them). Morning: the exam, strict timer, no pausing, no phone. Afternoon: grade it against the marking scheme and do a repair pass on every lost mark — not reading the solution, redoing the problem until it comes out clean. Keep an error log: each entry is one line — topic, what you did wrong, what the first correct move was. That log is the highest-value page you own.

Days 13–14: Errors only, then rest

The last two days are not for new material. Rework every problem in your error log, cold. Skim the topic map and confirm you can state each core move in one sentence. The night before: pack your bag, set two alarms, stop studying early. A midterm written on five hours of sleep spends marks you already earned.

What to stop doing immediately

Re-watching full lectures (watch the 15 minutes on the specific move you failed). Rewriting notes beautifully. Study groups where nobody produces anything on paper. And "one more resource" — two weeks out, you have enough material; what you're short on is attempted reps.

If you'd rather run this with a coach — including the cold-exam measurement, the daily feedback, and someone telling you honestly which topic deserves your last three days — that's the Sprint track. It starts with a free 30-minute consult.