A 12-week study plan
This plan counts back twelve weeks from your exam. It puts the syllabus and its textbooks first, as EGBC advises, and keeps past papers for the last third, when you practise under exam conditions. The EGBC rules it relies on are listed at the end.
The twelve weeks and the week-by-week split are Nivaar's suggestion, not an EGBC figure. How long you need depends on how much of the syllabus is new to you. This guide is Nivaar's own summary and is independent of EGBC. It may contain errors, so check the EGBC details against the sources below.
Before week 1
- Confirm which exams EGBC has assigned you. Do not register for others.
- Know the registration deadline for your session. It is a fixed date, and late applications are not accepted. For Spring/Summer 2027 it is 31 January 2027.
- Look up the session's free deferral deadline. For Spring/Summer 2027 it is 31 January 2027, and after it EGBC allows no changes. That is well before an exam in the April to June window, so it usually falls before week 1 or early in the plan. Judge whether you are on track before the deadline, which may mean starting earlier than twelve weeks out.
- Open the session's Exam Formats and List of Aids and note, for each of your exams, whether it is open or closed book, whether an aid sheet is allowed, and which calculator format applies.
- If you are sitting two exams in one session, run two plans side by side with half the hours each. You do not have to write all your assigned exams at once.
The plan
Weeks 1 to 2: set up
- Get your discipline's syllabus and turn each exam's topic paragraph into a checklist. The guide to reading the syllabus shows how.
- Rate each line honestly and rank the weakest first.
- Buy or borrow the recommended textbooks. EGBC allows other textbooks too.
- Work out your weekly hours and block them in a calendar.
- Scan a page of hand-written work to a PDF once, to see how long it takes (see week 9).
Weeks 3 to 8: study the syllabus
- Work through the checklist from weakest to strongest. For each topic, read the textbook section, then solve end-of-chapter problems on paper before looking at any answers.
- Re-rate yourself every week, and bring back earlier topics as short sessions rather than finishing a topic once and leaving it. Research on study methods rates practice testing and spaced practice as high-utility, and rereading and highlighting as low-utility.
Weeks 9 to 11: practise under exam conditions
- Now use past papers. EGBC says they should not be your main method of study, since the format and content of current exams can differ, so treat them as a check on the work you have done. The papers EGBC still publishes are from before 2020.
- Sit each paper in one block of three hours, since most exams are three-hour sittings. Use only the aids that your exam allows. For a closed-book exam that is writing instruments, blank paper and whatever its List of Aids permits, such as one hand-written aid sheet.
- Write by hand and use the calculator your exam's format allows. Most exams need hand-written solutions that you scan and upload as one PDF of 80 MB or less within 30 minutes of finishing. EGBC recommends practising the scan beforehand, so do a full timed scan and upload at least once. Number your pages, and put your name and regulator ID on them.
- Mark your attempt, then compare it with a worked solution. Our guide to using worked solutions explains how to do that without fooling yourself.
- Tally your errors by topic, and use week 11's spare hours on the topics at the top of the list.
Week 12: logistics
- Review your error tally and your hand-written aid sheet if the exam allows one. Do not start new topics.
- Check your equipment: a desktop or laptop with a webcam and microphone, a strong and stable internet connection and a private room where you will be alone. A tablet or phone cannot be used for the exam itself.
- Prepare the allowed materials only. Open-book exams allow printed books and notes, never digital copies.
- On the day, log in to eProctor at least 30 minutes before your start time. If you decide not to sit, do not open the exam: under the Spring/Summer 2027 rules, opening it in AssessBank counts as a failed attempt with a zero score, even if you stop there.
After the sitting
Results come about 8 weeks after the exam, through your EGBC account. The guide to how the exams work covers re-reads, rewrites and deferrals.
Sources
All checked on 4 October 2026. EGBC updates these documents between sessions; the most recent version on its site always wins over this page.
- EGBC, Academic Examinations
- EGBC, Academic Exam Regulations (revision of 21 October 2024)
- EGBC, Status of Online Academic Exams
- EGBC, Exam Schedule, Formats and List of Aids (Fall 2026)
- EGBC, Written Solutions Guide
- EGBC, Academic Exam Deferrals for Spring/Summer 2027 (updated 24 September 2026)
- Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan and Willingham (2013), Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques, Psychological Science in the Public Interest 14(1)