Revision hours are study hours with a deadline. The way to track them is the same as any other week — subject, focused minutes, a look at the total — except you deliberately move time toward the exam and stop pretending every course still deserves an equal share.
Decide the hours before you buy another pack of papers
Count the days you will actually revise, not the days on the calendar. If the exam is in 18 days and four of those are shifts you cannot move, you have 14 revision days. If you can protect 3 hours on each, the budget is about 42 hours for that exam. Split those hours by topic only after the total fits. A plan that needs 80 hours in a 40-hour window will be abandoned, and the log will show a blank second week.
For a normal term week with one exam inside it, do not double every subject. Raise the exam subject. Hold or lower the others. The weekly study hours guide is how to set the baseline before exam season distorts it.
Track revision hours by subject, then by the work inside it
One subject called “Revision” hides whether history or chemistry received the time. Keep the course names. If one exam covers two very different papers, use two subjects while that month lasts — still inside the eight-subject cap — and merge them afterward.
Inside the sitting, the log does not need a topic tree. Your notes do. Write the topic on paper before you start the study timer: “electrochemistry past paper, 2019.” The timer records that the hour happened under Chemistry. The paper records what the hour contained. A tracker full of micro-topics becomes a cataloguing project, which is a known way to revise the tracker instead of the course.
What belongs in a revision hour
Retrieval belongs in the hour: closed-book problems, a past paper under a time limit, rewriting a definition from memory, explaining a process without the notes. Rereading a highlighted chapter belongs only as a short pass before that drill. If the whole session was rereading, you may log it, and you should notice that the hours are not yet exam practice.
StudyTracker will not store the mark you got on the paper. Keep scores in the margin of the paper or a single notes page. Hours tell you whether you showed up. Scores tell you whether the hour changed what you can do. Both matter. They are different records. The academic resources note is about keeping that drill set small.
Use the calendar as a log of days you sat down
During revision, the useful picture is which dates have any sessions, and which subjects those sessions belonged to. The calendar in StudyTracker shades days you already studied and lists that day’s sessions when you open the date. It also shows how many days in the month have any study at all. It does not draw a streak number, book tomorrow, or count down to the exam.
An empty weekday in the last fortnight before the exam is information. It means the remaining hours have to fit in fewer days, or the plan was too large. Chasing a consecutive-day streak often produces short, low-value sessions whose only job is to keep the chain. Prefer the weekly hour goal on the study progress tracker. A goal of 8 hours on the exam subject is a clearer order than “don’t break the streak.”
A simple revision week
- Name the exam subject and type a weekly hour goal you can hit in the days you have left. Leave the other subjects at a maintenance number, or at zero if the week is truly single-subject.
- Each sitting: one past-paper section or one topic drill. Start the timer on that subject. Lengths of 45 or 60 minutes usually fit a paper section better than 25. Use 25 for vocab and short recall.
- When the countdown ends, stop. The break state is 5 minutes and does not count as revision. Score the paper on paper.
- At the weekend, read the subject total. If you are far under the goal, cut topics before you promise longer days. The study hours method is the same loop outside exam season.
There is no alarm, no auto-start, and no “you are 40% ready” score. Readiness is whether you can do the questions. The hours only tell you whether you gave the questions time.
Questions during exam season
How many revision hours do I need?
Start from the days you can protect, times a daily amount you have kept before. A student who has honestly logged 2-hour evenings should not plan 6-hour evenings because an exam exists. Increase the exam subject inside a weekly total you already know you can live with.
Should I log practice scores in the tracker?
Keep scores next to the paper. The tracker’s job is the time. Mixing marks into the hour log usually means you stop doing one of them.
What about subjects without an exam this month?
Give them a small maintenance goal so they do not disappear, unless you have chosen, in writing, to let them slide. Zero hours should be a decision you can see on the progress bar.
Track revision hours on the study time tracker, judge the week on the progress view, and leave the timetable in whatever planner you already trust. The study tracker will show the hours. It will not sit the exam.