Watched one of those study skill videos youtube shoves at you after you’ve been stuck on the same practice test for an hour, and the part that stuck was the difference between recognizing something and actually being able to pull it out of your head cold.
My whole system was rereading my notes until they felt familiar, which turns out to be basically the least useful thing you can do — you just get good at recognizing your own handwriting, not the material.
So I tried what the video suggested, close the notes, write down everything I remember, then check what I missed. Did it with a section I’d already “studied” twice that week and missed about half of it, which was honestly kind of demoralizing at 9pm on a weeknight.
Tried it again 2 days later with a fresh section, 20 minutes instead of my usual hour of rereading, and actually retained more of it when I came back to it this weekend.
Not saying it’s magic. I still catch myself drifting back into old habits when I’m tired, or when I’ve stayed up gaming later than I meant to and I’m just trying to get through the material fast. But the gap between feeling like I studied and actually being able to produce the answer cold is something I keep thinking about, with 2 months left before this exam.