The last two weeks before the exam

Two weeks out, your vocabulary is roughly what it is going to be. Cramming more words is the most common way to spend this fortnight and close to the least effective. What changes your score now is retrieval speed, exam shape, and nerves.

Sit a full paper, timed, at the actual hour

Once in week one, once in week two. Not exercises — a whole paper, in one sitting, with a clock, at roughly the time of day you will really sit it. This is the single most useful thing available to you now, and it is the thing almost everyone skips because it is unpleasant.

You are not measuring your level. You are finding out whether you run out of time, where your attention breaks, and which section you have been quietly avoiding.

Work your mistakes, not your syllabus

Keep every wrong answer from those papers in one list. Read it daily. Most people find the same three or four things account for half their errors — one case, one tense, a handful of prepositions. Two weeks is plenty to fix four things and nowhere near enough to fix forty.

Rehearse the mechanics

How long you have per section. When you will move on from a hard question. Which section you will do first if you are allowed to choose. Deciding these in advance means you are not deciding them while tired and under pressure.

Speaking, if your exam has it

Record yourself answering a likely question for two minutes. Listen back once. It is uncomfortable and it is the fastest correction you will get — you will hear the hesitation, the one word you reach for repeatedly, the sentence you never finish.

Prepare flexible material rather than scripts: a few things to say about your work, your town, your reasons for learning, that can be redirected into most questions. Memorised answers are audible, and they collapse the moment the examiner asks something adjacent.

The last two days

Stop learning. Re-read your mistake list, sleep properly, and check the boring things: where the exam is, what documents you need, how long the journey takes.

A well-rested pass is a real thing, and so is a tired failure by someone who knew more.

One thing not to do

Do not take a new practice paper the day before. If it goes badly you will carry that into the room, and it is far too late for the result to change anything you do.