How to study for an open book exam (it's not the easy option)

To study for an open book exam, learn the material well enough to answer without looking, and then build a short, organized reference you can find things in within seconds. An open book exam doesn't test whether you can find the definition: it tests whether you can apply it to a problem you haven't seen, under time pressure. The book only helps with the details you've already understood.

So preparation has three parts: understand the main ideas as if the exam were closed book, make an index or a summary sheet with page numbers, and practice answering real questions on a timer with your materials next to you. Most people who struggle skip the first part, because "it's open book", and spend the exam searching.

Open book exams are the ones where students most often relax too early. Here's a method that works better.

Why open book exams are harder than they sound

When a professor allows notes, they write a different exam. There's no point asking "define elasticity of demand" if the definition is on page 112. The questions become cases and problems: here's a company, a patient, a contract, a circuit; what happens and why?

That changes what you need. In a law exam where you can bring the statute book, as many UK law schools allow, the articles are there for everyone. What separates grades is knowing which ones apply to the facts in front of you and arguing it. In an engineering exam with the formula sheet allowed, everyone has the formulas; the hard part is knowing which one fits and setting the problem up.

There's also time. An open book exam usually has as much to write as a closed one, and every minute you spend flipping pages comes out of your answer. If you have to look everything up, you'll run out of time.

Step 1: find out exactly what's allowed

Before you study, read the rules, and ask if anything is unclear. Open book means different things in different places:

• Any printed material, or only the textbook, or only your own notes.
• One sheet of notes (sometimes one A4 page, both sides).
• A clean copy of a statute book or a formula booklet, with no annotations.
• Online and take-home exams, where you can use your files but usually not other people, and often not AI tools. Check the policy on that specifically: it varies by course, and breaking it is treated as misconduct.

What's allowed shapes the rest of the plan. One sheet means writing the best summary of your life. Everything printed means an index matters more than a summary.

Step 2: study as if it were closed book

This sounds backwards, but it's the step that decides the grade. Learn the main concepts until you can explain them without your notes: what each idea is, when it applies, and how it connects to the others.

The best way is the same as for any exam: close the notes and try to answer. Pulling ideas out of memory is what makes them stick, and that works with open book tests too. In an experiment by Agarwal and colleagues, taking an open book test and a closed book test both improved long-term retention over just studying again, and a week later the two led to the same result.

What to know cold, without looking:

1. The main concepts and how they relate. The map of the course, not the details.
2. When each tool applies. Which test, which formula, which legal rule, which model. This is what the exam asks most.
3. Where things are. Not page numbers by heart, but "that's in the lecture on market failures, near the end".

The book helps with details you already understand, not with understanding.

Step 3: build a reference you can use in seconds

Now organize your materials for speed. The goal is to find anything in under thirty seconds.

• An index on one page. Each topic with where it lives: "Externalities: lecture 7, slides 12 to 18; textbook ch. 5, p. 98". If you use the slides, number them.
• Tabs or sticky notes on the textbook and your notes, by topic, with the color meaning something (definitions in one color, worked examples in another).
• A summary sheet per topic with what you'll actually need to copy or check: formulas with what each letter means, the conditions for each rule, the steps of a procedure. Not paragraphs of theory.
• Worked examples marked. In a problem-based exam, a solved example of each type is the most useful page you can bring.

If you can bring only one sheet, write it by hand if you can: deciding what fits is a review in itself. There's a step-by-step way to condense a deck by topic in how to summarize a presentation.

Step 4: practice on the clock with your materials

Take a past paper or practice questions, set the real time, put your materials next to you and answer. Then look at two things:

• How long you spent looking things up. If it was more than a few minutes in total, your index needs work or you don't know the main ideas well enough yet.
• What you looked up. Anything you searched for twice goes on your summary sheet or into memory.

Practice also shows you the kind of answer the professor wants. Open book questions reward applying and arguing, not copying. If a question asks whether a company should raise prices, the answer that scores is the one that uses the concept on the company's numbers, not the one that copies the definition of elasticity.

On the day

1. Read the whole exam first and mark which questions you can answer without your notes. Do those first.
2. Answer, then check. Write your answer from what you know and use your materials to confirm the detail (the exact number of the article, the constant, the date), not to find the idea.
3. Don't copy long passages. Professors notice, and it costs time. Cite the source briefly and explain in your own words.
4. Watch the clock. Give each question a time limit based on its marks, and move on when it's up.

One app that helps with the preparation is Filmina, a web app that explains your lecture slides out loud: it turns the slides of a subject into a summary by topic that shows which slides each idea came from, which is close to the index described above, and you can ask it about anything that doesn't make sense in your notes. It's free to start. There are comparisons with ChatGPT and NotebookLM, which some people use for the same thing. But check your exam's rules before using any app during the exam itself: it's for getting ready, not for the exam room.

For the days before, the plan in how to study for an exam in a week works the same way, with past papers as the center of it, as in how to use past papers.

Frequently asked questions

How do you prepare for an open book exam?

Learn the main ideas as if it were closed book, then build an index of your materials with page or slide numbers and a short summary per topic. Finish by answering past questions on the clock with your materials beside you.

Are open book exams easier?

Usually not. Because the information is available, the questions are harder: they ask you to apply and argue, not to recall. Many students also study less for them and then run out of time looking things up.

What should I bring to an open book exam?

Whatever the rules allow, organized for speed: an index on one page, tabbed notes or textbook, a summary sheet per topic with formulas and conditions, and a few worked examples. Bring less, organized well, rather than everything.

Can I use ChatGPT in an online open book exam?

Only if the course explicitly allows it. Many online open book exams allow your own notes and books but not AI tools or other people, and using them when they're not allowed counts as academic misconduct. Ask your professor if the rules don't say.