What to do before an exam is mostly decided in the 14 or so hours between dinner the night before and the moment a proctor checks your ID. This is for adults sitting the real ones: university finals, the bar, a nursing or medical licensing exam, an accounting or IT certification booked at a test centre. The content is already in your head. What you can still control is how you sleep, when you eat, how you arrive, and how you feel in the last two minutes before the door. We finish ours with one spray outside the exam hall.
What to do before an exam, in the order you'll do it
Lists of exam tips tend to come in no particular order, and a nervous brain doesn't want to sort them. A timeline is easier. Each step has a slot, and once the slot passes you stop thinking about it. The slots are the evening before, the morning, the trip, the waiting area and the last minute outside the room.
Pack the bag at night, then go to bed
Stop studying at a set time and pack your bag before you do anything else. ID, admission ticket or confirmation email, the pens or calculator your exam allows, a water bottle, a snack, a layer. Put the bag by the door.
Then go to bed at your normal time. The research here is more interesting than the usual "get a good night's sleep" line. In a study published in npj Science of Learning in 2019, Kana Okano, Jeffrey Grossman and colleagues at MIT gave Fitbits to the students in an introductory chemistry course and tracked 88 of them across a semester of 9 quizzes, 3 midterms and a final. Sleep quality, duration and consistency together explained almost 25% of the variation in grades. Sleep on the single night before a test showed no link with that test's score. The weeks and month of sleep before it did. If you lie awake the night before finals, that one night didn't decide anything.
For the weeks leading up, the CDC recommends at least 7 hours a night for adults. Its 2016 report found about 1 in 3 American adults regularly get less than that.
“Oh wow, the saliva flow.”
What to do before an exam in the morning
Wake up early enough that nothing is rushed. JD Advising, a bar prep company, gives a worked example for the California Bar Exam, which usually starts at 9:00 a.m.: an alarm around 6:30 a.m., adjusted for how far you live from the test site.
Breakfast should be familiar. The National Jurist suggests something light but filling, like eggs and toast, oatmeal with fruit or a protein smoothie, and says to keep coffee to your normal amount. Exam day is a bad day to try a new energy drink or double your usual cup. Eat early enough that you aren't still digesting in the waiting area.
A short review is fine if it's short. JD Advising's tip for bar takers is to answer 5 to 10 practice questions that morning and not check the answers. The point is to get moving on the material. Marking wrong answers at 7 a.m. is a poor start to the day. Ten minutes, then close the book.
Get there 30 minutes early
Professional exams run on rules. The ARRT, which runs radiography certification exams at Pearson VUE test centres, tells candidates to arrive at least 30 minutes before their appointment, and says anyone more than 15 minutes late may forfeit the appointment and the fee. Everything from your pockets, including phones, study guides and any personal items, goes into a locker outside the testing room. Jackets and hoodies aren't allowed in, so dress in layers you can wear all morning.
University finals are looser, but the same habit holds. Leave early, find the room, use the toilet, and then wait somewhere quiet near the door.
What to do before an exam to relax
Keep it physical and small. Walk a lap of the building. Roll your shoulders. Then try box breathing, which WebMD lays out in four counts: breathe in for four seconds, hold for four, breathe out through your mouth for four, pause for four, and repeat. If four seconds feels too long, start with two or three. It takes about 30 seconds and nobody standing next to you will notice.
Skip the group comparing notes in the corridor. A topic you skipped, heard five minutes before you sit down, is no use to you now.
What to take before an exam
Our pick is one spray of Dragon Breath, outside the exam hall, before you hand your bag over to the locker.
Dragon Breath is a 50 ml mouth spray of chilcuague extract. Chilcuague (Heliopsis longipes), also called golden root, is a root from Central Mexico. Spray once into your mouth. For a second it tastes earthy and a little peppery. Within about 10 seconds a bright, electric buzz spreads across the tongue and mouth, and then the mouth floods. A customer filming their first spray said it before anything else: "Oh wow, the saliva flow." Another, moments after one spray in a reaction video, said: "Definitely energized."
That's the feeling you take through the door. You walk in switched on, your mouth wet, the buzz still fading as you sit down and read the first question. A clean, fresh feeling lingers after it.
The buzz comes from affinin (also called spilanthol), which has been measured at 6.9 to 8.5 mg per gram of chilcuague root. The plant's story, from the Sierra Gorda to Mexican kitchens, is in our guide to chilcuague root.
Dragon Breath – Chilcuague Extract
50 ml mouth spray. Wild-harvested chilcuague root, dual-extracted. 250+ sprays.
Add to bagA spray suits exam day better than anything with a wrapper
Exam mornings are full of small rules and quiet rooms. A spray has no wrapper to crackle in the waiting area and nothing left to chew when the proctor calls your name. It's done in a second. The bottle fits in a trouser pocket, and a few sprays is all it takes, so the 250+ in one bottle cover every final, resit and practice morning of a long exam season.
The extract stays sealed in Miron violet glass, which keeps light off it and adds significant longevity to its quality and potency. Loose root or powder sits open to the air every time you use it. Start with one spray. Once you know the feeling, some people go up to five.
The root is wild-harvested from growth zones the Mara team selects with the help of local elders, then dual-extracted in organic solutions. It's vegan, gluten free, sugar free and non-GMO. Cheryl, a verified buyer who ordered the 3-pack, wrote: "Great stuff! Love that there's an organic version of this"
Dragon Breath considerations
If you're pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or allergic to plants in the daisy family, ask your doctor before using it.
Questions people ask
Should I study the morning of an exam?
A short warm-up is enough. JD Advising suggests 5 to 10 practice questions without checking the answers, then stopping.
How early should I arrive for an exam?
For test centre exams, at least 30 minutes before your appointment. The ARRT says candidates more than 15 minutes late may lose the appointment and the fee.
Does sleep the night before an exam affect your score?
In the 2019 MIT study of 88 chemistry students, sleep on the single night before a test showed no link with that test's score. Sleep over the previous weeks and month did.
When should I use Dragon Breath before an exam?
Outside the exam hall, a minute or two before you go in. The buzz arrives within about 10 seconds, and you'll want to swallow the first rush of saliva before you sit down.
