Study Tips for High School Students That Actually Work

The study tips that work best for high school students are simple: quiz yourself instead of rereading your notes, study a little on several days instead of cramming the night before, mix different kinds of practice problems together, and break big assignments into small dated steps. Add enough sleep and you've covered most of what learning research says.

High school makes that harder than it sounds. You carry six or seven subjects at once, with homework most nights, a quiz or test every week or two, and maybe AP or IB classes on top. If nobody ever taught you how to study, you probably reread, highlight, and cram, because those methods feel productive.

This guide shows what to do instead, a five-day plan for any unit test, how to handle AP and IB classes, and what to focus on in each grade. There's also a short section for parents.

Why rereading and highlighting don't work

When you reread your notes, the material starts to feel familiar, and familiar feels like "I know this". But a test doesn't show you your notes. It asks you to produce the answer on a blank page, which is a different skill from recognizing it. That's why the night-before reread feels fine at home and falls apart in class the next day.

A 2013 review of ten common study techniques rated rereading and highlighting low utility. Only two earned high utility: testing yourself and spreading study over several days. Those are the first two tips below. Our comparison of active recall vs passive reading explains the research behind the difference.

7 study tips for high school students

1. Quiz yourself after every class

Take five minutes after school. For each class, write down three things you learned today without looking. Then check your notes. Anything you missed becomes a question for later in the week. This is called active recall, one of the two study habits with the strongest evidence; the active recall guide shows six ways to do it.

2. Spread your studying over several days

If your test is on Friday, study for 30 minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday instead of 90 minutes on Thursday night. Each time you come back, you have to work a little to remember, and that effort is what makes the memory last. The total time is the same.

3. Mix up your practice problems

Textbook problem sets usually group problems by type: twenty problems on the same formula, in a row. That's called blocked practice. Mixing types together (interleaving) is harder, because you have to figure out which method each problem needs. That's also what the test asks you to do.

The catch: mixed practice feels harder, and you'll get more wrong while you practice. That's normal; the payoff shows up on the test. To try it, take the last problem from each of the past three sections and do them in random order. Our interleaving guide explains when mixing helps most.

4. Explain it in your own words

Pick a topic and explain it out loud as if to a friend who missed class. Where you stall or reach for the textbook's exact wording, you've found a gap. This is the Feynman technique, and it works especially well for science processes and history causes.

5. Practice the real test format

If the test is multiple choice, practice multiple choice. If it's essays, write essay outlines under a time limit. Ask your teacher for old tests or practice questions, and use the end-of-chapter questions before you look at the answers.

6. Break big assignments into dated steps

A research paper due in three weeks is really five tasks: pick a topic, find sources, outline, draft, revise. Put each one on a specific date in your planner the day the assignment is set. Big projects only feel overwhelming when they're one item called "paper".

7. Put your phone away and protect your sleep

Study with your phone in another room, or at least out of reach and on silent. And sleep: the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends 8 to 10 hours a night for teens aged 13 to 18. A late night of studying often costs more the next day in class than it gained.

How to study for a test in high school (a 5-day plan)

Here's how to use those tips for a unit test on Friday. About 30 minutes a day is enough for most tests.

If the test is two days away instead of five, compress it: blank-page recall and gap questions on day one, a mixed practice test on day two. If you get anxious before tests, practicing under test conditions helps, and our test anxiety guide has more.

Study tips by subject

Math deserves its own approach because the test is all about doing, not knowing. Our guide on how to study math goes deeper.

AP class study tips (and IB)

AP and IB classes cover a college-level course in a school year, so the habits above matter more, not less.

AP classes

• Know your exam date. The 2027 AP Exams run over two weeks in May: May 3–7 and May 10–14. Find your subject's date on the College Board's exam calendar and count back.
• Use released free-response questions. The College Board posts recent free-response questions and scoring guidelines on each course's AP Central page (as of October 2026, AP Biology's has 2023 to 2026). Write answers under time, then grade yourself with the official guidelines.
• Review old units all year. Don't wait for April. Spend 15 minutes each weekend quizzing yourself on units you finished months ago, so May is review, not relearning.
• Start full mixed review about six weeks out. Alternate practice multiple-choice sets with timed free-response questions, and keep a list of the question types you keep missing. After a timed set, borrow blind review from LSAT prep: re-answer the questions you flagged, untimed and before checking the key, to see whether time or understanding cost you points.

Taking the SAT in the same year? Our SAT study plan shows how to fit it around AP courses.

IB Diploma classes

IB spreads big pieces of work, such as internal assessments and the extended essay, across two years, then tests the whole course at the end. Treat each internal assessment like a research paper with dated steps, and start a cumulative weekly review in the first year so the final exams aren't a two-year cram.

How parents can help

Your job is the system around studying, not the studying itself.

• Ask better questions. "What will you quiz yourself on tonight?" gets a more useful answer than "Did you study?"
• Be the quizzer when asked. Read questions from the study guide or flashcards and wait for the answer before showing it. That's self-testing with a helper.
• Help with the plan, not the content. Sit down once a week to put tests and deadlines in a calendar. Let your teen do the studying.
• Check for missing work first. A zero for a missing assignment pulls an average down more than one weak test, and it's the easiest thing to fix.
• Protect sleep. Agree on a time when devices leave the bedroom. Eight to ten hours is the recommendation for teens.
• Praise the method. "You started three days early" points to something your teen can repeat; "You're smart" doesn't.
• Talk to the teacher early. If grades slip on two tests in a row, ask which skills are missing, ideally with your teen in the conversation.

High school study habits by grade

Start with your next test. Put the five-day plan above in your planner, counting back from the test date, and add the first habit from your grade's row this week.