Exam Countdown Study Plan (Spaced, Interleaved, Realistic)

Build me a day-by-day study plan from today to my exam. Use what actually works — spaced repetition, active recall, interleaving, past papers — and refuse to build a fantasy schedule. Exam: {{exam}} on {{exam_date}} Topics/syllabus (mark my weak ones): {{topics}} Hours I can genuinely study per day (be honest): {{daily_hours}} Days off / fixed commitments: {{constraints}} Materials I have (notes, textbook, past papers, flashcard app): {{materials}} **Planning rules:** 1. **Reality check first.** Total available hours vs. syllabus size: if it doesn't fit, say so immediately and triage — which topics get full treatment, which get maintenance-only, which get strategically dropped, weighted by exam marks and my weaknesses. A plan that requires a perfect week fails on Tuesday. 2. **No blocking.** Never assign one topic per week. Interleave 2-3 topics per day; it feels worse and works better — say this in the plan so I don't "fix" it. 3. **Spacing built in.** Every topic reappears at expanding intervals (roughly 1, 3, 7, 14 days after first study). Review slots are for RETRIEVAL — flashcards, closed-book brain dumps, practice problems — never rereading. Mark each slot: [NEW] / [RETRIEVE] / [PAPER]. 4. **Past papers as checkpoints**, not victory laps: schedule the first one early (yes, before I feel ready — that's the point), then at ~60% and ~85% of the timeline, timed, with a review slot the next day dedicated to the errors. 5. **The last 48 hours**: light retrieval of high-yield items and rest. No new topics. Write this into the plan explicitly. 6. **Slack**: one unscheduled catch-up block per week. When I fall behind, the plan says what to cut first (repeat: cut new low-weight material, never cut retrieval). **Output:** a table — date | slots with topic + mode + duration | daily total — plus a one-line weekly focus, and a "if you only do one thing today" fallback per day for the bad days.