How to Take an Open Note Test: Preparation Tips & More

An "open book exam" is a test that allows you to use the text or material you have been studying throughout the exam. At first, you might assume that you can just look up your answers on the day of the test (making this a very easy type of test to take), but that’s not how an open note exam often works. If you have an open book test coming up, rest-assured that this guide will tell you everything you need to know about preparing for and taking your open-note exam—plus expert test-taking tips from academic tutor Jake Adams!

Open Book Exams: Quick Test-Taking Tips

Start with the questions you can answer easily, without your notes.
Save more challenging or time-consuming questions for the end of the test.
Read each question carefully and underline key words.
Make sure your answer fully address all parts of the question.
Verify and proofread your answers before finishing the test.

Section 1 of 4:

Taking an Open Book Exam

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1
Start with questions you can answer easily (without notes). This strategy will save you time by allowing you to get through certain questions without fumbling through your notes. Plus, if you end up having to leave some questions unanswered due to time, it’s better to skip the questions you’re unsure about.^{[1]
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- Skip any questions you’re really struggling with and come back to them at the end of the test when you've had time to calm down and gather your thoughts. Sometimes, the other questions on the exam can even help you answer others or remind you of a concept you forgot!
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Read each question carefully to understand and answer it completely. When beginning to answer each question, read every word carefully and underline any words, phrases, or sentences that are key to what the question is asking. Make sure you understand all parts of the question before giving an answer—most teachers and professors will help you if you don’t understand what the question itself means.^{[2]
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- As you begin to formulate your answer, make sure every part of your answer is relevant to the question. A succinct but relevant answer is better than a lengthy, unrelated one.
- If your answer to a question involves quotes or citations, avoid copying a long passage or quote over from your book (this may even be considered plagiarism if it’s not cited!). Instead, paraphrase content from your notes into an answer that clearly and efficiently answers the exam question.
- Similarly, make sure your final answer completely answers all key parts of the question before moving on.
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3
Review and proofread your answers, if time allows. If you have time left at the end of the exam, go through the questions one more time to look for mistakes—using your notes to your advantage. Double-check your answers against your textbook or your notes, if possible, especially when it comes to information that’s easily mixed up, like dates, names, vocab, and equations.^{[3]
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- If you feel like you gave an overly-brief or weak answer to any specific questions, take a moment to flesh them out and improve them.
- However, don’t use this time to doubt yourself and end up changing correct answers to incorrect ones. Most often, your gut instinct is correct, so only fully change your answers if you remembered or found something that proved your initial response wrong.
4
Manage your time effectively throughout the exam. When the exam begins, take note of how much time you have to complete the exam, as well as how many questions are on the test. Roughly estimate how much time you have to spend on each question. During the exam, keep track of time passing and adjust your speed if you need to increase or decrease your pace at any time.^{[4]
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- Adams emphasizes the importance of “understanding how much time you should spend per question and having a plan for when to say, ‘I’ve had enough of this question and I need to move on.’ Realize that you can use your time efficiently by just not spending it all in one place.”
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Stay as calm and relaxed as possible throughout the test. Exam anxiety can affect performance, so make sure you know good strategies to keep your nerves in check in the exam room. Remember that you can only do your personal best on this exam, and you’ve done everything you can to prepare for this moment.^{[5]
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- If you start to feel nervous during the exam, take a moment to stop. While time may be an issue, plowing through an exam despite feelings of anxiety will lead to a poor overall performance. Allow yourself to stop, close your eyes, and take several deep breaths to calm yourself before continuing.
- To help with your anxiety before the test, stop studying at least an hour before the exam and use this time to look after yourself. Take a walk or eat something light. If you're poring over material right before an exam begins, you'll likely psych yourself out.
- Put yourself into a good headspace before the exam by getting a good night’s sleep the night before and giving yourself extra time to arrive at the exam location and get comfortable. Getting lost or running late can increase anxiety and affect performance.

Section 2 of 4:

Preparing & Studying for an Open Book Exam

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Find out exactly what’s allowed on your test. Before studying for your test, make sure you understand exactly what “open book” means to your professor or teacher. In some cases, you may be allowed to use all of your textbooks, all of your lecture notes, or anything you want! In other cases, you may only be allowed a singular textbook or a singular page of notes.
- Some instructors even specify the size of the notes you’re allowed to bring with you—e.g., a 3x5 inch (7.6x12.7 cm) index card.
- Knowing this information will help you understand exactly how to study for your test and what type of reference materials you must prepare for exam day.
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Organize your notes or create a study sheet ahead of time. You don't want to walk into your exam with a stack of papers covered in random facts and figures. Depending on what’s allowed in your exam, organize your collection of notes from throughout the course, or create a clear and legible study guide:^{[6]
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- If you’re allowed to have all of your notes during the exam, organize them in a way that will best suit your needs during the exam. We recommend sectioning your notes by topic and creating an outline of your notes with key themes, ideas, and how each topic connects to the others.
- Also, it’s helpful to create a cover page for your notes with the most important information on it. List equations, key terms, dates, and any other information that may be tricky for you to recall and will likely show up on the exam.
- If you’re only allowed a single sheet of paper or notecard to compile your notes on, you’ll have to approach this a bit differently. Memorize the most basic and essential information, then use your study sheet to list the most important facts and details in an organized way. Write as small as possible (to fit more notes on the page!) without sacrificing neatness or legibility.
- If your instructor specified that you must cite sources on your exam, generate these citations ahead of time so that you can easily copy them over during the exam.
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Locate and mark key information in your textbook beforehand. If your exam permits you to take your book in, organize your textbook beforehand to help you locate key information quickly and easily.^{[7]
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- If allowed, highlight key terms, historical dates, equations, and other difficult-to-memorize materials that you might need to draw from for questions.
- Jot down notes in the margins with your instructor’s commentary or brief summaries of difficult paragraphs in the textbook.
- Mark pages with multicolored sticky notes to highlight important information (especially if you’re not allowed to write directly in your textbook). Use different colors of sticky notes to indicate different areas of focus, if needed.
- Even if your open note exam doesn’t allow the use of a textbook, these strategies may still help you in preparing for the exam. Organizing your book during the course of a class can help you easily spot key information while studying and may even help you better retain information.
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Focus on the most relevant and challenging topics. We're sometimes tempted to study or transcribe entire books or entire lectures when prepping for open book exams—after all, you never know what a teacher or professor might ask! However, this method is not only incredibly time consuming, it's actually ineffective. You'll end up scrambling through pages and pages of notes and run down the clock during exam time.^{[8]
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- Instead, pay attention to where the most focus is placed during lectures. If something is written on the board, repeated, or discussed for an extended period, it will probably show up on the exam. Include those subjects in your exam notes.^{[9]
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- Listen at the end of lectures for what your instructor ends the lesson with. Oftentimes, your teacher or professor will provide a brief closing statement that summarizes the most important takeaways from that day's class. Note these takeaways and include them in your study plan.
- Compare notes with classmates. If certain subjects overlap across all of your notes, these are probably important areas on which to focus your studying for the exam. You can also see what key issues you might have missed in your own notes^{[10]
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- Prioritize concepts and bits of information that you really struggle with. If you’re pretty sure you have a certain concept memorized, don’t bother including it in your notes or study guide for the exam. Instead, include topics from the class that you have a hard time remembering.
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Study to understand the material—not just memorize it. Studying for an open book exam can be tricky, as the skills required are not as easy to test as simple memorization.^{[11]
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- Develop your own commentary on information. As you'll be tested primarily on interpretation, write down your own commentary and insights in your notes. Challenge yourself to explain what you think about the material, and why. This strategy will help hone your critical thinking skills, which will be needed for an open book exam.
- Use practice questions while studying. Open book exam questions promote a genuine understanding of the course material, so quizzing yourself using model questions provided by your instructor is a great way to make sure you're prepared going in. Even if you don’t have practice questions supplied by your teacher, try to anticipate potential test questions and prepare answers ahead of time.
- Team up with other students to study. While study groups are great for any type of exam, they can be especially helpful for an open book. Rather than quizzing one another on materials, you can discuss and debate information from class. This approach helps you learn how to apply the information you learned.

Section 3 of 4:

What is an open book test?

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Open book exams allow the use of notes, textbooks, or study guides. Throughout the course of an open note test, students can refer to their notes, books, or whatever specific reference the instructor has allowed to help them answer the exam questions. Rather than requiring memorization, open note exams are meant to teach students how to take information and apply it in a thoughtful, deep manner.^{[12]
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- For example, a Shakespeare test is unlikely to ask you "What is Romeo's family name?" More likely, you’ll see a question like "Using citations, explain why Romeo's family contributed to his eventual death."
- Open note tests are often graded more strictly with more difficult questions and higher expectations. Because instructors know that you can consult your notes to answer each question, they’re more likely to expect correct and well-researched answers.
- There are generally two types of open book exams: a restricted type and an unrestricted type. In a restricted exam, material is limited to specific documents (e.g., a single page of notes or a single textbook). In an unrestricted exam, there is no limit on what can be brought into the exam room or take-home test.
- If you have any questions or concerns on what you can and can't bring into the exam room, do not hesitate to contact your teacher or professor and ask beforehand.

Section 4 of 4:

Strategies for Acing a Test: From the Experts

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Whether you’re prepping for an open note exam or a full-on memorization test, formal assessments require just as much strategy as they do learning and studying. To have the best chance of passing your next test, keep in mind these additional studying tips from Adams:
- Making study schedules: “For standardized tests, [start studying] anywhere from three to four weeks before your test date. For your academic tests, you’re probably looking at about two weeks before any big exam.”
- Catching up on rest after cramming: If you’ve crammed the night before a test, “see if there's a possibility for a nap, because naps put you into your REM sleep cycle and studies have shown that entering REM is helpful for reintegrating memory. Otherwise, find ways to take a break and do your best to refresh your memory with your notes and study guides right up until the test time. That way, you can eliminate some memory loss that you are probably going to have because you didn't have very good sleep.”
- Staying motivated to study: “Part of the problem is that the task ahead is really daunting. Start to think of [how you can] build in breaks or rewards for yourself. Have a plan and then know that you’re going to do this thing you don't want to do, but that it gets you to something you do want to do: ‘I do want to take a 15-minute break to call my friend or go outside for a walk, but first I'm going to get this task done.’”
- Staying positive: “Be realistic. If you make a [study] plan and see that it’s just not possible and you only get through about 80% of it, you’re still going to probably do okay in the class…You’ve done the best that you can…and you’ve put in the full effort. After that, it kind of takes this weight off of your shoulders of having to be perfect. Instead, it’s, ‘I have to do the best I can in any given circumstance. And that’s all I can do.’”

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What is the best strategies for an open book exam?

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Skim through it. Read for flow. You are not about to read the whole entire textbook while taking the test, when you are most likely timed. You can take notes and skim through those too. Or you can use sticky notes and put them on each page as a summary of the page. The last thing you want to do is re-read the whole entire book. If you are not allowed to use notes in the textbook, then study the notes you would take on a separate piece of paper. At most you need to know generally where things are in the book so that you can find them quickly for the answer.

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I have a big closed-book exam in science. I have to memorize, apply and analyze information. There are about 300 words and 100 concepts. I can't use anything other than my brain and a pencil.

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You may have to make flash cards or ask the teacher for a study guide. If that is applicable, try to make a game on Kahoot. You may need an account, but it's free.

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The best way to assure your notes are reflective of the testing material is to attend all lectures and class periods regularly.^{[13]
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Even if you have a closed-book test, make a note sheet. You don't have to use it on the test, but it is a great study guide.

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If you do not understand something ahead of the exam, ask for extra help from other classmates or your professor.

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The advice in this section is based on the lived experiences of wikiHow readers like you. If you have a helpful tip you’d like to share on wikiHow, please submit it in the field below.

If you're unsure of a question, jot down the problem number on a separate piece of paper to remember to return to it. This keeps you from spending too much time on it so you have more time to answer questions you do know.
Before the test, prepare a list of questions the test might have. This gives you an idea of what might be on the test and helps you prepare for it.
For exams that have both theories and calculations, create a separate sheet that just lists the formulas you need.

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Don't transcribe too many notes as this can make it difficult to locate information during the exam.

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You can't simply copy information word-for-word from your textbooks. This is plagiarism, and could make you fail the exam or even the course, as well as incur disciplinary action or penalties.

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Be sure to actually study for the test. As said earlier in the article, you might have to apply and analyze information rather than just remember it.

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