How to Run a Gap Analysis Before Your Exam
A five-step framework for finding the difference between what you know and what your exam will test — two weeks out.
A gap analysis is a structured review of what you know versus what you need to know before your exam. Done properly — ideally two weeks before the exam date — it turns vague anxiety into a specific action list. Without it, most students default to studying what they already know (because it feels productive) and avoid what they do not know (because it is uncomfortable).
Step 1: List every topic in the course syllabus. If you do not have the syllabus, use past questions to reverse-engineer the topic list — every topic that has appeared in past exams is fair game.
Step 2: For each topic, rate your confidence: Green (I can answer questions on this without notes), Yellow (I know the basics but would struggle with application questions), Red (I have not studied this or cannot recall the fundamentals).
Step 3: Ignore the green topics entirely. They are a sunk cost. Focus your remaining study time on yellow and red topics, starting with red. This is counterintuitive — it feels natural to polish your strengths — but the marginal return on studying a topic you already know well is very low.
Step 4: For each red and yellow topic, generate 10–20 practice questions using ExamWiz. Attempt them. Your accuracy on these questions gives you an objective view of your actual preparedness, not your perceived preparedness. Students consistently overestimate how well they know topics they have read but never tested.
Step 5: Repeat the process 48 hours before the exam. By then, most red topics should have moved to yellow, and most yellow topics to green. Any topic still red at this point needs targeted flashcard review — you are not going to learn it deeply in 48 hours, but you can memorise key facts that might appear on the exam.
