By now most of you will be aware that it is considered very bad form to relate for how long you actually study. Instead, when talking to your colleagues, alternate between ridiculous understatement and gross exaggeration. The aim of this is to produce in them wild oscillations between inappropriate complacency and abject terror.

Of course, as with much of life it is the quality, rather than the quantity, of revision that is important. Guides on how to revise abound. Ignore these and instead assimilate the following. When you study is crucial. The most effective students study both before and during their exam period. Those who study after this time are considerably less successful, and students who study during the actual exam are vilified. While neither the studentBMJ nor myself condone this irrational bigotry, you as a student should remain aloof from such politics. Protest, in this case, would merely provoke unpleasant consequences.

Your state of mind is important when you study, and extensive work by educational psychologists has shown that most the effective study takes place when one is awake. To determine your state of consciousness carry out the following simple screening test. Do five situps, five star jumps, and run up and down. This test has a high sensitivity and specificity, but further validation requires input from others. Ask a family member or flatmate to supervise you threading a needle or spelling a complicated word to confirm the initial results. Techniques for waking up lie outside the scope of this text.

Nevertheless, although you should spend much of your time awake, do not take this policy to extremes. While studying, you may find that a foot or leg goes to sleep. If this occurs and your first emotion is envy you need to spend more time in bed.

Coffee is also crucial to effective study, but not as a refreshment nor, indeed, for its psychoactive qualities. Instead, use coffee as an attention meter. If when you first take a sip your coffee is cold you may congratulate yourself on exceptionally effective studying. If, on the other hand, your tongue burns such that you need to attend casualty you should re-evaluate your motivation; you may also consider going back over the sleep testing process.

For ease of reading, ensure that your pen and paper are different (preferably contrasting) colours. The coloured pens, highlighters, and notepaper, etc, that many texts recommend are, however, not essential. They may even create an undue dependence (see ICD-10), whereby you feel that you cannot possibly study gastroenterology without your mauve highlighter and apple blossom white notepaper. If this occurs, help is available on the NHS in a community psychiatric clinic. Techniques aside, it is often difficult to know what to study, especially where the General Medical Council's new Tomorrow's Doctors' curriculum has been implemented. Even with such broadly different courses, however, some generalisations can be made.

Confine your revision to medicine and related subjects. Ancient Greek sculpture is unlikely to feature in the final exams. Watching ER, The Fugitive, Casualty, etc, is not an effective use of your time, despite the fact that doctors feature heavily in the storylines. Avoid reading time consuming guides to studying and revision.

Unlike most undergraduates, you should now know exactly what and how to study. Of course, while I predict every success, I accept no liability if you should fail.