The plan
Built around the weighting rather than the calendar. It assumes eight to twelve hours a week; with more, add practice questions rather than more reading.
Ordering
Starting earlier changes the order very little and just gives each week more room.
Section III first
It is double-weighted at most schools and it is where content revision actually pays.
Section II little and often
Ten minutes daily beats a three-hour session, and full essays only need to appear a few times a week.
Full papers late
There are perhaps two genuine ACER papers available to you. They are measuring instruments, so spend them once there is something to measure.
Week 1
You cannot allocate hours until you know which section is costing you. Most people guess wrong and end up revising their strongest one, because it feels better.
01
Sit one ACER practice section under real time. Section III if you only do one.
02
Mark it, then work through every wrong answer until you can name which trap caught you.
03
Read the Section I method and the Section III high-yield map.
04
Twenty minutes on the Section II drill in Spot mode. No essays yet.
Week 2
Chemistry is the most learnable part of the double-weighted section. The Section II work stays light and frequent because theme-naming is a reflex, and reflexes come from repetition rather than long sittings.
01
Acid–base, equilibrium, stoichiometry. Work problems rather than making notes.
02
Organic: functional groups on sight, isomer counting, ranking acidity by conjugate-base stability.
03
Section II drill in Name it mode, ten themes a session, three sessions.
04
One Section I passage set, timed, every other day.
Week 3
Physics is a fifth of Section III and the quickest content to pick up from nothing. Leaving an essay overnight is the only way to read it as a marker does — on the day you write it you can still see what you meant.
01
Kinematics, forces, energy and power, circuits, half-life. One topic a day.
02
On every physics question, check the units before doing the arithmetic.
03
Two full Task A essays, thirty minutes each, under exam conditions.
04
Read one back the following day rather than the same day.
Week 4
Biology is too broad to revise efficiently and shallow enough to reason through, so questions teach it faster than notes. The error page takes a minute a day and ends up being the most useful document you have.
01
Biology through questions only: enzymes, membranes, physiology, genetics data.
02
Four timed Section I sets across the week, always reading the stem first.
03
Two Task B essays. Use the first person and write about something you know.
04
Start a single page listing the errors you keep repeating.
Week 5
This is what the earlier weeks built the stamina for. Sitting a full paper now tells you something you can still act on, which is not true in week one.
01
One full ACER practice paper. Correct timing, no pauses, no phone.
02
Spend twice as long reviewing it as sitting it.
03
Rework only the topics your error page names.
04
One essay of each task type, still thirty minutes.
Week 6
Nothing learned in the final week makes up for arriving exhausted, and a fair amount is lost to it. The taper is the part most candidates skip and most regret.
01
Second full paper early in the week, then review it properly.
02
Short daily reps: ten themes, one Section I set, twenty science questions.
03
Re-read your best essay and your error page. Nothing new.
04
Last two days, nothing heavier than a light set. Sleep properly.
Variations
Two weeks. Compress rather than skip. The week 1 diagnostic still happens on day one; it matters more when time is short. Run Section III content and Section I timing together through the first week, write four essays across the second, and sit one full paper three days out. Drop the second paper before you drop the review of the first.
The day before. Confirm the logistics. The Section II sitting is remote-proctored and has its own technical check, which is an unpleasant thing to discover on the morning. Then read nothing. There is no fact you can pick up the night before that will move your score, and there is a real amount of performance to lose by being tired.