Should I go back to 11-hour study days or stick to 9–9.5 hours? (Need advice from high scorers)
Last year I had one "peak month" before an important exam. I consistently studied around 11 hours of focused study every day while sleeping 8 hours. I woke up at 4–5 AM, barely touched my phone, counted every minute, practiced lots of PYQs (which almost nobody else did), and my motivation was through the roof. I even skipped one Geography chapter because the syllabus was huge and focused only on high-yield topics. Luckily, that chapter didn't appear on the exam. I ended up outperforming a friend who studied around 9 hours a day.
This year has been very different. I became overconfident after that success, got distracted (including having a crush that affected my focus for about a week), and recently had a test that went much worse than expected. I'm also studying the entire syllabus this time instead of skipping chapters, so progress feels slower.
Another important detail is that I'm from SEBA (Assam). In many subjects, especially Assamese and Social Science, understanding the concept alone isn't enough. Examiners often expect answers to be written very close to the textbook or teacher's wording, and using different phrasing can cost marks. I usually understand the concepts well, but I forget the exact wording after about a week, so a lot of my study time goes into memorization, active recall, and rewriting answers from memory—not just understanding the material.
Now I'm confused.
Should I try to force myself back to 11 hours because I know I've done it before, or should I aim for 9–9.5 hours of high-quality focused study, rebuild my consistency, and only increase my study hours if it feels sustainable?
I'm sleeping 8 hours every night and plan to use active recall, spaced repetition, PYQs, and Pomodoro sessions. My goal is to remember things long-term and score as high as possible in my board exams.
For those of you who scored very well on board exams or other highly memorization-heavy exams, what would you do in my situation?