Getting Started with StudyRise Exam Mode

This guide covers the first-run journey only — from the register screen to logging your first real study day. StudyRise (Plan today. Rise tomorrow.) is a study-planning app at studyrise.app; Exam Mode is the version tuned for international medical graduates sitting the AMC MCQ, PLAB 1, or USMLE. You can browse everything it does on the features page, but the fastest way to understand it is to set it up and run one day.

Create your account

Start on the Register tab. Enter your name, email, and a password strong enough to clear the strength meter, add your phone number with country code, and tick the Terms of Service box. Prefer one tap? Use Continue with Google. Submitting starts your free access automatically — no card required.

1. Open the Register tab and enter your name, email, and password. A strength meter with a checklist — length, uppercase, number, symbol — appears as you type; you need at least a "Good" score to continue.
2. Add your phone number, including country code. It's required for every account.
3. Tick "I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy." You can't submit without it. The product-updates checkbox below it is optional and off by default.
4. Or skip the form entirely with Continue with Google for one-tap sign-up.
5. Submit. If your exam board requires email confirmation you'll see a "check your email" screen; otherwise you go straight into onboarding.

When you submit, StudyRise starts your account with 30 days of full access, no card required — after that, the core planner stays free forever, and a few deeper features become part of Pro.

Choose Exam Prep and build your plan

Your brand-new account opens on Mode Select — three cards: Exam Prep, University, and MBBS Bangladesh. Tap Exam Prep, then work through a short, three-step wizard: your exam type and dates, how much you can study, and a summary. Tap Generate my plan and StudyRise builds your whole schedule.

1. On Mode Select, tap Exam Prep — that's the mode this guide covers.
2. Step 1 — Which exam are you preparing for? Choose AMC MCQ, PLAB 1, USMLE Step 1, or Custom Exam, then enter your exam date and your study start date. Custom Exam is a blank slate for any exam StudyRise doesn't template yet — you build its structure yourself afterward.
3. Step 2 — How much can you study? Set two sliders: daily study hours (1–10) and study days per week (3–7). A live summary line shows your weekly hours so you can sanity-check the commitment.
4. Step 3 — You're all set. A summary shows your exam name, days until the exam, and your daily pace, and explains that your plan splits into three phases: foundation coverage, consolidation, and mock exams. Tap Generate my plan.
5. Watch the short build animation tick through Mapping your subjects → Pacing your study days → Scheduling your reviews → Finishing your dashboard. You land on the Plan screen with your full task list already built.

This page just names the exam types and gets you set up. For the exam itself — its format, the blueprint, and what score you need — see the dedicated exam content, such as our AMC MCQ study plan. Keeping exam facts in one place is deliberate.

Take the guided tour

The first time you land in the app, a Feature Tour overlay walks you through Exam Mode in nine short steps — Dashboard, Today, Plan, spaced repetition (reviews timed to land just before you'd forget), Questions, Mock Exams, Analytics, and Settings. Each step is a sentence or two on what that screen is for.

1. Read through the nine steps, or skip it — skipping won't block you from anything.
2. To replay it any time, open Settings and tap "Take the tour" (the compass icon) in the top-right of the header. It runs the exact same walkthrough.

Your first look at the Dashboard

After onboarding you land on your Dashboard — StudyRise's mission control, and the first screen every time you log in. On day zero it's mostly empty on purpose: a setup banner, KPI tiles waiting for data, a streak at zero, and a big exam countdown. That's normal. The cards fill in as you log real study.

1. A "Finish setting up" banner with quick links to customise your subjects, edit tasks, and set your daily routine. It stays until you dismiss it.
2. KPI tiles — plan tasks, questions done, mock average, consistency — sitting empty until you start logging.
3. A consistency strip and a streak at zero for now.
4. A large exam countdown showing days remaining and how far through your prep window you are.

That's the day-zero view. The full Dashboard carries far more — readiness projections, phase progress, priority cards — which a dedicated Dashboard guide covers once you have data flowing in.

Your first study session on Today

The Today screen is where you actually study. Tell it your start and end time and it builds a day of 50-minute study blocks with 10-minute breaks — a Pomodoro-style rhythm. Start a block timer, work the block, then log the day honestly in the Log modal. Do this once and you've run a real StudyRise day.

1. Open Today and generate your day plan by entering your start and end time. StudyRise lays out 50-minute study blocks with 10-minute breaks, adding a 30-minute long break every three blocks. Fixed commitments — prayer times, work shifts, gym — stay put, and the plan builds around them.
2. Tap Start on a block. A red countdown runs with Pause and Skip. Pause it and every later block re-times itself around the interruption.
3. When a block's 50 minutes end, you get a "Finished this task? Done or Continue" prompt — nothing auto-completes, so you stay in control.
4. Log the day in the Log modal: four buttons — Complete, Partial (with a 10–90% slider), Missed, or Rest Day — plus a field for how many questions you did.
5. Need to log a quick question session from anywhere? The floating "+" button, bottom-right, opens a compact logging popup without leaving the screen you're on.

Logging is the point: it's what keeps your streak, Dashboard, and analytics honest. An empty log tells StudyRise nothing.

What's next

That's the whole first-run loop: create your account, build your plan, and run one real day on Today. From here, three guides go deeper — building and editing your plan, getting the most from your daily Today session, and logging mock exams so your readiness projection has data to work with.

1. Build your plan — the wizard in depth, the four exam types, the three phases, and editing your plan later.
2. Your daily study session — the Today screen end to end: day planner, block timers, and the Log modal.
3. Mock exams — logging a mock, the readiness bands, and why the per-subject breakdown matters.