If you’re lucky, you’ll get a nice professor that will tell you during a lecture, “This material will be on the exam, so pay attention!”  Thank the teacher and make a note.

But these professors are rare. You may have to determine what's important based on points the professor emphasizes or questions that are being asked. But why does any of this matter? Because the better your notes, the better prepared you can be for tests. And the better you take tests, the better your grades. And the better your grades, the better your options for moving ahead in your academic career and getting the degree you need to land the job you want. Such a vicious cycle!

Whatever your philosophy on test taking, they haven’t been abolished yet. So get prepared! Don’t just madly cram for a test the night before. You can do better than that. Get organized!

Identifying test material in your notes will help you focus when you're studying. While you’re in class taking notes, use a special tag to mark the material you know (or think) you’ll be tested on. Then focus your exam prep time on those notes. OneNote gives you an easy way to do that: it’s called a tag.

Create a custom tag

I recommend creating a custom tag in OneNote called “Exam material”. Here’s how you do it:

1. Click the More button in the Tags section.

Red circle denoting More button in Tags group

2. Click Customize tags.

Red circle emphasizing the Cutomize Tags button location

3. Click New tag.

Customize Tags dialog box with the New tag button emphasized by a red circle

4. Under display name, type “Exam material”. Choose a symbol, font and highlighter color (optional) for that tag. I chose the Yellow 8-point star, I didn’t change the font, but I did choose the yellow highlighter color. That will really make the note stand out.

New tag dialog box

For more information, read Use tags to categorize and prioritize notes.

Using keyboard shortcuts

Adding a tag to the list will rearrange the order of your tag list, which will impact the keyboard shortcuts. For example, by default when you press Ctrl + 1 a To-Do tag is applied where you cursor appears on the page. The new tag will take over first position, so now when you press Ctrl + 1 an Exam Material tag will appear. If you want to change that positioning,  press the Move tag down button (Hint: the button looks like a down arrow.) The keyboard shortcuts will dynamically refresh.

I moved “Exam material” to the second position, so now when I press Ctrl + 2 the tag is inserted wherever my cursor is at on the page.


Now when you’re taking notes you can quickly apply your custom “Exam material” tag to a note you write.

Finding tags and grouping them together

To search your tagged noted, click the Find tag button in the ribbon.

Find tags button highlighted in Tags group


If you want to view the search results as a notes page, click the Create Summary Page button at the bottom of the Tags Summary task pane. You can even use this feature for creating practice exams.

Tag Summary dialog box with a red circle around the Create Summary Page button

A new page will be added to the current notebook section with a full list of all notes tagged with "Exam material".

Additional resources

  • Studying for Exams: Contains a list of helpful tips put together by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Students Affairs at the University of Illinois.
  • Exploring your own learning style: Links to surveys and questionnaires that may help you understand how your brain works and provide you with tools for personalizing your study habits for your own needs.

What are some of your test taking tricks? Post a comment and share your tips with all of us.

--Jennifer Bost