As my class went through each area of study, I would go home every night and summarise everything that was covered in class. I would refer directly to the study design to ensure that I did not leave anything relevant out of my summaries.
By the time each SAC date arrived, I had memorised a majority of my summaries and completed lots of checkpoint questions. I also found that using cues assisted me to determine what I needed to learn more thoroughly in preparation for the SAC. Prior to the SAC I would prepare a document that provided a variety of prompts. For example, terms such as "frontal lobe", "magnetic resonance imaging" and "somatic nervous system" might appear on the sheet. Next to each of these prompts I would write down as much as a I knew about each of the terms, without the aid of any of my books or notes. If I wasn't able to write down enough about each term, this would indicate that I needed to go back over this content.
I probably started revising for the exam in mid May. I already had all my summaries prepared, so it was simply a matter of memorising definitions and going back over all of the key knowledge required. I did quite a few practice exams and also completed a majority of the checkpoint questions. I think completing practice exams is the most important element of your exam preparation. If you perform well in practice exams, it not only shows that you understand the content of the course, but that you can apply the knowledge to a variety of situations. Too many students fall into the trap of simply memorising the information without actually having a thorough understanding of how the information can be applied to a range of scenarios.
There weren't really many surprises on either of the exams. If you know the information provided in the study design, there is no reason why you can't perform well on all the exam questions.