Why no Future Perfect in "At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you've studied"?

At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you've studied.

I'm just wondering why not use the Future Perfect tense here, as in:

At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you'll have studied.

Sounds better to my ear... Will you please explain it to me?

I wouldn't have been bewildered if one of my American friends hadn't told me that the sentence is better with the Present Perfect.

At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you've studied is the normal way of putting it. The Verb Phrase you've studied is written from the perspective of at the end of the year and relates the studying to the exam.

I can appreciate your bewilderment. The future perfect construction is indeed used to refer to a past action or event from a future viewpoint, but it normally requires some kind of adverbial expressing the time by which the action or event is to be completed. Thus, it would be possible to say At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you'll have studied up to that point.

With future tense sentences, English determines the tense of a relative clause by considering the time relative to the main clause. Since the studying (relative clause) was done prior to the exam (main clause), you use present perfect rather than future perfect tense here. The rules are quite complicated, and hopefully somebody can link to a more complete explanation.

The confusion comes I think from where in the year you might be at the time. If you are half way through the year then how the two statements affect the work during the year differ:

"At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you've studied..."

This first form implies that the exam with cover everything you've studied so far (up to now). It is implicit that this may also cover work studies between now and the exam, but it may not. For example:

"At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you've studied. Any work studied between now and then will be examined the following year." - This is still correct

"At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you'll have studied..."

This second form implies that the exam will cover everything between now and the exam but is not specific on the work you have already covered. By using "you'll have studied", implies the work in question may not have been studied yet.

"At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you'll have studied. Any work studied between now and then will be examined the following year." - This is now incorrect

"At the end of the year there will be an exam on everything you'll have studied. Any work studied up to now is not included and was all covered on last weeks test." - This is correct