Great Revising Tips
Oh my God! You have a whole load of revision to do, time is ticking away – your heart is ticking faster and you meant to start earlier but you didn’t and now you are in serious trouble. Why do we do it to ourselves every time? And how come all the others who make out that they ‘seriously know nothing’ actually do know plenty.
OK – take a deep breath. Here’s the score: what’s done is done – you can make things better or worse and beating yourself up about it does NOT make it better. Here’s some advice for what to do in the short term and if you’re smart (which we assume you are ‘cause you’re reading this mag right?), what to do so you’re not in the same situation the next time. The most important thing to know is that being good at a subject and being good at passing exams is not the same thing. You’ll need a combination of both to do well and revision should be about brushing up on both sets of skills.
Check out the Golden rules of revision below and then learn the best ways your brain can absorb information. (These methods have been tried and tested by me!)
10 Golden rules:
1. Don’t waste time memorising everything – it’s pointless.
2. Find out what the objectives of the exam are – what subject areas is it specifically testing? How are you going to be marked? Are you writing essays/short answer questions/multiple choice?
3. Get hold of past papers from the last 5 years if possible – this is vital. Go through them. DON’T PANIC. The point is to familiarise yourself with the kinds of questions that are asked – you’ll find with a lot of exams that similar questions are asked or similar issues are covered. Remember the syllabus will have probably changed slightly (or a lot in some cases) so talk to your teacher if something is completely unfamiliar.
4. If you can, get hold of the current syllabus from your teacher. You will not need to know everything on it to pass – so this is another point to remind yourself to NOT PANIC.
5. Phew – OK, another deep breath. Now it’s time to prioritise your objectives. Don’t avoid your weak subjects or ignore your best ones.
6. Prioritize those topics that appear most often in the exam papers and that carry the most marks - get your teacher’s advice here as well. Do extra reading for key subjects IF you have time but don’t bother flooding yourself with information.
7. Make revision notes on your prioritised topics and then avoid referring back to your original work. Flicking through whole folders and books will bore you and it’s too much to absorb anyway.
8. Break up your topics into bite size portions and timetable them. Be realistic. You can‘t concentrate properly for longer than 30 mins at a time and you can’t revise productively for more than 4 hrs a day. You also have to be well rested for the exam as it is your performance IN the exam that counts.
9. Avoid friends that you end up messing around with when you should be ‘revising together’. Remember what the point of these exams is: the stepping stone to the next stage of your career or education.
10. Practise answering questions in exam conditions – time yourself. You’ll be rubbish at first but that’s the point of practising.
Making Revision Notes
Our brains are not designed to hold onto random pieces of information for long. What they are good at is processing things and connecting them to information that we are already familiar with. They are also good at linking information with our senses – so good revision involves being interactive: draw, sing, rhyme and act out the topics and you’ll absorb more.
Questions & Answers for brief facts
Write a list of questions and answers for yourself. Get some friends to do the same for different questions and swap them. Practice answering them randomly until you know key facts. This is more interactive than staring at a list of facts (and more fun!)
Mind maps for more in depth subjects
These are like spider diagrams. Colour code them and draw little pictures – you’ll remember these more.
A-C-R-O-N-Y-M-S for lists and processes. Acronyms are words or abbreviations that use the first letter of each word in a list to make up one word: MRS GREN is an acronym for the seven characteristics of living things (Movement, Respirations, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition).
Sinit knows what she’s talking about, she achieved 9 GCSE’s - 5A*s and 4 A’s, 4 A’s at A level (Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Further Maths) and completed her degree at Oxford University (Philosophy & Politics).
