How To Revise
admin | April 27, 2008Here is a quick General Revision guide (See below for more detail) -
- Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour - break (10-15mins) in between blocks
- Past Papers - Helps you learn the information + Practice exam technique
- Condense existing notes (Hand-Write Them)
- Test Yourself Daily On - Key Terms/Words/Phrases/Themes
- Use post-it notes like cue cards - Put important chunks of information on them, Put around room
More Detail:
- 1. You know how long you can concentrate for, don’t tell yourself you can revise for 2 hours straight - it will be counter productive. Try to revise for between 45 mins - 1 hour, this is generally around average concentration. You have to take breaks otherwise you will tire yourself out - in your breaks do something you enjoy but won’t get carried away in like going for a quick walk or reading a magazine.
- 2. You may think that doing past papers does no good but they are one of the best revision tools available. You can get past papers off your teachers or from the Exam Board website (E.g. AQA, Edexcel) (Only some exams due to copyright of source informtaion used) but you will need your centre number (ask teacher). By doing past papers you get an idea of what the paper will be like, you also take in the information as your answer the questions, you also increase your technique and timing. Often your teacher will mark these for you or you can find the mark scheme by typing “(your exam board)+(Qualification)+mark scheme”, but putting in your exam board and qualification (AS/A2/GCSE…)
- 3. Condensing your notes helps you revise as well as produce more helpful notes for further revision. An example of note condensing would be in Psychology AS - you can usually get a whole APFCC (around a page A4) down to 5-7 lines (A4). Just pick out the key ideas and make sure that you can write enough about them - instead of virtually remembering an essay you just remember say, 5 lines and from this you can expand it.
- 4. Just write a quick list of important phrases/words/themes (especially useful in Economics + Business). Everyday look at the list and try and define and talk about each one, you can check it online or in your text book. This helps more as it is repetition and a mini test, it also doesn’t take that long to do and can really help you fill out your answers.
- 5. Every time you walk past a post-it note read what it says on it and repeat it in your head a few time. Takes hardly any time but if you put the most difficult notes in places you walk past/see often then it will really help you.
