Exam revision strategies play an important role in how successful you are likely to be in your overall performance.
However, it is vitally important that you have the right mindset to maximise the impact of these strategies. I highly recommend reading this article by one of my colleagues exploring the mindsets that provide a great foundation for effective learning.
In this blog post the following strategies and tips are those I have used to succeed in my exams. I hope that they can help you make revising fun, rewarding and a lot less stressful.
There are three steps to my overall revision strategy:
1: Understand the Bigger Picture
This boils down to understanding the overall goal of studying. What knowledge do you need? What grades do you need and why? Really think about why the grades are important. What do they enable you to do?
For me, at the time of my A-Levels, good grades would have enabled me to do the Chemistry course at the university of my choice and subsequently increase my chances of getting a graduate job. It is worth noting everyone’s goals for studying will be different. Some goals, like mine were, may be to pursuing higher education while others may choose a different route as university isn’t for everyone.
Once you have determined your overall goals make it visible! Some people like to put up an inspiring picture or vision board of their goals in their study as a constant reminder of what they are working to achieve.
2. Planning and Set up
Start early, ideally, many months before your exams. It’s proven that shorter daily practice will trump last minute cramming every time. Starting early in the academic year will allow you to really understand what you are learning as you learn it and give you time to understand areas that need more work. This is a sure-fire way to beat exam stress, as by the time they come around, you’ve prepared as best as you can.
Find a quiet place to study. Minimise distractions. This means no internet (unless you’re doing online tests or learning), no phone, no TV etc. A playlist of music with no lyrics is ok but do not tinker with it! The goal of a ‘haven’ for studying is to stop procrastinating, start quickly everyday and find flow. Note that bedrooms generally don’t work as the mental association of a bedroom is to relax and sleep.
3. Analyse
Analyse your subjects. Allocate a weighting to each subject based which subjects require more work to achieve your goals. For example, maybe your mathematics is 10% weaker than science, therefore you may want to spend more time improving it. There is no hard-fast rule here. The principle here is that the subject where you need most improvement is where you will have to work extra hard to achieve you goals.
Analyse the topics in each subject. Go through all the subjects to understand your strong and weak topics. Weak topics will need more focus and are the ones to highlight to your teacher and/or tutor. But remember not to neglect your strengths as they also need your attention to retain what you’ve learned.
Understand the syllabus for each subject. Get a copy and add it to your notes. The syllabus forms the base of the knowledge that you must demonstrate to do well in your exams. Completing this action for each subject will help you form a skeleton of understanding which you will flesh out throughout the year.
4. Be strategic
Read the examiners’ report for the last 3-4 years. This is often neglected but there is gold here! For each subject understand what gets the marks and what doesn’t. There are often excellent examples of great answers, good answers and poor ones in these reports and you can progress significantly by understanding what is expected at each grade level.
Make a revision/learning timetable. This timetable should have the topics to revise for each subject allocated based on the knowledge drawn from the strategies above. Build in rest breaks (about 10 minutes to every 40-50 minutes) and rewards for hitting targets. Make the tracking of this visual – print it out on A3 and cross off as you hit or miss your goals. The aim is to break down the mammoth goal into manageable sessions so you know exactly what you are doing and build momentum. Rope in your friends and family to hold you accountable and decide on some rewards for yourself upon completion of set tasks.
Also be sure to build in normal activities, time with family, friends, clubs etc. These will keep you happy and motivated over the long term. Of course, in the period leading up to the exam these activities can be reduced but do not eliminate them entirely!
Once you know your exam timetable, the revision timetable can be refined to take into account when the exams are so you can focus on getting the right momentum built for each exam as they approach.
5. Stay organised
Start you first revision session early in the day if possible. Even half an hour before school/college/university is a great way start the morning and will propel your drive for work for the rest of your day. During study leave this is easier and builds confidence. Getting going early also creates space for evening recharging and relaxing.
Ensure you eat and sleep well as well as stay well hydrated when learning and revising. Completing these essentials activities for your body will pay dividends for your learning and your well-being too.
6. Revision Techniques
Make good quality meaningful notes. These need to be neat but not a work of art! The aim of these notes is to get the key points summarised. I personally do these as mind maps – this works as this is how you mind stores and retrieves information. Once you have made these notes it’s important that you just don’t just read them. The aim should be to get active. Writing down, reading out, drawing diagrams will make it stick. Process the information your way to make it understandable.
Make skeletal summary notes. Again these can be in the form of mind maps. The purpose of this is to ‘encode’ the information from the summary notes into something you can easily remember for a short time. This technique should be used in the run up to exams – as it is condensing information into ‘keys’ that unlocks the layers of deep learning and revision you have done earlier. You can read more about how to improve memory here.
7. Practise and plan
Do past papers under timed conditions and do this early and on a regular basis. Make sure to ‘feedback’ the results into strength and weakness topic areas into your timetable. Track the topics improving and not improving and this will allow you to refine your efforts (and your timetable) going forward. Doing past papers is vitally important as it is testing what you will actually be examined on and will sharpen you learning and exam skills.
Generate a list of questions when you are not sure of something. Approach your teacher in class or afterwards to ask for help, ask your tutor or get it addressed in your revision sessions. The more specific you are with the questions the better the help you will receive.
While it will take time and effort to implement the above strategies in my opinion the investment is worth it in better results, more joyful learning and less stressful exams.
by Ishwar S, private home tutor
Do you have any exam strategies that have worked for you? What has worked for you and been critical to your success?
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