Description: Politics, English and History tutor, Jade, shares her insight on how students can boost their overall grades with revision.
Revision can be overwhelming.
When I was a student, I spent too much of my time rifling through self-help revision sites trying to find the best methods instead of actually revising.
I believe that students’ time is valuable, any time spent on revising should be on precisely that – revision!
To that end, I have compiled my top 3 tips that I wish somebody had told me earlier in my education to attain a good overall grade.
Knowing Your Audience
By knowing your audience, I mean knowing the importance of writing for the examiner.
This is different from writing in the tone you would talk to your friends in.
For instance, whilst we may talk to our friends about liking certain characters, disliking others or not really liking certain parts of content, we could adjust this during the exam.
Take a look at this…
“I don’t really like Watson in the Sign of Four! He’s boring and is only there to make Sherlock look smarter – total waste of my time reading the book.”
This is something that we might think about in the book and talk about with friends. But we can easily adjust this for the exam.
For instance:
“In Conan Doyle’s novella ‘The Sign of Four’, Holmes is presented as being exceptionally smart. However, it could be argued that Watson’s character is cleverly used by Conan Doyle to position Holmes as smarter than the average person.”
Therefore, you can see how the same knowledge is being used, but we can adjust the way that we are writing what we know in order to show off to the examiner and earn those so important marks.
Usually, I find that the knowledge and understanding are mostly there, but it is the way that we write in the exam: our tone, phrasing and voice that can transform answers and really please the examiner.
Using Past Paper Questions
Past paper questions became my best friend during my GCSEs and A Levels, and the key is that there is no time too early to start.
No matter what you have just learnt, there will be a past paper question on it and this really is the best way to consolidate knowledge in my experience.
You can find past papers on the website for your exam board and your school will most likely have other practice ones to prepare for.
Although, it is really important when using past papers to break them down into manageable sections, to begin with.
It could be really easy to overwhelm yourself when faced with a stack of past papers.
Therefore, I recommend choosing an area that you struggled the most with for each subject.
By doing a couple of past paper questions for the topic, rather than completing a whole past paper for every subject every week during the academic year.
One of the best things about past papers is that there are so many different ways of using them.
Other Options
As I’ve mentioned, you can pick and choose specific questions from them to target the areas you are struggling with – but there are a host of other options too, for instance:
- Completing a whole-timed paper if you’re struggling with time management in an exam.
- Instead of writing the answers to questions, complete a plan for the question if you only have 5-10 minutes to spare for revision.
- Read through a range of different questions. Sometimes you do not need to plan all the time, just reading the phrasing of questions can help get familiar with the ways examiners phrase questions.
- If your subject has questions that come with extracts or interpretations, then read through these and become familiar with the sort of writing they are choosing to go in exam papers.
- They may have a different language to what is used by the examiners, so it is worth getting familiar with this too – for instance history interpretations are written by historians, rather than examiners.
Using The Examiner Reports and Mark Schemes
Finally, a relatively discarded revision technique is using examiner reports and mark schemes.
You can find these in exactly the same place on the exam board websites where you find the past papers and they can be just as useful for revision as they give you an exact insight into what the examiner is looking for.
Examiner reports are especially useful for essay-based subjects as they give a really detailed reflection of what the best students were writing, and some of the general tips that could be applied to all answers.
There are multiple different ways that examiner reports can be best used, here are my two favourite ways to use them:
- Just read and enjoy – you do not need to make extensive notes on examiner reports. Simply reading them and seeing what examiners like and dislike about student answers will prove really beneficial when going to write your own!
- Highlight one key thing that examiners have picked up on in the top answers and practice writing a paragraph/two incorporating this. For instance, if an examiner particularly liked the way that top students were writing in the passive voice, try this out in a practice answer.
Checking Your Answers
Secondly, mark schemes are the best way to go about checking your answers for papers that have right/wrong answers.
For instance, in science papers with multiple choice/ 6 mark questions, the mark schemes will give the exact amount of detail required in your response.
Although, they are also useful for essay-based answers to compare with what you have written in a practice paper.
They can serve as good checklists for what to include if you were struggling whilst planning or writing your answers.
Final Note
There you have it! My top 3 tips that I wish someone had told me when I was at school! Trying out these techniques consistently will improve your grades.
These tips can also sound overwhelming, but I can help each step of the way here at Telios Tutors.
By tutor Jade. Contact Us