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Revision tips and techniques

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start early revising for your gcses.

I started REALLY revising my GCSE's (like 9 subjects)in April. I was lazy. I thought it would be sufficient, but I regreted it, as I felt I could have covered alot more topics in detial, rather than doing it at a fast pace rushing it.

Reply 61

baby_emmy

To be absolutely honest, i have never revised, i always 'got by' BUT at the beginning of September i have two re-sits that i need to pass, tried sitting down and reading, not working, at the moment writing stuff out, kinda works but when i test myself i'm not getting too many right! So i'm going to try the audio route...

So just wondering to those who do that, do you read everything out? Or just bullet points/simple facts??

-x-

Reply 62

Zafda

what do i do.
start from square one usually helps, look through the syllabus.

what i usually do first is that i do an exam paper, mark it, see what i did rubbish on.. go over the whole of the syllabus of the module, make sure i know all the little bits that are likely to catch me out, and voala..

revising is pretty tough because you get distracted so easily, avoid your computer unless you're actually marking exam papers. attend revision sessions with teachers, memorise what you dont understand!! honestly, you often won't have enough time to understand it so just memorise it, they same questions come up time and time again.

stickys on the wall are good too, and posters so you can refer to them and stuff. also looking at them on a daily basis will automatically make you remember with them.

have revision sessions with like-minded friends, they can help you out on stuff you don't understand and vice versa.

take it from someone who knows, do not stay up way late in the night (eg 12) because theres honestly no point in losing sleep over something that can easily be done in the day.

also you may have to sacrifice some of your social life, i did and its well worth it because it encourages your friends to not go out and take their education seriously so yeah, just stick with it.

do take breaks, if you really don't understand anything memorise it, if not get some teacher to sit with you and explain it.

s'all goood.

Reply 63

Jen055

For me timetables have never worked, I can't stick to them and something always comes up when I should be revising for an exam. For me flashcards are the best thing to use. I get ready made various coloured ones form the paper mill shop and write the title a question of something i need to know and the answer on the back so I can etst myself. I take them everywhere with me, buses and everything and they really work for me.

Also, getting as many past papers as you can is a great help and time yourself doing them and then get your subject tutor to mark it for you acroding to the scheme form the board.

Reply 64

MayaIllusion

This isn't really about revision, but more about time management:
Near exam time (no study leave) I do 3 hours after school. One before dinner, one after dinner, then I take a 30 minute break (go on the internet, read etc.) and then study again (in blocks of an hour). By 9pm, all my revision would be done and I can chill and relax,,and maybe watch some tv :smile:

Reply 65

Burnin_Heart

Rose64

Some of us must be highly skilled in the art of revision by now, I know I've had rather a lot of practice! So I thought we could all share our favourite brain-goggling techniques, for the good of studentkind everywhere!

My best advice is to make a plan for every week, so you maximise your time and can decide exactly how much you do and on what you want to focus on. It feels all good inside when you complete a 5 hour stint! :eek:

Also take regular breaks. It's no good sitting at a desk for ages getting stressier and stressier and not taking anything in.

Hope this thread is helpful :smile:

Please contribute!

Personally, I tend to start studying SATs and ACTs as early as possible and do about 1 - 2 hours a day. I'm an early person, so I'll either do it in the early hours of the morning or during lunch.

However, for everything else, I usually do subjects the critical thinking/ logical subjects with low levels of music, don't know why though and I usually do those during the late hours of the night. I also use lots of mneumonics, I don't think I'd have gotten past my Accounts and Business Students IGCSEs without mneumonics. I used lots of drawn pictures for Geo as they really helped me a lot. And for everything else, I did loads of questions and note taking.

But hey, it differs from person to person~

Reply 66

Triplet1

I generally end up doing quiet long hours, but i can cope with it :biggrin:

revision timetables also dont seem to work for me as i dont follow it, i know in my head what i need to revise and especially with A Levels there is much less than GCSE.
Umm i mainly take notes and do practise questions especally for AS Law.
keep going over and over stuff.
Umm revise.. you can't get away with not revising.. or most people cant anyway.
:rolleyes:

revision starts sooon.

EDIT - i also try and cut down some stuff. Which is sometimes a bit risky - for example for my AS Law i had around 5 chapters (topics) i needed to learn about, i knew pretty much all of them would come up on the exam paper but as its a choice paper i choose 3 of my fav chapters and learnt them REALLy well!

In psychology my sister had the same, there was something like 5 topics and you would get a number of questions for each, and you could choose 2 or 3 (cant remember which) that you would answer. So instead of learning all the topics she choose 2 or 3.

Ok, doing this means you dont have the choice of the "easiest" questions but if you have revised properly all the questions really should be "easy"

Reply 67

liamh121

celeritas

It works for some people. But for me, just "know" the material and don't rely on mnemonics etc.

I usually just panic and get stressed, I find it really hard to stay motivated and alert and I'm too scared to take breaks as I know that I will loose interest in revision then go off doing other things. Such as now; I'm supposed to be doing coursework!

Reply 68

Wangers

Revision timetables dont work for me

I can work til pretty late and still survive in the morning - like 1am and get up at 8.

What I do

read what we're meant to cover beforhand and make notes on it - basiclly teach myself it first
then go to the lesson and listen to the teacher and ask about what I dont get - that reinforces.
come back condense those notes.

that way you're always ahead of the game. :biggrin:

I just keep writing my *other* set of notes throughout the term - because I find my class ones are disjointed - not anything to do with the teaching - just you can only get through so much stuff in 45mins.

I find some teachers only teach to the sylabus - this means sometimes the stuff dosnt quite *fit* - I read around the subjects alot to get a slightly deeper understanding and sometimes that helps to make sense of gaps and stuff * we dont need to know*. Also I find its the detail/principles thats the interesting bit, anyone can rote learn.

I also find that once you read to a *deeper* level, coming back to just the A Level stuff seems easier and you're more motivated.

split notes into sections....

sit down and learn them - reading them sometimes aloud, and doing the section tests in books whatever.

I help other people in the yr and also ppl in lower yrs because I find that if I can explain it and make other people understand then thats the point I'm confident that I have a solid understanding of it.

For Sciences learn the principles instead of seperate reactions etc - otherwise you get so confused and it takes ages. A good example would be chem - electrophillic Aromatic Addition.

and I find working in groups is good - because you help each other and iron out problems far quicker, and quite often someone else understands stuff you dont - so you learn off each other.

and drink loads of water :biggrin:

Hope that helps/

Reply 69

madz_fire

For Maths go through the Summary of Key Points on the Hinemann Text books and do past papers :smile:

Reply 70

Car Expert

Here are some useful tips, taken from the SAM Learning website.

Reply 71

san_0731

when it comes to exam time, I just sit myself in the school library (cause I go to a boarding school) from after school til around an hour before bed time and try to study as much. But then I take short 5 minute breaks every hour and a half.
The key thing is to concentrate.
Look at all the past papers that you can get your hands and you'll see how how the questions are structured and asked. Look at the mark schemes. Use that as a guide and ask yourself questions on topics etc.

Reply 72

rollover, pudding

oh my god, just reading this helped. i even had to google "HOW TO REVISE"...! lolol. not good... well, in a way, it is. you just recruited yourselves a new member :biggrin:

i'm a kinesthetic/visual learner, and my music teacher has just given me a 6 page booklet of notes D; scary stuff. must go find some colours and draw some pretty pictures, or something. it's only mocks, but it's tomorrow, and she gave us the notes on like, last friday? gah. not nice. ))':

i must go post in the welcome thread, now. :] toodles xx

Reply 73

cinderella4

i find the best way for me to revise is put key words, notes, ideas etc on a large sheet of paper and also do coloured revision cards. that way i remember keys things which jiogs my memory!

Reply 74

SAZZY12345

i usually write notes on cards and read over them.. it's just getting motivated :frown:

Nice thread.

Revision can be easier, quicker and more engaging if you use mnemonics. This exam revision tips website teaches you the basics of using your visual imagination to improve your memory for exams. Its the same principles that people like Derren Brown use to perform 'feats' of memory - but anyone can use them.

Its my site, and it does have a commercial element, but there is free stuff there also and you dont need to part with cash to do the tutorial or complete the personality questionnaire and get a report. Hopefully that will de-spam this post?! Cheers, Richard

Reply 77

BOBO777

If i revise all my all i need to know and can retain the information, then should the essays and questions just be answered naturally with it only being a matter of thinking what to write down whilst you write???

Also if i do my revision properly then would my writing speed improve???

Thanks Guys

Reply 78

Tufts

Mind maps are the way to go ^_^

Reply 79

Gizmo210688

To be perfectly honest, I didn't revise AT ALL for my GCSE's. Hence why I got disappointing results. Taking my re-sits at college, I had to get my Maths grade up from an E to a C, and my Science grade from a D to a C. Science was pretty easy, as most of the subjects we covered were in note form already. It was just a case of highlighting them and going through them when it came to revision.

Maths was a different story. I HATE Maths with a passion, but I knew that if I didn't understand it, I wouldn't be able to carry on with my A-Levels. So I made sure I understood everything that was said in the lesson. If I didn't know, I kept asking until I did. I went to every revision session that my college held (People showed up during the holidays, which was surprising), and went into every exam (modular course) nervous, but confident.

At the end of it all, on exam results day, I opened my envelope to see two grade C's in Maths and Science. I nearly fainted. I almost wanted to burst out crying. To this day it stands as the happiest moment of my life. Shows just how effective a little revision can be.

What I'm saying, is that make sure everything in a lesson is noted and understood. Hopefully the teacher will explain it in such a way that will make it easy to take notes. Take every opportunity to go over subjects you don't understand (particulary true at GCSE level) and if your school does revision sessions, GO TO THEM. More than likely there will be less people there than in a regular class and so the subject will be covered more thoroughly. Believe me, it's worth sacrificing the time.

So yeah, listen, make notes, understand. It's as simple as that. It worked for me, and should work for everyone as long as the right amount of work is put into it.