Last-Minute Revision Tips!

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Hey Guys x

I know that if you do GCSE's, your exams are probably finished - congratulations!

However, if you do A-levels, there's a good chance that your exams are still ongoing. And for some of you, like me, your exams may not even have started yet.

Yesterday I had the first super-productive day of revision that I've ever had, which is because I slightly changed the way that I revised.

So I thought that I would share some tips with you in case your struggling in the lead up to your exams.

1. Don't Expect Too Much
Of course, we all want to be able to sit down and do 5 hours of revision every single day with no breaks and finish knowing everything there is to know about the subject. This isn't going to happen! Not only will we probably not know everything about the subject anyway, but it's not possible to do 5 straight hours of revision with no breaks and still have a functioning brain at the end!

2. Take Regular Breaks
This is something that all the revision websites say, but a lot of us actually just ignore! But honestly, taking regular breaks from revision is the best thing that you can go to make sure that your brain isn't overloaded. Let me say something that I read and that really resonated with me: We are only able to fully concentrate for as many minutes as our age plus 2. Meaning that if you're 18, you can only revise without being distracted by something or without your brain wondering off for 20 minutes. So take a 5 minute break, and revise in 20 minute bursts.

3. Explain It To Yourself
This is something that I find really helpful. If you've just spent half an hour revising a topic, close the textbook and explain the thing back to yourself. That way, you'll know whether or not you actually know it. Then try it again in an hour to make sure it's still in your head.

4. Set Goals and Give Rewards
If you have a subject with, say 5 topics, set yourself a goal to do a topic a day. Or at least half a topic. Because when it's done, you'll feel like you've accomplished something. But also give yourself rewards. For example, 'if I complete this topic today, I'm going to play Sims for an hour'. That will actually make you want to complete your revision!

5. One Step At A Time
When you're revising, don't think: 'If I don't complete this now, I'm going to fail!'. Instead, think things like: 'I can complete this topic today, but if not, I can get up early tomorrow and finish it then'. If you scare yourself into revision, your revision won't be as effective because in the back of your mind, you'll be thinking 'I'm gonna fail!' rather than thinking about what you're actually revising!

6. Revising According To Your Timetable
Forget about how hard your subjects are. If your hardest is last and your easiest is first, don't spend all your time revising your hardest subject. At the end of the day, you want to pass all of them as best you can. Don't neglect certain subjects just because you think that they're easier. Because a question that you didn't plan for could come up and you could be stuck!

7. Don't Question-Spot
I know that it's really tempting to not revise the topic that came up last year, especially if you have a lot of topics to revise. And in a way, you don't have to revise that topic as hard as you would have, but don't avoid it altogether. You never know what could come up, and you want to make sure that you know as much as you can about all topics!

8. Revision On The Day
This is something that I've always done. On the day of your exam, look over your notes. I can't begin to describe the amount of times that I can remember something during my exam that I looked at 10 minutes before.

I hope these tips help you out if your currently doing exams!

Thank you for reading

Comment below some of your own revision tips!

Keep Smiling - Lou xx

Comments

  1. Halyna8 June 2015 at 09:27

    Explaining a topic to someone else is a great way to remember things. You might think, that you understand a certain topic, but once you have to answer the questions, it might turn out, that you don't know how to phrase your answers etc. Also another person may look at the same topic from a different perspective, and come up with a question, that you haven't even thought of.

    A little disclaimer here - I'm from Ukraine, so I'm pretty sure, that our tests and exams differ a lot, but I've learned this from the time when I had to tutor a kid, who would cry all the time and say that he doesn't understand anything. So I had to come up with so many different ways to explain the same topics! It turned out, that he didn't even pay attention in the first place, so I had to apply discipline instead. But at least now I can explain anything in such a way, that one'd have to be brain-dead to not understand. x)

    And noticing patterns in other people's mistakes can help you understand things better, although I'm not sure if you can apply this to last-minute revision, it's more like for learning in general.

    And I'm just happy, that it's been years, since I graduated, because my actual revision routine was cramming everything in the last minute, feeling the anger build up, because I knew, that everyone else would be cheating and making fun of me, because I was the only one who didn't even know, how to use a cheat sheet.

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