I am a first year student at University, and in order to get here, I had to sit and pass quite a number of exams. I have sat exams at least once a year for the past four years, and am happy to say that I have passed every single one of them. It is true that that is due largely to the fact that I went to a good school and have supportive parents who helped me when I was struggling, and the fact that I was able to choose the subjects that I was best at, but when it comes down to it, I wouldn't have been able to pass those exams without doing a lot of revision by myself. Revision takes time and effort, and is usually boring as hell, but if you have good strategies for managing your revision it can really help you to boost your grade. After all, you could be a genius, but if you don't know the material you're being examined on, you're not going to do well.
So, anyway, the point I'm trying to get to is that I have developed some strategies for effective revision over the last few years that have helped me. I am writing this review to give some of this advice to you, and hopefully it will help you in your revision and in your exams.
1. Manage your time.
Time management is something that I'm terrible at. I'm usually late for classes/appointments/meeting friends/most other things, so it's unsurprising that I also leave starting my revision to the last minute as well. One of the most important things to try to do when you have exams to revise for is to start early rather than late, as if it gets to a week before the exam and you realise that you will have to work night and day to get it all done, you're going to feel very stressed, and stress and trying to revise don't mix well at all. A lot of people find that making a revision timetable and sticking to it rigidly is a good way of making sure that it gets done, which is a good idea if that's how you work too, but it never really worked for me. I often make timetables and then end up totally ignoring them and revising just when I feel like it, though just because it doesn't work for me doesn't mean that it won't work for you.
In terms of revision and time management, the most important thing is starting early enough, as you'll feel calmer and less overwhelmed by your workload if you have more time than necessary rather than less. This also means that you won't feel too guilty if you have a few days off revision, as you can afford to without running out of time.
2. Prioritising
For me, prioritising more important revision over others is the best thing that you can do to improve your revision. If you're sitting several exams at once, for example Highers, GCSEs or A levels, then this can involve prioritising one subject over others. It's a good idea to prioritise revision for the exam that you have to sit first over ones that come later, as obviously you will have more time to revise for the later ones once your first ones are over. It is also a good idea to prioritise subjects that you feel that you are doing worst in, as it will take more work for you to get a good grade in this subject than in others.
It's also a good idea to work out what you need to prioritise within a subject as well. I'll give you the example of my Psychology A2 exams, of which there were two. On one paper, there were four potential questions that we had studied for, but only had to answer three of them. This meant that for me, it was a good idea to prioritise revising for only three of the topics, as I knew that if I knew those topics like the back of my hand, I would definitely be able to answer those questions on the exam, and it didn't matter if I knew nothing about the fourth topic, as I wouldn't have to answer that question. By prioritising three topics, I knew that I could definitely answer all the necessary questions, but if I had more time, I could revise for the fourth one as well to give myself more choice in the exam.
On the second paper, there was a question which could be about any of three topics (Schizophrenia, Depression or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), and we wouldn't know which one it would be before we went into the exam. Honestly, I didn't have enough time to learn all three topics to the extent that I would be able to write an A or B grade answer for whatever question came up, so instead I prioritised. My teacher had predicted that it would be more likely for schizophrenia to come up than the other two, and it was incredibly unlikely that OCD would come up. For this reason, I decided to prioritise Schizophrenia, and learn it inside out so I would be laughing if that came up in the exam, and learned enough about Depression to be able to adequately answer the question, and a couple of facts about OCD so I could scrape a mark or two if it did come up. Unfortunately, Depression came up, which I was gutted by as I was really hoping for Schizophrenia, but since I had prioritised Depression over OCD I still did well on the exam, though this could be down to doing well on the other two questions.
Anyway, my point from this story is that if you haven't got all the time in the world to spare on revision, the most important thing to do is prioritise. If you work out what's the most important thing to learn and revise that, then you can do the rest if you have the time.
3. Avoid distractions
The most annoying thing about revision as opposed to any other kind of work is that it requires your full attention or it doesn't work. You can go into a daydream whilst ironing, or another mindless task like arranging stock in a shop, and the job will still get done without your full attention. Revision, however, requires all of you to be focussing or nothing gets done. You can read over a page a hundred times, but if you're not actively thinking about what you're reading at the same time, it's not going to go in. If you're glancing at the TV every 2 minutes as well, nothing is going to go in, and your revision is pointless. If you know that you're the type of person who gets distracted easily, then you need to find a place to revise where you know that you can work uninterrupted. I used to go to the library at school for my A level revision, even if I had the day off, because if I stayed at home I would end up watching TV or going on the Internet or something when I was meant to be revising. Being in a quiet atmosphere with no entertainment meant that I had to revise or be bored, which worked for me. It's also important to know when to stop revising - if you're not paying attention to what you're doing and you know that you're not learning anything, then you should take a break and go back to it later.
4. Making sure it goes in.
After all, all my other tips are worthless if you have no way of actually getting the information to stick in your head. The important thing here is working out the best way for you to make it so that you remember what you've revised in the exam, and remembering that everyone is different - how one person revises isn't necessarily how you should revise. For some people it helps to make flow charts and visual representations of information, whereas other people can revise just by reading or making notes. In my Psychology exams, I found that the best way for me to revise was to pick a small topic, and get as much information about it onto an A4 sheet as I could, and then revise from that sheet. I would then find practice questions on this topic and attempt to write an answer using the sheet, and then later in the day do a similar question, but using my memory instead of the sheet. This would help me to see how much I actually had remembered as well as working out what I found difficult to remember, so I knew what to revise more, and it also gave me exam practice of writing an essay like I would have to in the exam. The fact that I got an A proves that this method worked for me, though that doesn't necessarily mean that it will for you.
My other two subjects, on the other hand, required a different kind of revision, as they were modern languages. I didn't really have information as such to learn for these subjects, but had to learn vocabulary and grammar, which are different. I used to make a list of a few foreign words and try to learn their meanings, and would keep repeating them until they stuck in my head. Another way to learn words was to try to put them in relevant sentences, as then as long as I remembered the sentence, I could work out the word's meaning from the context. Grammar was different again, but I developed my grammar skills best by reading and writing in the language, as it is possible to pick up grammar points from reading texts in the foreign language. Making verb or noun tables and learning them by heart is the way that I had to learn most things, however.
So, I hope that my revision tips have helped those of you out there who need advice on how to revise for exams, and that reading this review hasn't been to much of a distraction from the work you should be doing.