Most time effective way to revise

The revision window is open. With exams coming, I was wondering if anyone knew the most time effective way to revise everything. I did start revision at the beginning of the uni year, but unfortunately since A Level keeping up a sustained revision effort has been impossible.

The way I revise takes ages, but is highly effective if I start early enough. I need a way that's more effective, but takes less time

The revision window is open. With exams coming, I was wondering if anyone knew the most time effective way to revise everything. I did start revision at the beginning of the uni year, but unfortunately since A Level keeping up a sustained revision effort has been impossible.

The way I revise takes ages, but is highly effective if I start early enough. I need a way that's more effective, but takes less time

By knowing yourself. No one works in exactly the same way so my favourite study techniques may not necessarily work for you. I would first find out if you are a visual, kinesthetic or auditory learner (take an online test if you don't already know) and whether you work best alone or in groups, with quiet music in the background or in complete silence, and with a strict structured timetable, studying what you want when you want or something in between. Does having tea/coffee and snacks around to eat relax and motivate you or distract you?
Also it is better for most people to study in short and frequent breaks, and stop when your brain gets too tired and you start thinking slower. And take atleast 1 full 24 hour break off each week for the info to sink in and your brain to recover.
Reflect on your GCSE's and A levels and think about previous techniques you have used. Which worked? which didn't?
Also, keep learning active. EG instead of just reading a book, highlight key points, read them out aloud, make notes, summarise etc.
For future years you could try keeping a study diary of what study methods have worked well and what haven't, then each year you can improve upon what you have learned.
I hope this helps. By the way, what is your previous method of learning- I am interested to know?

I've been told I'm quite a rare bird, apparently I'm none of those three. I don't know the word but it's basically like, if I see the real world application for it I'll be the fastest learner you come across but if I can't see the application it just doesn't seem to sink in.... What would you recommend for that?

Posted from TSR Mobile

erm... I need more context. What subject are you studying?

Ok, it's been a year and a half since I last studied Maths and Physics for my A level's so I'll try my best to explain and I hope that my maths makes sense and that what I say is physically possible... lol!
Try designing and building something. for example, if you are learning about electricity in Physics, make a torch with a light that can be made dimmer or brighter. Work out how long the battery will last at different torch brightnesses.

Try plotting out equations on a graph to work out their roots, x and y, etc.

Make a paper plane using aerodynamic calculations/ theory learned in class.

If you do statistics, predict things. Eg. when you are on the bus to school, count how many of each colour cars there are and then use that to predict the next 3 coloured cars you see, giving the percentage of you being right. Use statistics to make the ideal set of lotto numbers.

If you do decision, find out the quickest way to the shops and the longest way without leaving the village. Find out the quickest way whilst avoiding certain roads.

Find out how many pushes it takes to push your friend on the swing so that they reach a certian point, knowing your friends weight and your average force pushing.

Another idea, is that before you learn an equation/ how to do something new, you already look at an easy question and try to work it out yourself. For example, if you want to know how to work out the volume of a cylinder (I know in theory you will be doing harder work, but it's just an example), you take drinking cups of different sizes and measure the volume of the water you can fit inside. Then you find out everything else you can about this cup, for example it's height, the area of it's top/bottom, it's diameter. Then you try and find a correlation between the two. If that is too hard, you do it the other way round. ie. you look up the rule then measure the cup and work out how much water you could get inside. Then you test it. Remember that due to the volume taken already by the cup this won't be 100% accurate, but should be close enough to learn from.


Sorry that this is more physics-y than maths but it was hard to come up with pure maths ideas. I hope that this will get your brain thinking anyway, maybe you may have your own ideas after reading this

Trying to go through these lectures again and all that it's achieving is sending me to sleep for a second time