revision technique help

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Most exam boards publish their subject specifications on their website.

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Once you find your specifications, it’s important not to just note the content points given in it but also how those are written. Pay close attention to the keywords at the beginning like (understand and know what is meant by) as these will tell you what exactly you need to know about that content point to answer questions at the exam. For example, “know what is meant by” directly means you need to memorise the definition while “understand” hints at realizing the logic behind the theory. I’ve also left a link to a document stating the exact interpretations of these keywords so you can easily refer to it in the description box below.

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Download the specs for each of your subjects and make sure to refer to them while you study; this will help you prevent wasting time studying things you don’t have to and will help you grab only the knowledge you need for your exams.
Practice, practice, practice!

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When I was studying for my IGCSEs, my dad taught me perhaps the most important tip that helped me in scoring those 12 9s - and that is, make sure you aren’t doubtful in any subject.

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As much as it seems like it’s common sense, this tip has a whole lot more to it than meets the eye. Making sure you don’t have any doubts isn’t about memorising aimlessly but understanding critically. You need to be able to understand a concept by which I mean you need to be able to talk about that concept in your own words (without copying from any resources).

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A couple of methods you can achieve this is by continuously practising past papers for each of your subjects and also teaching someone else who is entirely new to the concept.

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These too will help you figure out any gaps in your knowledge and help you save hours of aimless parrotising, which can cut down your studying time by half.
Do the same past paper over and over again

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You might think that this is not very effective because this will only make you memorise the answers to that past paper. Yes, it will. And that’s the whole point.

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By experience, I’ve seen repeated patterns across several years of past papers and many exam boards tend to ask questions on repeated topics in similar ways.

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Writing for the exam does not just involve actively recalling your content but also doing so fast is important. So, having “muscle memory” in answering questions becomes a big advantage when it comes to answering under time pressure.

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So, make sure to repeat past papers but on a schedule. If you do one English Lit past paper today, then mark it and write down comments for each of the questions you got wrong. Keep it aside and revise the content that you found out you needed to study more about. Then repeat the past paper, the day after tomorrow. Do this for all subjects and you will almost instantly see an improvement in all your grades.