Revision Techniques That Helped Me

As exams and deadlines are approaching I thought I would share some tips. There are so many different techniques out there it really is about finding what works best for you. I studied Politics, English and Textiles at A-level, so had a mix of revision and coursework and these are just some techniques that worked for me that may be worth a try.

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- When revising for my A-levels I would do practice questions and exams, timing myself and doing them in exam conditions. This worked particularly well when it came to essay questions as it helped me work on timings and relay the information in accordance with the style of question. However, this can be quite time consuming and so something I would do more often was create essay question plans, for each topic and each style of question creating a plan with what my points would be and then adding the examples I would use for each point to the plan.

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- Making things digital is also something that was useful, I got Quizlet on my phone so I could put my revision, such as essay plans into a flashcard style which meant I could look over my notes wherever I was like when on the bus to keep refreshing myself on the information. This meant that the plans I made didn’t go to waste as I could easily remind myself of the points I would make and the examples I would use.

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- I would also say talking to someone else about the content almost like teaching them is great to test memory and become more articulate in the way in which you get the information across. It is also a good break from studying alone, and can create a stronger memory and connection compared to reading and writing.

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- Finally, a technique that works for course work as well exam revision is the pomodoro technique where you choose a task to work on for 25 minutes, set a timer then have a 5 minute break and repeat this 3 more times and then take a longer 30 minute break. This really helps me stay concentrated on the task as I know that it’s not long till I have a break to do anything else I may need to do or just have a scroll through social media. It is also useful when doing this to write down anything that might pop up in the 25 minutes that you think, I’ll do that on my break, so you don’t forget the little tasks you need to do and can get the thoughts out instead of losing track of what you want to be concentrating on.