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My AS level notes are messy and unorganised...Feel unprepared for May exams...HELP!!!

I have been handwriting notes since the start of Sept and my handwriting is messy when I have to rush (like notetaking). I have typed some of my politics notes up but couldn't finish the rest because it took my 8 hours to type up topic one. Topic two and three are just about legible so I left them.

Anyway, just gone over my history notes and there isn't much there. My teacher teaches us a lot, but my notes are crappy...The student portal thing has only three of the powerpoints on, as my hist teacher's tend to write on the board... Which I copied from, illegibly.

I was going to type up all my notes over christmas half term... But I left it until Weds and had to finish off c/w. I did type up SOME of my politics notes Thurs, but Friday I took a break and today did my Hist notes.

I AM WORRIED I AM GOING TO FAIL.

What shall I do? Ignore class notes (except for history as I can't get ppts for reasons stated) and copy from powerpoints on the student portal??

Reply 1

Ursin

You have plenty of time before May exams! Type up a little at a time, it won't seem like much then. Otherwise, can't you get a textbook or something to help?

Reply 2

Phil Dunphy

Original post by Ursin

You have plenty of time before May exams! Type up a little at a time, it won't seem like much then. Otherwise, can't you get a textbook or something to help?

I have a textbook (the exam one). But we are half way through it and it doesn't seem like we've covered much :tongue:

How do you sort your notes out? ALL of my worksheets for politics are messed up - I mean I scrawled over the data to annotate etc. and they're out of order too :frown:

argh!

Reply 3

Ursin

Original post by Phil Dunphy

I have a textbook (the exam one). But we are half way through it and it doesn't seem like we've covered much :tongue:

How do you sort your notes out? ALL of my worksheets for politics are messed up - I mean I scrawled over the data to annotate etc. and they're out of order too :frown:

argh!

In all honesty I'm not the most organised person when it comes to notes. But things that help are:
-Putting your notes into topic categories in a ringbinder, or working in a book instead of loose bits of paper.
-Maybe making a contents page of things which are in your folder so everything is easily accessible, I don't do this but I wish I did!
-Condensing notes/writing out in a way which is concise and easy to understand so you're not littered with meaningless bits of paper.

Hopefully this will help you, I know disorganised notes are really frustrating but with a bit of time and effort it should be alright! :smile:

Reply 4

S4LM4N

My notes were extremely messy too so I created neat colourful posters for each topic.

Reply 5

Phil Dunphy

Original post by S4LM4N

My notes were extremely messy too so I created neat colourful posters for each topic.

Not a bad idea :smile:

—

Any other suggestions, anyone?

Reply 6

Zarah01

get hold of the spec for your exams and write simple notes on the stuff you need to know, i always do that and then memorize my notes and get somebody to test till i get 100%, Also do lots of past papers like A LOT because they are essentially the key to success and you'll feel more prepared
not that i can talk cos I've got my exam next week and I've done just 3 past papers :/

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 7

Phil Dunphy

Original post by Zarah01

I don't really know what topic to revise for history? Will only topics mentioned in the textbook be mentioned? Or anything related to the USA/China that happened between the era we're studying?

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Any other suggestions?

Reply 8

Where'sPerry?

Maybe you should ask Alex to help you, Phil.

I am so sorry I have no genuine suggestion because my notes are crappy

Reply 9

Phil Dunphy

Original post by Where'sPerry?

Maybe you should ask Alex to help you, Phil.

I am so sorry I have no genuine suggestion because my notes are crappy

Haha! Brava... :wink:

How do you plan on revising from them, then? If they're crap...

Reply 10

Where'sPerry?

Original post by Phil Dunphy

Haha! Brava... :wink:

How do you plan on revising from them, then? If they're crap...

Thank you

Well, they're just terribly organised really. There are pages that I remember writing which I can't even find (teachers probably took them, I always do homework on the back of my notes by mistake), pages covered in scribbles and crossings out (can't bear this, its awful to look at) and many things are in the wrong order. However, what I've done is painstakingly put in order most of the decent pages of class notes and condensed them/re-written the worthwhile sections.

I find my notes are often mixed in with textbook exercises as well, which aren't very helpful to me. Some people might find them useful but I personally don't. So my re-written notes just contain theory, no exercises.

When condensing my notes I like using colour and bullet points (wow I sound like I am 12 :tongue:

). I learn well from many small blocks of info rather than fewer walls of text. So, I guess that my advice would just be to condense the notes you have, really. It takes a horribly long time but for me, re-writing the information basically enables me to cover the topics again. I even use this method for maths. I don't do history so I can't offer specific tips, sorry.

Reply 11

Zarah01

Original post by Phil Dunphy

not doing history but is the textbook you're using made by the exam board you're doing the exam with?
and check to make sure it's been updated for any changes in the spec, if it has then just use your textbook