how do you revise history a levels

Hey so im doing history for my alevels and i was wondering how do you guys revise it? I did history for gcse but since i didn't actually sit the exam, im not sure if my revision technique was efficient or not.

Reply 1

bubblecat

i made timelines for both topics and colour coded the events so eg a political event was blue and a social event was pink etc. that helped me visualise pretty much the whole time period in my head and i’d use that to revise.

more detailed mind maps per chapter as well. a lot with flashcards on important people/dates/events.

practice essay writing A LOT. that will be the make or break.

Reply 2

redmeercat

1. Read the chapter in the textbook before your lesson, and if you have time, make textbook notes for that chapter in advance.

2. Use the lesson to add info that wasn't in the textbook, to ask about things you didn't understand, and to use the information.

3. Make timelines either to summarise important events or (if you're like me) a different timeline for a the important themes with all the useful facts from your notes.

4. Read academic papers and books to add to your notes and timelines (with books, only read the chapters which are directly useful!)

6. 'Blurt' timelines and summary pages. (Unjadedjade has a good video on YouTube about the Blurt revision technique, but basically you spend 5 minutes writing everything you can even vaguely remember from the timeline or summary page into a blank copy, then you use your notes to mark it and add info you got wrong. I then like to repeat to make sure I remember)

5. Practice paragraphs and essays.

Everyone revises differently and so my method won't work for everyone. Just make sure that all your revision is active (ie, not just passively reading notes over - you need to be constantly testing yourself and writing practice paragraphs to improve, or else researching and trying to understand the topic better). I like to do stuff in advance because it makes the lesson less confusing. In the holidays before mocks/ exams, I also liked to write a practice paragraph or essay almost every day to make sure that I became confident with the structure I wanted to use, and how to answer various different questions!

Note: if you struggle to understand how to write a specific type of essay or a certain topic, ask your teacher for help sooner rather than later! I asked in y13 and went from a solid B to an A* just because a 1on1 session helped me understand how to write a history essay better much better than I had before!

Reply 3

University of Portsmouth Student Rep

Official Rep

Original post by jule loop

How I did it was:

1. First read over all existing notes and classwork. Eg my notes and essays from the year, and also grab the text book.

2. Make new, fresh A4 notes that are colour co-ordinated and appealing to the eye, and fill in blanks with the text book.

3. Cut down these notes into cue cards that were more of a summary of the key dates and key things that happened in the time period. Highlight important info like year and names. Revise from these but refer back to longer notes.

4. Cut down these into just years of when things happened.

5. I used history YouTube videos about the topics in my down time part of revision (when im having a break) so that my brain was always taking in the information, John Green I believe does excellent YouTube videos for history.

You really have to learn the content, so you can talk about it freely, and them just make sure you're revising the key things like dates, figures and names. I wrote things down that I could easily chuck into a broad essay question, and I think this really helped me learn the content! However, you do also have to get used to the essay writing and marking scheme so practise essays are so important, however I didn't really listen to this but wish I did!

Sophie - Official Student Rep :smile:

how do you revise history a levels

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