The Student Room Group
Reply 1
For things like history, I would suggest Spider diagrams. They help to link things and get the overall idea. Also, really helpful for cause-consequence type things.

For things like English or French Literature, I would suggest doing spider diagrams for characters - e.g. Place Romeo in the centre and then use individual boxes to describe various aspects of his character.
I write fairly lengthy notes to start with and then a few days later cut it down to bullet points that hopefully jog the mind to remember the lengthy notes. Then before the exam I memorise the bullet points that from the sketeton of my essays in a sort of pick and mix way.
It doesn't involve lying in teh sun talking to friends or spending hours on TSR and the net.

I'm going to fail...
Good luck, i know it's luck i will be needing for my exams!
Reply 5
I can't remember which TSR user it was, but he/she mentioned revising the topic and then doing a timed essay on it. It will help you prepare for the exam and allow to see if you need to do more revision. It seemed like a good way to pepare to me :yy: :tsr2:

Scots_Law
Reply 6
the thing with doing timed essays is that my professor warned us not to waste time writing them because that specific question will most probably not come up on the paper, even though it might be the same topic. in humanities/social sciences essays, it is answering THE question and defining/analyzing every word thats in the essay question thats most important. but he didn't tell us how to revise. :confused:

i wish we all just had multiple-choice questions instead!:p:
To be honest (with humanities/social sciences) the best way to 'prepare' for an unseen essay exam question is just to have a good knowledge of the subject. If you went to a decent number of your lectures and most of your tutorials (I won't say all of them, who goes to every class?), and you read (and more importantly understood) all of the primary material and some secondary stuff then you should be OK. Understanding how to break down a question and answer each part sufficiently is important too, but it sounds like you already know about that.

Remember to read the question over a LOT before you start writing the answer - nothing worse than getting to the last 10 minutes of the exam time and realising you've only answered the first half of a question :p:
Reply 8
make revision cards of important key points/dates/people to remember and test yourself with them
Reply 9
practise writing essays from sample exam questions - it doesn't matter if the exact question won't turn up, keeping your essay technique going is very important - learning facts is all very well but they won't spontaneously composed themselves into an essay when you reach the exam if you haven't practised :smile:
Toy Soldier

Remember to read the question over a LOT before you start writing the answer - nothing worse than getting to the last 10 minutes of the exam time and realising you've only answered the first half of a question :p:


Yep! This is what I would do: read the question, then quickly think about what they are asking, re-read it to check you were on the right lines. Plan your answer, remembering a good solid structure will help (e.g. intro, main body, summary, use of subheadings for clarity etc) then start writing it. Once you've finished, read the question again to triple check that you've covered all the necessary points. And good luck, I have my first essay based exam for 5 years coming up soon, eek!