THB's History Revision Tips

Exams are coming up, and I don't know about you but that gives me heart palpitations; but if you're not bricking it, you're not prepared enough! I've seen a handful of exam seasons in my time and I've tried and tested a few methods of revising for History exams. So let me share what's worked for me.

METHOD A; REVISIONCEPTION

Think of the film Inception; it's a dream within a dream within a dream etc. Think of this method as notes within notes within notes etc. Here's how you do it;

- Use textbooks to compile a complete revision guide. You shouldn't simply copy out texts; engage your brain and treat it as a comprehension task and make clear notes, you'll get more out of it that way! Divide the book into chapters based on the topic that they focus on. The notes should be fairly detailed.
- Then, write a more condensed version of these notes based along the same technique; effectively, cut out words to leave the bare information.
- Repeat until you have two or three pages worth of notes for your whole course/module. You can read them the morning of the exam and it should all come flowing back to you. It did for me!

METHOD B; THE READER

You definitely have to be a 'visual learner' for this, so it may not work for all of you. Nevertheless, you should all aim to read at least one book outside your textbook, particularly for A-Level. It'll help develop your understanding of topics enormously.

Effectively; find a book that covers most of your course (there's literally millions of history books out there covering all sorts of things, so there's no excuses saying that there's no book for your course). Then close read it - no skimming. Simple and effective.

If you're doing a degree, you obviously need to read more than one book!

METHOD C; MIND MAPPING

Not something I do extensively, but it helps an awful lot of people and thus is more than worthy of mention.

Make beautiful and colourful mind maps (the more simple they are the better; don't make a wall of text. Each end of a brand should have no more than five or six words on them) on each topic and pin them up directly above your bed; make them the first thing you see in the morning, and the last thing you see in the evening. Revision owns you now. Don't forget it.

METHOD D; INTERACTIVE REVISION

Ever heard of Prezi? No? Well you should do. It's like a more exciting version of PowerPoint, and the more exciting something is the better you will remember it.

Make yourself presentations on topics and then flick through them! It's a quick and simple way to make them.

A friend of mine was a bit of a wizard when it came to video production; he used to make these excellent revision videos (which he gave to my school, rather than making them open source on YouTube, so unfortunately I cannot share them). So if that's your thing, get creative!

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If you have anything else that you find helpful for history revision, @ me fam! I'll add them to the OP.