Study techniques?

Hi

I will soon be starting my A levels and would like to know any good study methods to use. Would you reread the material? Write it out again?

I've been told I will need to study for about 2.5hrs per day, how you would effectively fill this time?


Thanks in advance!


Matilda

What subjects are you doing? How you revise depends a lot on the type of subject chosen

I'm doing English literature, French and Geography. I'm moving house having come from the Scottish school system which is quite different, so any tips are really appreciated

I do English Literature (just finished Year 12) and found that it does take a while to get used to revising for it. A good revision technique is planning (lots) of essays, you can write some up for your teacher to mark if you'd like but I would say make sure you do a lot of plans. Despite this, you won't need to do too much essay planning at the start of the year, thats more of an end of year type of revision.
If you're like me and have to learn quotes (and critics) then the most important step would be to create flashcards (physical or online ones, I use Quizlet online) at the start with a few good quotes and make sure you can get them in your head from the start, this will help a lot in the long run so you don't end up cramming at the end of the year mocks.

I don't do Geography or French but do Psychology and Biology and I would guess that Geography can be revised similarly to Biology, which is through past questions. As boring as it is, past questions are the most useful thing to do. Another technique is 'blurting', which is really useful for Biology and probably equally as useful for Geography. If you don't know what this is then I suggest you search 'blurting' on YouTube from UnjadedJade, because she explains it a lot better than I can.

For French.. I'm not sure haha. I haven't done any languages since Year 9 so I'm definitely very rusty but I'm guessing flashcards/something repetitive is the best thing to do

Hope this helped

Thank you SO much, that is a massive help! I really appreciate it. Not sure what blurting is but I will go and look at that video. So did you start revising each night from day 1 of Yr 12? If so, how much did you do per day?/at weekends? I know it varies a lot for each student but I'd like to get a rough idea. Thanks again

No, I didn't revise straight away because from my school we had so much homework I didn't have time. Tbh though the homework was all useful and did count towards revising.
In all honesty, I did the least amount of work for English at the start of the year except from making the quote and critic flashcards, which really helped. Most of my time was spent on Biology and Psychology.
I'd say I averaged 2-3 hours a day doing work (revision and homework). I start at 4pm and finish at 6, then if theres any extra stuff to do I would carry on after 7.
I think it really depends on you and how long it takes you to revise, because I'm such a perfectionist I would sometimes spend way too long on small things that could have been done quicker.

But overall, I would say 2 or 3 hours a day was my average at the start of the year but if you do work in free periods during the day that will help you a lot. But just remember, you don't have to do that at everyday (sometimes I did nothing lol) and try and maintain a balance between work and life or you won't want to do anything aha

Can I just ask, do you know what exam board you'll be for English Lit and do you know any of the books you're going to study? (Top English tip is to read your books before you start the year)

Also on weekends, if I had a lot of work or mocks coming up I would go up to 5-6 hours sometimes. But tbh I never really looked at how long I spent I just wrote a to-do list with all the things I needed to do that day and didn't stop until I finished it

Thanks for all your help, I am thinking I'll do about the same so to know you did too is good to know. I have no idea what exam board I'm on...I'm not even sure what it is?! I sound like an utter idiot I know...the Scottish system is so different to the English and I'm just trying to get my head around it all. Not sure about the English books but I am going to visit my new school in 3 weeks so will ask then.

That's no problem, happy to have helped
And ah thats fine, exam boards are who set the exam as there are different exam papers for different exam boards. Good luck when you visit your school, you can let me know your exam board/books you study if you want and if I have any resources I can send you some
(My exam board is OCR)

Oh wow, thank you so much! I visit on the 15th August so will let you know then. Do you keep the same exam board for Yr 12 and 13?

Yep, the exam board stays the same but schools have the choice which one they pick - so yours might be different to mine