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catching up on math-bio-chem a level w/out burnout

I've fallen behind slightly in some topics / areas. I need to catch up but I don't know how to do it without burning out & all of the info falling out of my head (due to burnout & cramming).

Reply 1

{Moss}

Perhaps the most important thing would be to create a timetable that you can follow, and limit yourself. Burnout is a terrible thing, so it's best to ensure you have breaks, and don't do too much a day, however much you feel like you need to. A general guide would be to try and do 1-2 hours a day, maybe longer on the days you have the most time. Then it might be worth having a free-day, like Sunday, just to relax.

Try and organize yourself thoroughly. Go through everything you have done, and mark down the topics you think you've fallen behind on. Rank these based on how you feel about them, and spend the longest time on these. Then, with a timetable (you could do a day-by-day timetable, but I personally prefer just having a rough frame: e.g. 25 minutes Maths, 30 minutes Biology... This helps content to not become stale, while leaving you free to do it when you have the time) split the time up accordingly.

Cramming is generally a biproduct of stress in my opinion, which is why regulating yourself like this helps to prevent that (apart from the normal of course). You might find gradually increasing revision time also helps to prevent cramming.

Revision methods are varied, and everyone has different thoughts. You might like videos, or just re-reading your text books. It's best to find what you like best, because that will help you more. The one thing I would say to do in order to reinforce your memory, and therefore reduce need for cramming, is to do something interactive: don't just copy down notes, or reread them, use actual techniques that engage your brain fully.

These could be: revision cards/flash cards - write down a question on one side of a card, the answer on the other. Recall it without flipping. Blurting - get a topic in your text-book. On an A4 sheet of paper, write down everything you can remember about it. Afterwards, see what you've forgotten, and focus your revision on this next (e.g. with more blurting or pre-prepared flash cards). There are loads of other methods for revising, which might be worth looking up if you don't like either of these.

Incidentally, past papers can be very good for finding what topics you're struggling with. For maths by the way, doing questions is obviously more important than flash-cards: check out Maths Genie and such for questions per topic. For the others, the former advice still stands :smile:

All in all, the major thing you need to do is just regulate yourself, and also your mind. It's really easy, while relaxing, to feel guilt about not revising. The truth is, you need that time for your mental health, otherwise you'll just damage that revision even more. Try and block away those negative thoughts, and leave yourself nice-time. Splitting revision up between different days is really good to try and manage your free time, so you never have to cram.

I hope this helps! My apologies for the length, but best of luck :biggrin: