The guide to good revision
The guide to good revision
ghost | 8007 Reads | Intro:
Hi, I have just finished my GCSE's and i have decided to post a guide on good revision. I did not invent the techniques used, I was advised strongly by my chemistry teacher to use them. This technique really works!!! and it leaves you with free time after about tea time and weekends off!! You will now be thinking How does taking weekends off from revision help me revise?? well read on to find out
It really does work as when you read my explanation you will see it is logical, and its backed by some revision research company.
Start:
Ok I am first going to explain the order of the subjects you are revsising. The bad way to revise is sit down the evening before the exam with about 20 textbooks and read your way through them. There is a plan to it which is like a two week course. You follow the course and repeat it every two weeks.
Il explain the evening order. Il assume you arrive home from school at 4:00 like me but if not it dosnt matter at all. You get home at 4:00 and have a snack or a drink. This takes up 5 mins max as any longer and you are more likely to get distracted and loose concentration. You then start the first subject and this goes on for 1 hour which takes you to 5:05. Now its a 15 minute break, make a sandwich or whatever. Back to revsion at 5:20 for 45 mins. You are now at 6:05. 10 minute break from revision. At 6:15 you start revising the 3rd topic for 30 minutes. At 6:45 you finish for the day and can now go out, get laid or whatever you do on an evening. Heres a pic for you visual types.
The idea behind the times you spend on each slot decreasing is that your brain gets more tired but the breaks give you a little burst of energy to keep you going over the next slot.
Now we get on to planning the order that you study topics. You study 3 topics a night and these 3 topics MUST MUST not be similar for examply maths with physics is very bad!! and the same with English and religious studys. This is because they use the same parts of your brain so they get tired more quickley and you more prone to day dreaming. A good example would be english, maths and geography as they are all very different. Maths is your logic and calculation bit, english your creative and essay part and so on. Over the three weeks you do each subject 3 times at the three different evening slots. So you wouldn't have one subject first twice. So at the end of the two weeks you have gone through each subject for a whole evening of much more productive studying than normal. Here is the plan i did for my subjects.
Remember, each subject goes once in each evening slot. So maths come's 1st on the 1st monday, then 2nd on the 2nd monday and 3rd on the thursday.
Each week you change the days so for example last weeks monday slots might now be this weeks friday slots.
Now i will talk about How you actually revise. It is a good idea to break the subjects down into sections so with maths you would have algebra, geometry etc… and it is a good idea to look over past papers and practise doing them. Get your teacher to mark them, you may appear a bit geeky or whatever but you will be laughing when you get better results. A good tip on past papers (not 100% guaranteed) is focusing on stuff that last years lot didnt do well in so if everyone sucked at algebra in maths then focus a bit more on that as they like to see if it was just one year that was dense or not.
You dont have to revise out of books btw. Revision can be enjoyable in some cases, for example you can revise by watching tv!!! but you cant just sit down and watch eastenders or some other trash and say its revision. Il give you another example: for biology you might watch david attenboroughs planet earth series when its on, but at the end you must analyze it for 5 mins or so, meaning you must write down stuff that you learnt, stuff yuou liked/disliked and whatever.
With poetry in english which in my opinion is the greatest mistake since george bush junior was born, the best way to revise is get podcasts/mp3s of someone reading the poetry aloud as poetry is meant to be spoken not read. You can do this by searching for the podcasts on the web or making them yourself. Maybe listen to them whilst walking to school on your mp3 player (yes i know you;d much rather be destroying your eardrums with some heavy metal or whatever)
I reccommend that you start this program 10-6 weeks before the exams. As you approach the exams you should actually start to cut back on revision as this makes you more confident and relaxed, you MUST NOT CRAM THE NIGHT BEFORE!!!! this is a perfect way to get yourself worked up and agitated.
Try to relax.. go out with some mates, have an early night and what i did which i thought was good was i had a beer (only 1 no more) the night before as it was an excuse, it calmed me down but no more than one as even a slight hangover would suck badly in an exam.
For the exam i reccomend a bottle of water and loads of equipment, as long as its part of the standard stuff and they dont forbid it then bring it!! for example take a calculator to your science exams.
If you are doing exams i really do recommend this technique as its so much easier. Also good luck and if you want to ask any questions about it then just pm me and il get an answer back soon
