The guide to good revision
The guide to good revision
ghost | 8001 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
ghost 17 years ago
hahahahaha…. studying… funny concept ^_^… nice article though id give it an 8 of 10… as it would seem the techniques would work but thats alot of studying :happy:
mido 17 years ago
nice, tho i don't like the whole studying (except IT issues) but good, but this might vary from one to another, related to his nature, environment, etc…But good article :)
ghost 17 years ago
lol good article. but i will stick to my method. start revsing the day before the exams so all the info stays fresh in your mind for the exams :-)
ghost 17 years ago
thanks everyone for your comments. @mitz247 that dosnt work, trust me iv tried it and @mozzer uhhhhh yeah btw cramming is the worst way to revise after not revising at all @jj728 well you would do it if your seriouse about your exams but you do get the later part of your evenings off and your weekeneds so your not totally losing out with your social life @s0l1dsnak3123 ty!!
ghost 17 years ago
@koolkeith, it may not work for you and alot of ppl but it sure as hell works for me :-)
@mozzer i agree!!!
ghost 17 years ago
@koolkeith i dont have to worry with being serious… when i do things like that i mess up and fail… I've got the highest marks in me class and all i do is argue with the teachers ^^ @everyone else… cramming just gives you a headache ^-
ghost 17 years ago
by cramming i dont mean staying up all l night revising i mean looking at your book for 10 mins and refreshing your memory :-)
ghost 17 years ago
@jj728 im a bit like that - my old chemistry teacher hated me as i spent the whole of yr 10 and half of yr 11 without a book and messing around and talking and he was always trying to get me moved down but found it difficult when i got into the top 5 in my year.When he asked me how i managed that i just told him it was his good teaching. @mitz247 bad idea again!!! what happens is you look at a couple of pages and think "oh crap i dont know that or understand it completely" and then you flick through and see something else you dont know/understand and you get more and more nervous and up tight. the usual way of cramming where you spend the day before revising like a rabid rabbit is also very bad. What happens is you try to get your brain to process vast amounts of data but only using one part of your brain so if its maths then its your calculating part. Your brain just dosnt like that!! it prefers it to be brocken down into sections. If you think in computer terms, if you try get your comp to run several demanding programs at once it might crash and become unresponsive especially if its old but if you do them one at a time it copes much better.
