Before the upcoming winter holidays most students attending secondary school or sixth form have encountered mocks or exams, and unfortunately these few weeks of intense exams produce stress and anxiety in students.
These exams before the New Year and Christmas are a test for students' ability to have stamina through demonstrating their work ethic, before a long and deserved break.
There are many efficient ways to revise, for example ‘blurting’. This is a thorough way to check and review all the knowledge that has been gained. In ‘blurting’ you should either write or talk about all you know about the specific subject. As you do this you can uncover the topics you are strong or weak at, which area predominantly is missing further content or knowledge. Although highlighting seems like an efficient revision technique, it is only useful if you use your highlighted notes to create flashcards or rewrite your notes. Highlighting key ideas is not efficient revision and will not directly transfer knowledge, rather it is a baseline to guide revision.
Mind Maps are a crucial part of revision as they allow you to link and add colourful images and connotations to your learning, which in turn increases the chance of remembering in the exam.
Steve Vadgama, Head of German at KHS says ‘ the most important one (revision tactic) is lots of retrieval practice, including going back to year 7 or 8 content’. Revising past knowledge is extremely useful as it ensures your basics are strong, and this is even more important for languages or maths.
Steve also said that ‘past papers are an important exam tactic’. Past Papers are the winner of revision tactics. A student can learn about the areas they are strong or weak at, go over all aspects of an exam, have a time limit and practise the format of the exam. They are exam-savers. In addition Liah, a Year 11 student, says she uses ‘targeted questions on those topics, and for more essay based subjects I just make detailed essay plans’. Having a variety of different revision techniques is crucial to exam season as different exams are set up in different ways, for example maths and science need hugely different techniques than english or history when writing the exam.
However, no matter how much you revise or learn, without maintaining your physical and mental health, all your hard work can potentially go down the drain. Maintaining a healthy sleep schedule ensures your brain is able to process information in the way you need to succeed in exams. Eating regularly, and having a healthy breakfast before exams are crucial and can possibly lower you by a grade if not done. As well as this; It is important to take breaks to avoid burning out and also it is important to stick to a schedule.
Good Luck to any students and may you use revision tactics that work for you.
