Revision Tips

Carefully identify areas to revise, listen to your teachers and ask them what areas you need to revise on and try to ask their advice as to what is likely to be in the exam.

 

Use good quality revision material, e.g.:

Look for connections - choose areas which overlap with other areas on the syllabus

Think strategically e.g. a three question exam requires at least five areas of revision.

Revise topics rather than questions. (The same questions will not be set twice but, clearly, the subject matter will remain constant.)

Make sure that you understand the material you’re revising — we can only remember what we understand!

Write things down. (Tests have shown that you can remember what you write up to 5 times more as compared to what you read.)

Take notes from your revision material a minimum of three times.

Refine the material each time you write it. Ideally this process will result in a checklist of between 10 and 15 points for every topic. (Lists are much easier to memorise than large bodies of text.) You can then transfer the checklists to index cards.

If diagrams are used during the course, use them to record the main assumptions/areas of knowledge they represent or describe.

Number your points. For example, if a topic has six properties, you can use six as a memory jogger. This is much easier than trying to remember an indefinite list.

Revise your list(s) repeatedly.

Remember, practice, practice and more practice is the key!

Try to develop a positive frame of mind about exams.

 

While they are intended to test memory, intellectual ability and your level of preparation, they also offer an opportunity to show what you can do!

 

It is vital that you have a strategy, as a carefully considered approach to exams will help you to perform well on the day.

 

You need to:

In an ideal world, you will have started thinking about exams in the first week of term and will prepare for them during the whole academic year using some of the ideas outlined here and on the next few pages.

 

Past Papers and Mock Exams

• Past exam papers are a good source of revision material and can be supplied by your teacher or accessed on-line via the intranet.

• It is vital that you look at past papers and familiarise yourself with the type and number of questions, timing, allocation of marks etc.

• Use the papers and set yourself a mock. Do this systematically and seriously.

• Use a quiet room with a clock; take in pens, paper and an exercise book. Sit the exam as if it were the real exam, staying within the two hour allocation and spending no more than the allotted time on each question or section.

• Read and follow instructions carefully. Ask yourself: Exactly what am I being asked to do?  If you are asked to summarise a passage in no more than sixty words, do not use seventy!

• Decide what the question is asking you to do - e.g. whether to discuss/compare/evaluate etc - and plan what you will put into your introduction, into the paragraphs of the main body and the conclusion.

• Planning ensures that you generate ideas and that you note down relevant information. If you then structure your plan clearly, you will be able to see the logical order of your ideas and you will be able to retrieve them in an appropriate sequence, thereby reducing the need to spend valuable time re-writing illogically ordered text.

 

 

Before the exam

Sleep well (go to bed at normal time), eat well (slow energy release foods, not sugar packed rubbish) and drink enough (water).

Consider putting together an exam pack. Get a clear plastic pencil case, four or five pens (blue and black), a retractable pencil, a rubber and depending on your subject other materials such as coloured pens, a ruler and calculator. In Science, you are expected to have a calculator.  Whatever you do, take at least three pens into the exam.  Arrive at the exam hall in good time.

You must NOT under any circumstances take a mobile or an I-pod into the examination room.  Regardless of whether you intend to use it or not, or whether it is turned off, the examination boards will disqualify you immediately.    If you have brought one, hand it over immediately to the invigilators.  Better still, leave it at home; it's not worth the risk.

 

In the exam

Don’t rush, compose yourself. Read the questions carefully underline key words or phases…

Take time to read all the sections. Pay close attention to the instructions. What is the question asking you to do? (This process will be helped by the preparation work you will have done with past papers).

Planning and thinking are vital to exam success. General advice is that you should think for 20% of the time and write for 80%. This means that in a one-hour exam, approximately 12 of the 60 minutes should be spent thinking and planning.

Make sure you follow instructions carefully otherwise you will lose marks. (Most marks are lost either because the pupil does not follow instructions/answer the question or because the pupil runs out of time).

Organise and keep track of your time. Plan how long you will spend on each section bearing in mind mark allocation. (1 mark = 1 answer) Do not exceed the limit you impose for each section.                                                                                                                                                                              

Finally, remember that exam results are often much better than you think, so be positive.     

Never leave blanks; you cannot get marks for blanks.  Even if you think what you are writing is rubbish, you may well hit on one (or more) marking points and get the marks.                                                                                               

 

Web Links:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize  

www.qca.org                            

www.revisionworld.co.uk