Chels

Exam season is almost upon us (sorry to remind those of you who are trying to avoid thinking about it). Perhaps it’s a little late in the process now, but this week I’d like to share some revision tips that actually helped me to survive my exam periods, and come out the other end with pretty decent grades.

REREAD YOUR BOOKS. Or at least, reread a summary of your books. Make a summary of each chapter – write or type it out yourself; it commits them to memory better than just reading one that’s been made for you.

AVOID WATCHING FILM ADAPTATIONS. Don’t get me wrong, I think watching the film of a novel can help you to understand the plot, especially with classics that have more archaic language and can be harder to follow. However, from now on, it’s all about trying to retain the important stuff, and so many film adaptations include new scenes and skip out on important book moments, and your best bet to avoid getting muddled up is to stick to the original text, at least for a while.

FOCUS ON REMEMBERING WHAT YOU WON’T HAVE. It’s hard not to be vague with this one, because the rules change between subjects, between exam boards, and it seems, year by year. The key is not to stress over memorising something you’ll have access to in the exam. If you’ll be given a formula sheet for science or maths, or texts for English, you don’t need to worry about memorising that information. By all means, make sure you know how to utilise them, but in terms of committing things to memory, prioritise the things that you know you won’t have access to.

As a side note, I do think it’s ridiculous that you’re not given the full texts for GCSE English exams any more (or at least, you weren’t last year). The pressure to remember key quotes and specific details seems too much like an attempt to trip you up, and seems to go against the spirit of English Lit. To me it always felt less about what you can remember, and more about how you can apply your analysis. But I’m not here to criticise the exam boards.

LOOK AT PAST PAPERS. You don’t even need to do them as practise papers (although that helped me), but just looking at the past papers from your subject’s exam board can be a massive help. Study the questions and take note of the kind of things they’re asking you to do and the themes that usually come up. For STEM subjects, are there particular types of question that are always included? The more past papers you look at, the more you’ll know what to expect when it comes to your own exam paper.

SCHEDULE TIME FOR YOURSELF. Of course, you could spend every free minute revising, but you might burn out. We’re human, after all. There’s no harm in spending some time with your friends – they’re in the same boat as you, and complaining together can be very cathartic. Spend an evening watching telly with your family, or set aside some time to just do nothing. Personally, I recommend getting out in the fresh air. When I sat my GCSEs we had a really nice, warm summer. I don’t know if there’s any science to it, but I’m sure the weather put us all in a better mood, and it was easier to stay calm going into the exams. Of course, you can’t really control the weather, but if we do get another nice summer, try and enjoy it, at least for a while.

MY TOP TIP. Every time you go over your notes, make them shorter. I followed this method for my science revision (I have no idea why I didn’t do it for all of my subjects, because it worked). For this method, I went through the revision guides we were given and made short summaries (one side of A4 paper) for each topic. Once I’d made my way through the guides, I studied each page, turning those notes into a set of a few bullet points. Then, I could use the bullet points for my revision. I’d only kept the most important information, so I was able to read through them quickly. There’s a bit of real-life evidence that this is effective – when you’re summarising information rather than just copying it out, you take it in better, because you have to think about how to summarise. It’s also been suggested that physically typing or handwriting your notes can help to commit the information to memory.

To everyone taking exams over the next couple of months, good luck!