Revision Techniques

STUDY SKILLS PROGRAMME

SESSION 1: QUESTIONNAIRE

• Please complete the questions openly and honestly

SESSION 2: The importance of good health

Stay healthy!

• Stay healthy during your revision time and the lead up to exams.
• Avoid energy drinks, take lots of water and follow a healthy diet!

Healthy eating

• Try fish: particularly fatty fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines.
• Fruit: particularly kiwi fruit which have plenty of Vitamin C to help oxygenate the blood, repairs cells and bananas which are a good source of potassium.
• Eat green vegetables: rich in B vitamins which help memory and energy levels.
• High energy carbohydrates such as pasta and oats are very good for you as they release a steady stream of carbohydrates into the bloodstream during the day.

Take a nap

Take a nap. Yes …. we're actually counting this as a revision technique. It's been shown that sleeping improves memory so that 30 minute afternoon doze may be helpful…….but not during lesson 5!

SESSION 3: The revision climate

You want to make sure that you keep yourself focused so lock away any distractions, turn off your phone, disconnect from the internet (unless you are genuinely using it to revise) and tell your family & friends to leave you alone!

Where should I study? �

• Find a fixed place to study (a particular desk/room at home) that becomes firmly associated in your mind with productive work.
• All the equipment and materials you need should be within reach, and the room should be well lit and ventilated.

�

Turn your room into a positive learning environment. Keep books and notes on the desk to a minimum and decorate your walls with colourful notes and key facts.

​

�

• Music is fine as long as it GENUINELY helps you to study and blocks out distracting noises. The very best sound to study to is thought to be that of Baroque composers or Mozart. Experiments show that brains are positively stimulated and IQs boosted by such music.

​

SESSION 4: PLANNING

Ensure you understand what you are about to revise

Don’t understand?

• Ask your teacher

​

Not in school?

• Ask your friends
• Ask your parents
• Ask Google

Know the specifications

• Make sure you know exactly what it is you'll be examined on
• If in doubt, ask your teacher

Plan ahead and start early to avoid freaking out�

• Start early to avoid cramming later.
• Once you've got your exam dates work backwards to plan your revision well ahead of time.
• The longer you give yourself the less pressure you'll be under throughout the exams and you'll have time to focus, get help and go over all you need to know.

Pace yourself

• You'll revise far easier if you take your time and pace yourself. Organise revision into small sessions (25-40 minutes) with regular breaks to eat, drink, relax and just have some general time away from it all.

Prioritise

Organise your revision time so that you focus more on your troublesome topics and tough subjects. You don't need to waste time going over areas that you already know inside out.

Divide subjects into topics for ease of organisation.

When should I study?�

• Try to schedule your study for times when you are more mentally alert. Most people find their ability to focus deteriorates towards the end of the day.
• Getting revision done earlier in the day (eg. during school holidays/weekends) aids efficiency and also offers the reward of having time to relax after the work is done.

​

SESSION 5: Planning a revision timetable

• Know your topics and subtopics
• Plan when you are going to study
• Use short sessions (25-40 mins)
• Timetable in your usual extra activities, eg. sports clubs, music practice, part time working

Revision timetable tips

• When compiling a schedule try to be as realistic as possible. Do not try to plan a day you have no chance of completing.
• Make a list of the subjects that you need to revise for between now and your exams. Break down subjects into smaller parts to make your studying more focused.

More timetable tips

• Work out which subjects have the most content to be revised.
• Concentrate on those specific topics or modules that you are weak on.
• Ensure that you include breaks during the day, these are important to help you unwind and to make sure you don’t burn yourself out.
• Use times when you ‘study best’ for those topics that require the most effort and energy.

Even more timetable tips

• Do not leave your most difficult subjects till the end of the day: get these out of the way early on.
• After completing a revision period cross it off from your timetable. This will help to instill a sense of accomplishment.
• At the end of each week assess your performance and update your plans accordingly.

…..and some

• Keep your timetable flexible and be ready to change it if circumstances change.
• Try not to spend the whole day revising one subject.
• Most experts suggest studying in slots of 25-40 minutes and then taking a break before your next session.
• Build in times to go over work you have revised to check your learning.

​

Ask for help

Remember ……….. never be afraid to ask for help from teachers or friends

AT HOME……………………….

• Using the template provided, start to construct your own revision timetable
• Feel free to discuss your approach with your teacher next time

AN EXAMPLE

SESSION 6: HOW DO I REVISE?

Do you remember what this means in relation to your memory?�

How will this fact affect your preparation?

You have the power to create time

• Revise in focused short sessions of 25-40 minutes (find a session length that suits you). This will increase the high points on the graph so increasing the time you spend in effective revision.
• Remember that you need to take a break between focused sessions. This will ensure your brain is ready for the next session and that you are maximising your revision time.

The Statistics

• 66% material is forgotten after 7 days
• 88% material is forgotten after 6 weeks
• Reading notes and text books leads to a mere 10% retention ☹
• How will these facts affect your preparation?

New learning needs to be embedded

After a one hour memorising session

• 10 minutes later revise the topic for 10 minutes
• 1 day later revise the topic for 5 minutes
• 1 week later revise the topic for 2-5 minutes
• 1 month later revise the topic for 2-5 minutes
• Before exams revise the topic as required.

Each time knowledge is reinforced, it enters deeper into the long-term memory and becomes more stable.

​

SESSION 7: GET ACTIVE!

• You are now ready to undertake the first stage: processing your learning by ACTIVE reading.
• Don’t just read and re-read your notes: you will learn very little that way. Actively and critically engaging with the content can save you time.
• Experiment with different strategies to find what works for you: try using flash cards, mind maps, post it notes stuck on your bedroom walls.

​

​

ACTIVE READING SUMMARISED

• SKIM through the text quickly to get an overall impression.
• QUESTION what you’ve read to check your understanding.
• READ the text in a focused, and fairly speedy way.
• REMEMBER what you’ve just read? Test your memory: but don't worry if you can't remember much.
• REVIEW the text in more detail, taking notes. Use your own words.

​

SESSION 8: ACTIVE READING PRACTICE

• Try the active reading strategies to work with the extract you have been given
• SKIM through the text quickly to get an overall impression.
• QUESTION what you’ve read to check your understanding.
• READ the text in a focused, and fairly speedy way.
• REMEMBER what you’ve just read? Test your memory: but don't worry if you can't remember much.
• REVIEW the text in more detail, taking notes. Use your own words.

​

SESSION 9: How do I revise?

Revision fact

The average person

• can take in four numbers or words at a time
• can concentrate on revision for a maximum of 45 minutes at a time
• remembers information best shortly before bedtime.

Revision Activities

• Mind-maps
• Networked notes
• Learning Wheels
• Key words, post-its
• Flash Cards
• Podcasts

• Highlight
• Chant/Rap
• Mnemonics
• Chunking
• Memory Palace

​

SESSION 8: Mindmapping

Mindmaps

Creating the Mindmap makes it memorable!

• Next time we meet you will be making a mindmap of your own
• Select a block of learning to mindmap on Monday & bring it to the session OR your teacher will give you a resource to map
• In the meantime, try your own mindmaps at home
• You can exchange mindmaps with friends BUT your own mindmaps will always work best for you because you have structured them to fit with the way YOUR brain works

SESSION 10: MAKE YOUR OWN MINDMAP

• Using the A3 paper in front of you draft out a mindmap for the topic of your choice. Your form tutor will use the resource from session 8 if you do not have your own revision resource.

REMEMBER

• Start at the centre
• Use KEYWORDS & PICTURES
• Use lines to link ideas
• Experiment with highlighters, colours, codes
• Use a ‘radiant hierarchy’

​

​

​

​

​

SESSION 11: LEARNING WHEELS

Learning Wheel

• Draw a circle on a large sheet of paper
• Draw the hub in the centre as a smaller circle and write the title or topic or create a symbol
• Draw spikes from the hub to the edge of the circle: like slices in a cake

Learning Wheel

• In each section write brief notes on what you can remember about each aspect of your work
• Look at your notes and check if you were right
• Add the information you did not make notes on

Can you think of topics suited to this sort of organisation?

SESSION 12: MAKE YOUR OWN LEARNING WHEEL

Using the A3 paper in front of you draft out a Learning Wheel for the topic of your choice. Your form tutor will use the resource from session 8 if you do not have your own revision resource.

REMEMBER

• Draw a large circle
• Add a ‘hub’ circle in the centre
• Draw spikes out to the side to split into slices
• In each section write brief notes on what you can remember about each aspect of your work
• Look at your notes and check if you were right
• Add the information you did not make notes on

​

​

SESSION 13: NETWORKED NOTES & SPIDER CHARTS

Networked notes: organising & revising

Tip – use different colours for the boxes, links or junctions

Spider charts

GIVE IT A GO AT HOME!

• Set up a revision timetable
• Start to use the strategies you have learned

SESSION 14: MNEMONICS

What is a mnemonic?

Mnemonics

Rest

Exercise

Variety

Imagination

Structure

Individual

Ongoing

Not too long

​

Mnemonics work best when you try to make your own…

Example: Planets Mnemonic�

Another example from English

Now develop a mnemonic of your own

SESSION 15: CHUNKING

Spot the difference

Chunking

• Chunking is the process of breaking up large pieces of information in to smaller chunks.
• If possible, organise the material as meaningfully as you can and think out relationships among each group. This not only improves learnability and retention but also aids in faster and effortless recollection.
• Useful in conjunction with other revision strategies.
• Useful when learning vocabulary, ie. grouping similar words for memorisation.
• You probably learned your mobile number

this way!

SESSION 16: THE MEMORY PALACE

THE MEMORY PALACE

THE trick of memory masters:

• Think about a journey you know well
• Think about the landmarks along the way
• You then add images to help you remember information.

Our brains are better organised to store locations than random facts. Travelling through these locations, as you would when giving someone directions, is something we do naturally.

Here are the steps necessary to use the technique:�

Pick a very well known area, either your home, school, the walk/ride to school or other place you are intimately familiar with. It is also important that the framework for your memory palace consist of places you can move through. Remember, we are trying to use the part of your brain that is involved with locations and movement.

The journey is essential.

​

List the features of the route…..

……the front door, the mailbox, the local pub, the primary school, the church, the shop…...

• These all appear in a specific sequence as you travel. It is important that the features be memorable.
• You should have at least ten features for the first tryout.

​

How can you be sure you have the features memorised in the correct order?

List them on revision cards, randomise the cards by shuffling, and then lay them out in the correct order as fast as you can.

When you can lay out the first ten features in order, add another five features.

Remember, the more hooks you have to hang your memories on, the more you can remember.

​

SESSION 17: Trialling the Memory Palace

• Choose your journey
• List the features on revision cards, randomise the cards by shuffling, and then lay them out in the correct order as fast as you can.
• Lay out the first ten features in order.
• Now connect each feature with a point you need to learn.

​

Practice the technique

• Repeat the journey through your Memory Palace several times to cement the list in your mind. Take the journey backwards and forwards to see if going out of sequence causes problems. If it does, you know you will need to spend more time on this method.
• This is a powerful method. The drawback is that it takes time to learn to use and much practice to perfect.

​

SESSION 18: ROTE LEARNING

Rote Learning

• Rote learning doesn’t have a great reputation for long-term retention but can be used to retain facts and figures in the short term for tests and exams.
• Rote learning is learning through repetition. You probably learned the letters of the alphabet through repetition in combination with a catchy rhyming song.
• When short-term data retention is your primary goal, rote memorisation can be an effective memorising technique. However, its repetitive nature and lack of analysis makes it an ineffective way to learn complex and detailed subjects.

​

Can you think of an area of study where this technique might be useful?

SESSION 19: PRACTICE MAKES PROGRESS

Test yourself: card cover

Two ways to practice with cards:

• Put the answers on the back, and try to recall all information before you check
• Use a piece of paper and move down to reveal answers as you guess the contents.

These techniques are very useful for checking that you know key facts.

​

Online revision sites & revision guides

…..any many, many more

Best way to practice for an exam is by doing exams!

• Ask teachers for past papers & markschemes

​

Get creative

Quiz

• Make quizzes
• Online quizzes/tests
• Exchange with friends
• Have a revision ‘party’

SESSION 20: ONLINE RESOURCES

…….plus hundreds of subject based websites

Top 10 revision strategies

​

click link to begin video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL2EBmknPpg&t=109s

​

Keep it focused

• Ask your teachers/ friends for good revision websites
• Try not to simply get lost in looking for the right sites……………………and actually doing no revision

SESSION 21: Managing stress

Firstly recognise you’re stressed, then try some or all of these:

• Exercise
• Share your anxieties
• Organise your time
• Work in ‘chunks’ not ‘wholes’ and build-in rewards / treats
• Relaxation techniques such as: tense and then relax your muscles stretching and unwinding moving up from feet to face; breathing techniques
• Eat healthily and regularly

​

• Get enough sleep and rest
• Focus on your goals
• Create a manageable daily routine
• Have a positive mental attitude
• Talk to people who are positive and reassuring and see your friends
• Don’t vegetate: do something positive
• Stand back from the problem and try to put matters into proportion
• Talk to your teachers

Useful websites and information on managing stress

https://www.goconqr.com/en/gcse/revision-tips/how-to-deal-with-exam-stress/ - free tools, tips and advice on helping you to succeed.

​

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1HsY1X8ySjKBMVXPVCbP4qH/exam-stress - advice from the BBC Radio 1 website.

​

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/reduce-stress/ - this NHS website gives 10 top stress busters plus there a link to some helpful stress busting apps!

​

http://www.themix.org.uk/work-and-study/study-and-exam-tips/exam-stress-1241.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIo46Sr93o2QIVBLvtCh0gLgobEAAYASAAEgKEhvD_BwE – further support for under 25’s (that’s you…)

Chunking

Mnemonics

Memory Palace

Rote learning

Learning wheel

Mindmaps