Make your revision more effective is the second article in the series 'How to prepare well for exams'.

As well as planning your overall revision strategy (see 'How to revise'), it's important to overhaul the way you revise in order to make your revision more effective  and to get the best possible return for the hours you spend.

Most of us have a routine for revision which isn't actually all that effective. Do any of the problems below seem familiar? If so then you need to try out some of our ideas for Active Revision...

Problems with typical revision

  • Boredom: Reading notes over and over again doesn't make you think. Once boredom sets in, your revision becomes much less effective and your morale takes a nose-dive.
  • Over-familiarity: Your notes will all look pretty familiar to you, and it is not easy to sort out the points you know from those you only half-know. You do need to revise material that you are comfortable with but your best gains will come from finding and sorting out the 'grey' areas at the margins of your knowledge.
  • Inflexibile thinking: Exams require you to think on your feet, using old material in new ways. Preparing for exams is as much about developing mental flexibility as it is about remembering details. If you simply re-read your notes you are going through material linked together in exactly the same way, every time.

 Ways to make your revision more effective

Here are a whole series of things we know work. Try them out to see which work for you and you should end up with a new and more effective approach to revision. Click on the   +   to see more detail about each suggestion.


Make a set of condensed revision notes:

Doing this not only involves you in re-writing the notes you’ve already made during the course, but it also forces you to think about the relative importance of the points you are dealing with. To condense information you have to decide what is important and what can be left out. Keep your new notes for last minute revising. Some people keep condensed notes on cards which can be carried around easily.

Condensed notes do not need to be in the form of prose; you can display topics visually in a ‘Mind Map’ or Spider Diagram.


Test yourself before you start:

Before you open your notes, get out a blank sheet of paper. Think hard about the topic you are about to revise, and then spend 5 minutes jotting down as many of the main facts / ideas as you can remember, almost as though you were making a general essay plan on the subject.

Then start reading your notes. You should find the actual reading much more productive. You won’t spend a lot of time learning things you already know and your attention will focus on the information you couldn’t remember when you were testing yourself, which are obviously the areas which most need learning.


Practice past papers as much as you can:

No-one likes exam questions, but doing questions from old exam papers is a valuable revision tool as well as a means to practicing your exam technique. The ‘toughest’ way to use questions is to do them in strictly limited time without looking at your notes. This is the closest to actual exam conditions, but may be a bit scary.

A less head-on approach is to look at the question (and if necessary revise the topic) and think it over in unlimited time. Then close your books, start the clock and write your answer. Once you have finished, put your answer away for a while, then go back to it, and try to mark it yourself, using the book as need be. This is not a substitute for teacher marking, but you can learn a lot from assessing your own efforts.


Revise with a friend:

Working with friends can be double-edged – it is easy to end up talking about work rather than getting on with it. However, when revision really begins to drag, you might find taking turns to quiz each other adds an enjoyable mix of competition and mutual support.

Find something new to revise from:

Get hold of a new text-book or a Revision Guide and use it in with your notes, comparing as you go along. You will find plenty of points at which they are identical, but you will also find differences which it can be very worthwhile trying to reconcile. Puzzling over whether one example is better than another gets you thinking about important principles and helps build your mental flexibility.

Make the best of revision classes:

Co-ordinate your own revision with the revision classes your teachers are providing. To get the best out of a revision class you should review the topic yourself a day or so before. Note down anything you are unclear about, so you can ask about it. You will find that you get a lot more from the lesson because you have already got the main ideas sorted out, and you are ready to absorb the finer points. After the class check your notes to make sure that they are accurate

Ask your teachers for help:

The suggestions above are only some of the ways to set about injecting new interest into revision and to make revision more effective. Your teachers may well have their own views. Find out what they think, and seek their advice whenever you need it. Teachers are there to help you – but you need to ask !

Last updated: Jan 16, 2023

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    On 8th June 2019   /