How to streamline revision

With the weeks until finals exams for both GCSE and A-Level students counting down, we here

at The Education Suite understand how stressful the coming weeks must seem, with many

students beginning to panic. What is most vital, however, in these coming months, is to remain

focused, and to now streamline your revision to cover the most difficult tips, to help with we

have assembled 3 top tips for you:

1. Use the specification

Using sources such as textbooks and the internet can be very helpful in understanding content,

but the specification for your exam is arguably the most important source to base revision

around. This is as the specification details exactly what the exam board expects you to know, as

well as allows you to focus on the key points that will come up in the exam. In order to make

sure you cover all the necessary topics, as well as are able to spend more time on the topics

you find more difficult, print out your specification and highlight the topics you find easy in green,

the topics that need a little more revision in yellow, and the hardest topics in red. This will allow

you to streamline your revision, to focus on what is most challenging.

2. Have a slack day

With revision timetable, we can often overestimate the amount we will be able to do, which is

why you should always aim to add atleast half an hour more time to each task you set yourself

to do. As well as this, allocate a slack day per week - this is a day where you don’t revise any

new content, but catch up to any revision or work that you set yourself during the week, that you

were unable to do. For A-Level students, you can also allocate ‘slack slots’ for your free periods,

where you catch up on content or homework. This allows you to stick to a timetable of revision,

whilst also being able to catch up on any incomplete tasks, streamlining your revision process.

3. Analyse your revision techniques

Oftentimes, the greatest issue students face is feeling like they do not have enough time revise,

however it is important to dispel the common myth that you need you need to study long hours

to succeed. In actual fact you should study for short, focussed periods, where you are most

productive, as opposed to studying for hours on end but with little focus. In order to dot his,

analyse your current studying method - more often than not, students waste time in making

pretty notes or simplifying copying out the textbook, when none of this actually contributes to

your learning. By simply doing the tasks where your brain is actively digesting information, such

as active recall, or spaced repetition, you can streamline your revision style.

Overall, although exams are coming up soon, what is important to remember is that you still

have time, though this should be used wisely, and as efficiently as possible.