Getting Ready

How To Revise Effectively

Some students panic at the thought of revision. They spend hours and hours trying to go through the whole module in a few weeks. Or they go to the Library and get ten books out, any ten books, and carry them around looking worried.

You can revise more quickly and more effectively by targeting your revision. Here's how:

1. Select Your Topics.

You know that the exam will be about what you've done in the module. You know as well that you have to answer three questions, or two, or four, or whatever it is. So pick a selection of topics to revise. These are the things you're going to write about in the exam. Give yourself a safety margin - if you'll need to answer three questions, prepare four or five topics, and so on.
If you select your topics, you're making the time-pressure of the exam work for you. Most exams are two or three hours long. Nobody can cover the whole of a module in two or three hours. So don't try - pick what you're going to do and concentrate on revising that.

2. Target Your Revision.

You can target your revision in two ways. Start by giving yourself a session of two hours to revise a topic. Before you start, write down what you want to get out of those two hours. And at the end write down what you've done in the two hours. Writing it down helps fix the topic in your mind. It also reassures you that you've done what you set out to do.

OK? Targeting your revision means that you stay in control.