Study Tips
Hello!
Since exam season is coming up and a lot of my friends are busy revising (I don't have any exams since my course is 100% coursework), I thought I'd give some tips to help if you're struggling with how to revise or just can't seem to motivate yourself.
- Make a revision timetable - Don't fall into the trap of spending so long making the timetable that you run out of time to actually revise, but having something simple to organise your time really does help. Just make sure you stick to it and make sure you schedule some time to relax and see your friends too. It's more beneficial to de-stress every so often than it is to spend every second working.
- Reward yourself - If you do 5 hours work on a Saturday (with breaks, of course), then buy yourself a chocolate bar, or go out and meet your friends. If you're working hard then you deserve a treat.
- Make posters - This is my favourite way to revise. Get some A3 card and some felt tips or coloured pencils and make revision posters. I made about 40 for my Chemistry AS and found it really helpful. Make them as colourful as possible and draw diagrams wherever you can - it'll really help your memory in the exam.
- Index cards - I used hundreds of these little cards when I was revising for my A Levels and they were really helpful. It's useful to try and fit as much information on each card as possible, because it really makes you condense everything, making it much easier to remember key points for the exam. You could also use them to make question and answer cards and ask family members to quiz you.
- Spider diagrams - This is my least favourite form of revision, but every single one of my teachers loved them, so they must be useful. I found them most helpful to categorise my thoughts; I'm quite a disorganised thinker, so making a spider diagram allowed me to come up with different categories and add do each one as and when the thoughts came to me.
- Terminology bunting - This is quite an unusual one that my English Language teacher suggested. Basically, if you're studying a subject that has a lot of key terminology that you need to learn, then you could cut out a load of triangles from some card and write a key term and its meaning on each one. You can also make these really decorative and cut holes in them to put string through and hang it in your room. It definitely helped me and looked really cute above my bed.
- Revise with friends - Don't do this if you know that you probably wont revise and you'll just end up wasting a few hours when you could be doing solid revision. But if you know you will revise with a group of friends, then get together, get some treats (crisps, chocolate, sweets) and spend the day quizzing each other and helping one another. It actually makes revising seem like a lot of fun!
- Don't stress! - Exams are important, but they are not the end of the world. Don't get yourself stressed out about them, chances are you'll do much better if you stay calm. Start revising early, dedicate a couple of hours a day to solid revision (slightly more on weekends), but also dedicate time to relaxing and seeing your friends - you'll feel much better for it. If you feel like you're struggling, then ask a teacher for help, the majority of teachers will be happy to help. If you don't get the grades you want, it's not the end of the world, your health and happiness is always most important!
Good luck to anyone who has exams coming up. I hope these tips help and I hope you all do really well. Don't stress yourselves out, you're going to be just fine!
Good luck!
Lots of love
Megan
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