What is the most efficient way to revise?
This article was written by one of our Young Reporters, a scheme that gives 14 to 18-year-old school students a chance to write for a real newspaper. Find out more at the Young Reporter website.
With exam season quickly approaching, many students in year ten up and down the country are beginning to search for the most efficient ways to study, and question whether they should be rewriting notes, taking quizzes on their topics, or flipping through flashcards to jog their memory about information.
An important thing to keep in mind is what subject you are studying for, as what works for recalling dates in history might be completely different to remembering how to answer a six marker in science.
Before even deciding what subject to revise, it is imperative to decide how to revise, and a good option is the Pomodoro technique: breaking your work into smaller, twenty five minute chunks with five minute breaks in between each one.
This works for many people as it allows them to recall information quickly and understand content, while also having breaks to help process information they’ve just learnt, and not overloading their brains with too much information at a time.
An example of this technique could be revising maths for twenty five minutes using exam questions on topics you’re not so familiar with, making a cup of tea, then revising english literature by reminding yourself of important quotes.
A common way to revise fact based questions in subjects such as history or science is flashcards. These are hugely helpful to remember key dates and facts and can be used time and time again, starting with the way that they are made.
While it is very common for students to find flashcards online and use them, a more efficient way to use them is by making them yourself, because this will help you consolidate what you know, and look into what you don't know.
If you have a sheet with all the different parts of your topic that you need to know (for example specifications in science), these can be used to create the flashcards by turning each point into a question which you ask on one side of the flashcard and answer on the other side.
Once made, flashcards can be used as many times as they’re needed, and are especially useful when you read the question and say the answer out loud, as this helps you consolidate and remember the fact.
There are lots of different ways to revise for any subject, and different things work for different people, but the most important thing with revision is more how frequently you revise and how dedicated you are than the exact technique.
