10 replies to this topic

[Forbez]

Could anyone give some tips on how to revise effectively for exams. I feel the pressure to revise. If anyone out there has any tips, tricks (legal tricks) and methods I'd be very grateful.

[electriic ink]

I too am in the process of revising for exams. I'll tell you what I'm doing for each subject:

• ENGLISH - Annotating one copy of each of the poems we have to learn each day until I know all 8 of them
  
• MATHS - Not much, periodically answering questions from my revision book on harder topics
  
• SCIENCE - Repeating all the information aloud to myself until I get it right
  
• FRENCH - Practising listening with past papers (only way to do it) and repeating my speaking presentation aloud to myself until I get it right
  
• GEOGRAPHY - Creating little "packs" (or folders) for each topic and repeating all the information aloud to myself until I get it right
  
• HISTORY - Creating A2 posters of each of the topics then sticking them on my wall. I repeat all the information aloud to myself until I get it right
  
• IT - So little theory and grade boundaries so low, not worth it. Would probably create posters as for History though.
  
• RS - See IT.

So generally, I just document all the info on one bit of paper and repeat it to myself until I learn it. I find it works well, although at our school we've been bombarded with information about the "different types of learner":

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:87rCIiY...;cd=1&gl=uk

From that list, I suppose I'm an auditory learner but I've never really thought about it. Just done it the way I always have If I were you, I'd look at the list and revise as the webpage suggests.

Good luck!

[Forbez]

Your a bloody legend. If I get an A* because of you, I'll give you a kiss lol.

[rvalkass]

If you can, get a hold of the specifications for the exams you are taking. They tell you exactly what you need to know, what you need to be able to do, what sort of questions you need to be able to answer, everything. All the UK exam boards give them out online for all their exams, but I don't know about other countries. Go through the specification for your exam and see what you know and what you don't. If possible, do it in a group of 3 or 4 of you. When you hit something that you don't know 100%, get someone who does know it to explain it to you. One of the best ways to learn is to teach it to someone else. You'll each end up with all the gaps in your knowledge filled, loads of different ways of remembering topics, and revision done on the things that you find difficult.

Also, get hold of all the past exam papers and the mark schemes for them. Do a past paper and then check your answers against the mark scheme. See where your knowledge is good, and where it is lacking. It is pointless revising something you already know well, and this tells you exactly what you don't know. Also, if you've seen enough mark schemes, you should end up being able to predict exactly what will be on the mark scheme each time you see a question. When you're sat in the exam and you can work out what is on the mark scheme, that makes it quite easy You will also find that the same questions will keep coming up year after year, and there are certain words and phrases that keep appearing in the mark schemes. Learn them! Learn the answers to the most common questions so that you can answer them without really thinking about them. You'd be surprised how often the same questions keep coming up again and again.

From going through the question papers and mark schemes you will probably find that you often know the answer, but aren't quite on the right lines to get a mark for your answer. That is called exam technique, and it is basically a way of answering questions that you know will get you marks. The only way to learn it is to go through the past exam papers and mark schemes and look at what is on the mark scheme for each question. Quite often, all you need to include is a certain word or phrase to get the mark. Learn which words and phrases are most common for each topic and put them into your answers whenever you can.

A tip for the exam: use your time wisely. If you can see you will run out of time then answer the remaining questions with bullet points, and as concisely as you can. The exams aren't marked for quality of writing (unless the question states otherwise) so you can still pick up most of the marks. Also, try to leave plenty of time to check your work, and don't be afraid to ask for as much extra paper as you want. It is more important to get the answers right rather than squashing your answer into whatever space they provide.

Quote

# IT - So little theory and grade boundaries so low, not worth it. [...]# RS - See IT.

My IT exam was multiple choice and so ridiculously easy that pretty much the entire class got an A* for it at GCSE. They didn't really work at the coursework, so didn't do that well, but that is their own stupid fault. As for RS, I took it upon myself as a challenge to get Monty Python into each and every one of my answers. A friend did the same with the names of Pink Floyd songs and albums. We both managed to get an A grade

[electriic ink]

rvalkass, on Apr 3 2008, 04:51 PM, said:

[1] My IT exam was multiple choice and so ridiculously easy that pretty much the entire class got an A* for it at GCSE. [2] They didn't really work at the coursework, so didn't do that well, but that is their own stupid fault. [3]As for RS, I took it upon myself as a challenge to get Monty Python into each and every one of my answers. A friend did the same with the names of Pink Floyd songs and albums. We both managed to get an A grade

[1] Ours isn't multiple choice although our teacher marked the mocks using "generic" grade boundaries to begin with (90% A*, 80% A...) but when he found the real grade boundaries, he re-graded all the papers. People who were Cs ended up with A*s

[2] Tbh, I don't really blame them. One of the marks for ours is to get your parents to sign a bit of paper saying that your book you created is "clear and presentable" (that is only after you've shown them you know how to click a link of a webpage)

I swear, people who fail IT, fail because they can't be arsed, not because they're thick. We spend our IT lesson stealing the only padded chair in the room off each other, restarting our friends' computers, trying to hide sexual comments into each other's coursework when they've gone off to ask the teacher for help.

IT = jokes.

[3] LOL Legendary. RS lessons are amazing fun, spend it telling each other dead baby jokes, which are sick but funny - you should read them, probably some on the internet.. (obviously, I won't put any on here).

Forbez said:

Your a bloody legend. If I get an A* because of you, I'll give you a kiss lol.

oOo - I look forward to that

On a serious note, following on from rvalkass' point about past papers, I assume you're in the UK here, AQA release all past papers from 2004 onwards:

GCSEs: http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/gcse.php
A-Levels: http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/gceasa.php

OCR release all past papers from June 2005:

http://www.ocr.org.uk/pastpapermaterials/p...pers/index.html

Edexcel are tight and make you pay for theirs.

Also, there's a forum I belong to called The Student Room, which is like Trap17 but geared towards exams rather than web hosting.

[OHFIENA]

Oh great.
I need help to revise my studies too.
Thanks for the advise.

And do anybody know how to improve on your languages effectively?
I can't find a good way on that.

[godfather89]

When you say languages do you mean writing or speaking skills, or both?

And on topic, revision is really easy to be honest, if its a subject like maths/physics/statistics you need to practice a lot, and when i say practice i don't mean do the same questions again and again. Youi need to practice as many different questions as you can manage. When it comes to theory subjects, you can either write down the points or read it over and over again. What I usually do when I'm revising is read the topic heading, than write down all relevant points regarding that topic on my notepad. Than read the material and see if I missed anything. Works perfectly.

[HyBriD54]

If you are supplied with something along the lines of "program outlines" or outcomes you need to accomplish I suggest you run through those and sort of "tick off" each outcome. Making notes (not borrowing others) would also be useful for theory. If it is something like Maths, it's something on the matter of practise until you can memorise the formulas and methods you would need in the exams.

[Nabb]

rvalkass, on Apr 4 2008, 02:51 AM, said:

My IT exam was multiple choice and so ridiculously easy that pretty much the entire class got an A* for it at GCSE.

Teehee.


Maths isn't really memorising formulas - it's more about understanding what you're doing.. no point knowing x=(-b±√(b²-4ac))/2a if you can't actually apply it! Going over a course outline and seeing what you know and don't know would be a good way to see what you need to learn, but you can also do a few past papers and see what you did wrong and learn from those mistakes...

[Variablez]

I remember revising! It is so boring and so like old school... but it was still good for you!