Top Tips on How to Revise Effectively

With exam season just around the corner our Director of the Easter Revision Course and Wellington College’s Senior Master, Matt Oakman gives us his top tips on how to revise effectively.

Planning
It is essential to have a plan for revision over the Easter break. With advance information now clear for all subject areas at GCSE and A Level, this should provide the framework for any planning built around working through the syllabus and specification points in a coherent and clear fashion.

1. Time
   Whilst many students do focus on a certain amount of hours of revision every day, this can be daunting and lead to time spent at a desk which might not be as productive as hoped. Much better to take a task orientated approach to revision; there is nothing more fulfilling than having accomplished a number of different tasks during the course of the day. Tasks could include completion or extension of notes, working through particular specification points and learning the material or the completion of practise papers with self-marking.
2. Breaks
   Allow time for regular breaks to ensure that the time spent revising is productive and efficient. Make sure that you get outside during the course of the day for fresh air and exercise as this will only help your effectiveness when working. Try to work out when you are at your most effective during the day and build your revision schedule around that.
3. Working Environment
   Having the right working environment is of key importance. Make sure that your desk is ready for work and you have sufficient light and the right ambience. With so many potential distractions, make sure that you have disabled social media alerts and put your phone away whilst working so that the time you spend revising is of high quality.
4. Practise, Practise and Practise
   Working through past papers and exam style questions (which can often be found in exam board produced books) is a key ingredient for success. Once the material has been learnt, it is vital to put this into practice to enable a better understanding of how to structure answers which will in turn inform further revision that needs to be done.

There are many other tips and ideas that will enable effective and productive revision but these five key areas will allow a focused and successful approach for the time leading into exams.

Want to learn more, then join Matt and his team of subject specialists at Wellington College for the Easter Revision Course. Open to all schools, this course helps enable students to perform to the best of their ability when it comes to their final examinations. Exams are a potentially stressful experience for all students and that is especially the case at the moment given the considerable amount of lost learning that many students have suffered during the course of the pandemic. Whilst this list of tips and techniques is not meant to be exhaustive, hopefully it provides a framework that can guide the revision process.