Last-minute revision tips

It’s June examinations season. Have you revised enough. Some are writing Cambridge while others are enrolled for ZIMSEC. The bottom line is all are exams. Here are some few quick last tips on revision.
Revision is a personal, individual process. It must be one of the most individualised processes within academic life. Students begin it with:

different sets of knowledge and understandings;

different responses to the stress of the revision and exam period;

different preferred revision techniques; and

different psychological and life contexts into which to fit the revision.

While it is possible to get ideas from others and from books, about how to revise, you also need to get to know what your own personal strengths and weaknesses are. How much do you already know? How do you revise? What are the factors that usually cause problems for you in managing your revision?

The following list may be useful in identifying combinations of contexts in which you prefer to revise.

Early-mid morning

Mid-late morning

Early-mid afternoon

Mid-late afternoon

Early-mid evening

Mid-late evening

In the library

At home

Outside

On your own with background music

With someone else but working independently

With someone else and working interactively

In a revision tutorial

Different stages of revision can fit with different contexts. Early on you may prefer to work individually; mid-morning, in silence, at home. Later, you may prefer to work mid-afternoon, interactively, in a café. The important thing is that you match the type of revision you are doing with the context in which you, personally, are able to do that best.

Taking control
It is easy to feel overwhelmed. You may feel that the task is too big, and that whatever you do you will not succeed. It is important to appreciate the size of the task, but it is also important to be realistic about what you can do in the time available. The revision and exam period will inevitably involve stress. You need to monitor this and, ideally, make it work for you not against you.

The key is to be realistic. Yes, you will have less free time temporarily. No, you will not have to go without free time completely. If you find yourself feeling generally worried, give yourself 10 minutes to write down exactly what it is that you are worrying about. You are then in a better position to devise some strategies for addressing those specific concerns. Check on quality above quantity.

It is important to focus on the quality rather than just the quantity of your revision. This means that, whatever time you do spend revising, you try to make sure that it is quality time, with full concentration and with the most appropriate revision method.

Scoping the task
The earlier you can scope the size and characteristics of the revision task the better. Make a systematic list of exactly what you need to cover, and in what depth. This allows you to collect further information or resources to support your revision before you start the serious work. Make sure you have any information that is available on what is expected of you and, importantly, what you are not expected to revise.

Active versus passive revision
Active revision is much more effective than passive revision. Passive revision is associated with such activities as reading notes, and copying material. Active revision is concerned with using and organising material.

Unfortunately, the basic revision technique, on which most other ideas are built, of reading and understanding the material; ‘reducing’ it to a smaller amount of material in note form; reviewing this again; reducing it again perhaps to a list of bullet points can become a passive, time consuming exercise if you aren’t careful.

While this kind of activity may legitimately form the foundation of your revision, you need to make sure you do not spend huge amounts of time copying material in a passive way.

Active and passive learning can be compared with the concepts of recognition and recall. It is much easier to recognise someone’s name when you are told it, than it is to recall their name without any clues. Similarly it is much easier to read through a page of notes and think, “Yes, I know this”, than it is to cover up the page and to give a talk on the topic.

Revising actively implies making a real effort to understand what you are learning, rather than simply memorising by rote. Even if your exams require you to remember a lot of facts, you are much more likely to retain detailed information if it is related to an underlying understanding. There are many ways to achieve this; here are some suggestions you might like to try: