Revision Techniques

This section will detail the different techniques that can be utilised during your revision.

A key note here: Use them all.

Don’t just choose one and do all of your revision using that one technique, they each have a purpose and place in revision, and work best when combined.

There are naturally some techniques that are very effective, such as testing, but to make testing more effective, we should be using the other techniques in preparation.

1

read and recap

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The most common mistake that students make when revising is that they open their notes or textbook and just read, then do nothing with that. This is a waste of your time.

So, how do we improve that?

By being active learners.

Using Read and Recap you will still read a small section of your notes, a textbook, webpage, or even a video, and then close the notes (textbook/webpage/video) then recap as much as you can about what you’ve just read (or watched).

For example, you read your notes on the fetch-decode-execute cycle. You recap as much key knowledge as you can in a bullet point form, mind-map or sentences (whichever your prefer). Really think hard on this, and retrieve as much as you can.

Once you’ve done that, re-read the notes, close again, and fill in any missing key information in your notes. Always, always relying on you retrieving that information from your brain.

Don’t cheat and just makes notes from the textbook, that’s just copying, and is pretty much pointless, because you’re not actually thinking about it, you’re just copying. Your brain needs to do the work, it’s how long term memories are made.

In summary:

  1. Read a paragraph, section, page
  2. Close book/notes etc
  3. Summarise in note form using your memory
  4. Re-read the paragraph, section, page
  5. Close book/notes etc
  6. Fill in any missing information
  7. Repeat steps 1-6 until you are satisfied that all the key information has been captured.
  8. Pro-Tip: If you are coming to a re-read, you can skip sections where you are confident you’ve captured all the notes.

These are the essential steps for read and recap, simple, effective retrieval practice.

So, what does good look like?

2

mind maps

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Mind Maps are a fantastic tool for taking notes and revising from.

One advantage of Mind Maps is that they are a visual representation of knowledge, and this can help with retention as you may be able to visualise parts of your mind maps. Not only that, but they can feel less imposing than a block of text.

Another is that they can show you the connections between different elements of a topic. This is important not just because it can help with your understanding, but it can also help bridge gaps between the schemata in your brain on the different topics, therefore strengthening the knowledge.

Finally, they are a great resource for making flash cards from, if the mind-map is filled-in correctly.

We do need to be careful that we don’t overfill our mind-maps and make them too noisy to use. We also need to be aware that we can’t solely rely on them, as by their nature, they can lack detail.

So, what does good look like?

3

flash cards

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Flash cards are an incredibly efficient revision tool, and can be used on those days when you may be lacking time, or motivation. Either way, they should definitely be part of your standard revision toolkit.

Why?

  1. If you make them yourself, then at some point you’ve had to read some notes, think of a suitable question, and write the answer down. This is great revision!
  2. Answering questions is one of the best ways to help embed knowledge. By nature you have to think about the question before you can answer. Thinking engages your memory, anything that gets you retrieving knowledge from your long term memory is an effective revision tool.
  3. They scale with your confidence, you revisit topics you struggle with more frequently than you do with topics you’re confident with. This helps you focus your time on the areas where you need it, but crucially ensures you are doing spaced retrieval on knowledge you are more confident with to keep it ‘fresh’.

Flash cards can be used as a stand-alone revision tool, or as a starter to a revision session, they’re really flexible and easy to use. What’s also great about them is their physical size, they’re small. This means they’re easy to use as revision on-the-go, e.g. if you want to revise on the bus or car on the way to school, you can.

So, what does good look like?

4

Past Papers

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Past papers are one of the best ways to hone your knowledge and crucially your exam technique.

When I say exam technique, what I mean is:

  • Understanding how to decode an exam question
  • How you phrase your answers
  • How long to spend on certain questions before moving on (and hopefully coming back to them)

You’ll find links to the past paper sections of the three main exam boards below.

AQA – https://www.aqa.org.uk/find-past-papers-and-mark-schemes

EDEXCEL – https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/exams/past-papers.html (type GCSE into the family box)

OCR – https://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/past-paper-finder/

When accessing a past paper, always download the accompanying mark scheme

(THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT)

Okay, now that you have your past paper and mark scheme, how do you use them effectively?

I’m going to start with how not to use them first.

Don’t try and answer a question, get stuck, go straight to the mark scheme, then look at the answer and write it in. That isn’t very effective, and knowing that you can do that, you’ll not work as hard going forward because you have that crutch there to help.

We need to make sure you’re thinking hard.

So, what does good look like when using past papers?

Instead, before you start the paper, choose one of the following approaches:

  1. To only answer certain questions, or questions on a range of topics (targeted revision)
  2. To work through the whole paper (broad revision / exam technique)

Either way, what you will do is answer exam questions.

Once you’ve ‘finished’ I would advise that think about the following:

  1. Were there questions you didn’t answer?
  2. Were there questions that you feel are answered poorly, or with low confidence.

If the answer to either question is ‘Yes’ then go research those topics, make notes, a mind-map etc, then go back and try and answer the question(s) again.

Once you’ve done that, then you have nearly finished with the paper…

Now you can open the mark scheme, and be strict. Put any new answers/corrections in a different coloured pen in case you come back to this paper at a later date.

Look out for:

  • Misconceptions (misunderstandings)
  • Erroneous answers (obviously)
  • Loose definitions (examiners don’t know you, and won’t be forgiving)
  • Ignoring the command words (describe, explain, compare etc). You may demonstrate knowledge, but you will lose marks if you do not answer the question in the style required. You’ll see more examples of this as you use more mark schemes.
  • Questions that asked for working, but you didn’t show any. If this is because you don’t think you need to, you’re wrong, you’ll lose easy marks.

Bonus Action

One final bonus action you can take with your past papers is to update your notes, mind-maps, or flash cards with any new exam phrasing or knowledge on particular topics. This is definitely a benefit of completing past papers, as you’re now directly feeding exam terminology and answer structures into your own notes. (and more importantly you’re thinking about them as your write them down, which will help embed that knowledge more).

5

Using AI

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AI is the in thing. Understandably, it’s easy to use, quick, and can give pretty good answers. But, how do you use it to support your revision (and not do the work for you).

AI can be used in a number of scenarios to help you with revision. Some of these are:

  1. Checking your understanding of a topic vs the exam board specification
  2. Generating questions using an exam style from your exam board
  3. Generating flash card notes
  4. Explaining a concept in different ways

Before we get into these, I want to make sure we’re aware of one very important thing.

AI CAN MAKE MISTAKES

AI can, and will get things wrong, it SHOULD NOT BE your only sauce of knowledge.

Let’s start to look at those use cases, starting with 1.

  1. Checking your understanding vs exam board parlance.

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