Revision Tips & Tricks

As some of you may know exam season is right around the corner, for those of you still in high school, it can be a stressful process when it comes to the preparation of your exams and that's why I have a few tips and tricks that may come in useful. These tips aren't just for those of you in high school but they're also useful to anyone that may be studying A-Levels, at University or something such as a driving theory test. I have a list of things to cover so I warn you now that it may be a slightly long post but you can skip to the parts that are relevant to you...

 

Time Management - What can I say, this is one of the most vital parts of revision and exams. My top piece of advice for this would be to buy a big wall calendar, personally this came in so useful to me and it's much better than using your phone calendar as your much more likely to be distracted on your phone which is not great for time management!! I suggest putting the calendar on your bed/study room wall, then use different coloured pens for countdowns to exams or revision dates as well as filling in extra information or hours you can study. I will possibly do a DIY on this if it would be any use, let me know what you think?

 

Trustworthy Resources - When it comes to your revision make sure you know that the information is correct and up to date, as you wouldn't want to spend hours revising something that is incorrect and not relevant. For anyone taking their GCSE's, BBC Bite Size is a great resource as well as online teachers notes (especially for English!!). Another great website is Maths Watch which was so great if your a visual learner because it has so many clips on maths topics and it's a reliable way to revise. Also for anyone possibly doing a driving theory test go to the official DVSA website and get their link to resources so that you know they are official.
 

Exam Preparation - I know that exams are super close for anyone taking GCSE's so at this stage the main majority of your revision should be complete. That may seem a little scary but half term was the best time for revision!! As you start getting closer to your exams it's useful to practice topics with flash cards or sticking little notes around your room, this was super handy for me and it's a quick way to practice/revise without staring at a book. Another thing is not to get your self stressed out, make you know what day your exam is, the time and your seat number... which is quite an obvious thing to do but if you know all of the information on the day you have one less thing to worry about.
 

  

Priorities - Leading up to your exams can be a very stressful time but if you allow your self to stay focused (not procrastinating and wasting time on social media!!) and work hard up to your exams it will all be done and you can relax, so it's important to have some dedication and a goal for the end of it. If you have for example three topics that you know you need the best grades in, do the most revision that you can for those three lessons and set your self goals. If you really want to achieve well your work will show that and it's important to have faith in what your doing!!

 

My Exam Experience - Okay lastly is my GCSE experience, I thought I would include a little paragraph to explain to you how I found my exams. So school was never really my thing, I was never really that clever, I didn't like a lot of my lessons (mainly due to other students) and I barely had any confidence. I revised a lot and put in the hours, I wanted to achieve good grades but I practically decided to fluke History and Spanish to focus on what I thought was more important for myself, also neither of those were essential GCSE's. I really enjoyed Food Technology, Textiles and English, they were three of my lessons that I had goals for, along with maths too but I was so bad at that!! Some exams I found okay but as long as you answer every question, even if the answer is ridiculous at least you've tried. I got through all of my exams quite happily and just did what I could. My results came back in June 2014...I got an A in Food Technology, B in Textiles, B and C in English (I did an exam for Lang & Lit) as well as a Pass in Science. The rest of my results were not so good but I'm being completely honest right now so the other results were... D in Spanish, D in History, D in R.E and D in Maths...ahhh terrible I know!! But last November I re-sat my maths exam and got a C, I was so proud because I was also 13 marks away from a B which is the closest I've ever been, anyway I now have six GCSE's that I worked hard for and so I guess it all worked out!!

I hope that any of you preparing to take your GCSE's do well, I wish you all luck as well as anyone else taking another exams. Thanks for reading and feel free to pop your exam experiences down in the comments below, it would be fun to know!!

Bryony x