revision tips

It's currently the middle of exam season and everyone in education is busy revising for whatever exams they have at the moment. Personally, I am taking some of my A Level course exams and some mocks in others. This can be an extremely stressful time, especially if you leave all your revision until the last minute as a lot of people end up doing, this is why I thought I would write a post about some revision tips that have helped me in the past and that I still use. 

My first tip is to plan everything and print some pretty sheets to help you organise yourself because if you have things that look nice you will be more motivated to look at them and this will help you keep yourself organised at this time. I got these ones off theorganisedstudent.tumblr.com

My next bit of advice is to make sure you have all the stationary and things that you will need before you start revising or otherwise you will get part way through and realise you need something which you may not have. This is a problem that I've come across in the past and I've then used that as an excuse not to revise which is never a good idea so make sure you have it all set out before you sit down to begin.

Find a good place where you will always be able to sit and revise, some people like going to libraries to do their revision because it's quiet there but if you choose to do this then just keep in mind that you will have to stay motivated enough to walk there and then hope there is always a table where you will be able to sit. Some people say not to revise in your bedroom but this is where I tend to do most of my revision because I know that if I go downstairs my family will be loud and distract me from what I'm meant to do. If you are going to revise in your bedroom though I would recommend making sure that your room is tidy beforehand or otherwise you will just see mess everywhere when you're trying to work. 

Another tip is one that so many people say but it's to have a quiet environment, I am a hypocrite for saying this but I have overcome this issue. Many people say that if you can't have silence then to listen to some music but as long as it doesn't have lyrics so you can either find some classical/instrumental music to listen to or if you really don't like that then listen to some music that you haven't heard before because then you won't start singing along and can still get on with your work whilst also discovering some new artists. 

Find your own revision technique, whatever helps you remember things whether that's mind maps, rewriting notes, doing past papers etc. Some things that I sometimes find that helps me is to use coloured pens so when I am writing I can write important words in certain colours and this will help them to stand out on the page, for these I use the Stabilo fineliner pens which I always buy to do work with because they also help make it look nice. Another thing that I've found helped me, especially during my GCSE's was to give someone my notes and get them to make up some questions to ask me and I would have to answer them. In lessons my teacher set up quizzes on kahoot.it which was so much fun and includes the whole class so suggest this to your teacher or even set one up yourself and get you and your friends to do one, there are also loads of quizzes publicly available on there. Normally when I revise I will rewrite either my notes or the information from a revision guide into a notepad and will then put the important information from these onto revision cards which I can easily carry about and learn. It really does depend on how you find it easy to remember things.

Give yourself regular breaks. What I like to do is set my phone on airplane mode (so I won't get distracting notifications coming through) and set an alarm for when I can stop to have a short break, I normally try and do about 30-45 minutes at a time and then have a short break where I can check my notifications and then continue. If you work more solidly for a longer period of time then try and take a half hour walk or something as a break because this will mean that you are also getting some fresh air which is important.

Another one of my important tips is to make sure you drink lots of water whilst revising because otherwise you can begin to get headaches which will prevent information from going in and this will cause you to become stressed so having some water with you is very important and this will also help your skin from breaking out in this stressful time. 

I hope some of these tips have helped you and if you are doing exams at the moment then I wish you all the luck and I'm sure you'll all do amazing!

bethany x