CHS Year 9 Science/Pūtaiao Revision

Exam Information

Your Year 9 Science exam will cover aspects of all the units you have studied this year in your Science class.  The exam will be divided into five sections, Physical World, Living World, Material World, Planet Earth and Beyond, and Nature of Science. 

What is Revision?

What did you eat for breakfast on Wednesday two weeks ago? Very few people will be able to answer this question! Things that are not important to remember get stored in your brain’s short-term memory. To remember things for an exam, you need to store information in your long-term memory. 

Studying is all about trying to move things from your short-term memory into your long-term memory. Here are some ideas to help you do this. 

1. Rewrite or Rephrase the Material in Your Own Words

When reading over you notes pause at the end of a paragraph or a section and—without looking!—think about what the text just stated. Summarise it in your own words. Now glance back over the material to make sure you summarised the information accurately and remembered the relevant details. Make a mental note of whatever you missed and then move on to the next section. 

You may also want to make a bulleted list of the important information instead of just rephrasing it mentally or aloud. Without looking back down at the textbook, jot down the key points of the material you just read. Then look over the book to make sure you haven't left out any necessary information. 

By rephrasing the text in your own words, you can be sure you're actually remembering the information and absorbing its meaning, rather than just rote copying the info without truly understanding or retaining it. 

2. Teach the Material to Someone Else

Teaching someone else is a great way to distill your thoughts and summarise the information you've been studying. And, almost always, teaching someone else shows you that you’ve learned more about the material than you think! 

Find a friend or relative and explain the ideas to them as if they're hearing about it for the first time. The act of teaching material aloud to another person requires you to re-frame the information in new ways and think more carefully about how all the elements fit together. 

And the act of running through your material this way—especially if you do it aloud—helps you more easily lock it in your mind. 

3. Quiz Yourself With Flashcards 

Making flashcards is a common study tool. Making your own flash cards helps you to retain information through writing it down and also creates a tool you can quiz yourself with later.  

When you quiz yourself with your flashcards separate the cards into two different piles. In Pile 1, place the cards you knew and answered correctly, in Pile 2, place the cards you didn’t know the answers to.

Now go back through the cards again, but only studying the cards from Pile 2 (the "didn't know" pile). Separate these again as you go through them into Pile 1 (know) and Pile 2 (don't know). Repeat the process of only studying to "don't know" cards until more and more cards can be added to the “know” pile.

Once all the cards are in the “know” pile, go through the whole pile once again to make sure you’ve retained the information on all the cards. 

4. Make Your Own Diagrams, Mind Maps, and Charts 

Arranging information into pictures and mind maps can help you see and understand the material in new and different ways. Sometimes making your own charts and diagrams will mean recreating the ones in your Science book from memory, and sometimes it will mean putting different pieces of information together yourself. Whatever the diagram type and whatever the class, writing your information down and making pictures out of it will help to lock the material in your mind. 

5.  Practice Exam-Style Questions and Check Answers

This will help you become more comfortable with the structure of the exam, and the way questions are asked. It will also help to reinforce your memory and close any gaps in your knowledge when you check your answers.