How to Revise - Strategies

Rhymes, stories or mnemonics

Use songs, rhymes or stories to learn facts, e.g. "Horace fell down a well and started laughing". (Horace Wells was an American dentist and one of the first to routinely use nitrous oxide/laughing gas on his patients)

Mnemonics can also be a helpful way to memorise facts. Use the first letter of a series of words to create a phrase that is easy to remember. For example, emergency responders remember the symptoms of a heart attack through the mnemonic PULSE:

Persistent chest pains, Upset stomach, Lightheadedness, Shortness of breath, Excessive sweating.

Flashcards

Flashcards allow you to practise summarising information and can help you identify any gaps in your learning. You can use them in a variety of different ways:

- Condense notes about a specific topic on to a card.

- Write a term on one side and a definition the other.

- Write a question on one side and the answer on the other.

The most important use of flashcards is to test yourself! Don’t just read them, actively hide the answers so you are practising recall. Ask your friends and flatmates to test you.

Include colours and images to improve your memory, but don’t spend more time making them pretty than testing your recall of the information. There are also lots of apps available to create flashcards.

Post-It Notes

Sticky notes are good for summarising information and remembering key details. Use colours to identify themes and stick them around your home - but move them regularly so you don't get used to having them in a specific place.

Practice Questions

If you can access past papers or practice questions, working through these is a great way to test your knowledge, either by writing plans or full answers, First, try answering the questions without looking at your notes, to get an idea of which areas need more work. Then, with your notes, practise planning the framework for your answers. Use lists to compare points for and against a statement. Finally, come back and answer the question again without your notes.

You can search for previous examination papers from your subject area.  To use the past papers system you'll need to log in with your ITS username and password.

Study Groups

Revising as a group can gives you an opportunity to quiz and test each other. Have a go at explaining topics to others without referring to your notes. It’s a great way to aid your own memory and understanding.

Mind maps and other notes

Mind maps can be a great way to identify connections between ideas. Use colours and images, which will aid your memory. You may find drawing diagrams useful to remember processes or cycles. However, do not just create a mind-map from your notes and look at it. Do something with it. Test what you can remember from the mindmap. Can you recreate it without looking at it? Can you summarise the concepts even further to help you memorise them? Can you add remember examples for each of the nodes?

Spread out your tests

Test yourself on the same material at the end of the day, the next day and at the end of the week. Change the order of what you test yourself on so that you don’t get used to the same pattern.

Use the resources available to you!

Past papers and revision guides for every subject are available in the library, which is open until 5pm daily!

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