Revision Techniques

Benefits of using a revision timetable:

Helps to organise your revision
Avoids conflict at home
Gives student a work/ life balance
Provides communication between student and parent(s)/carer(s)
Encourages regular and effective revision
Opportunity to set small achievable targets
Breaks revision down into manageable chunks

Mind maps

A mind map is a way of getting a lot of information down onto one piece of paper.

It allows you to revise from a single sheet of information, rather than reading pages and pages of a textbook.

Mind maps can be drawn by hand or done on the computer. They can be made up of words, pictures, or a mixture of both, depending on your learning style.

Whilst making the mind map, you are revising. Your brain is being forced to take out the key ideas and sift through the things that you don’t really need.

By making the mind map yourself, you are more likely to remember the information, rather than someone telling you what to write.

You will organise the information how you want on the mind map. This helps your brain to remember key ideas because the mind map is a visual reflection of what is happening in your mind- not anyone else's.

Index cards

Index cards can be used in different ways, depending on the information you are trying to learn.

1. They can be used to break down information into smaller chunks to be learnt one card at a time. This is ideal for learning your speaking or writing controlled assessments in French. This allows the brain to concentrate on small sections of information at a time- almost kidding the brain into thinking there is less to learn. This technique only works if you have a period of time in which to learn the information, i.e. 7 nights. Type up the piece of work you are needing to learn, divide it into 7 sections, print it off and make a booklet of cards- one to learn per evening.

2. They can be used to remember a list of information.

Read the whole piece of work/topic in a textbook/section of your class book/novel

Decide which bits are the important bits- key ideas, key quotes- make notes as you are going along, or use a highlighter
Each index card should only have one topic on it eg-The character of George in ‘Of mice and men’ (English) or ‘The end of world war one’ (History)
Make a numbered list on the index card of everything you need to remember about that topic/character
Try to make the points link together- this will help you remember them in an exam situation eg if the first quote you write is to do with Lennie’s obsession with the rabbits, make your second quote in your list be about George’s feelings about wanting to live alone.

3. Use the first letter of each idea to create a word that will help you remember a series of linked information e.g. Terms of the treaty of Versailles; TRAGAL

T erritories

R eparations

A rmy

G uilt

A nschluss

L eague of nations

Memory techniques

This year you will have to remember lots of facts off by heart and let’s face it, a lot of them are pretty dull.

To learn (and remember) things quickly and effectively you can use mnemonics (techniques to help you memorise things).

1. Mems = a type of visual memory aid.

How do they work?

Mems aim to link dull facts together by using exaggerated stories/images and usually involve a play on words.

e.g. Plant and animal cells all have cytoplasm, a cell membrane and a nucleus. If you learn these without using a memory technique - the facts would be unlikely to sink in, it would take a long time to memorise and the facts wouldn’t stay in your long term memory.

However, if we create a mem e.g. Animal from The Muppet Show is holding a plant in one hand, and Homer Simpson’s brain in the other. He is standing on a building site and a nuclear bomb goes off. We can use the words in the exaggerated, vivid, visual image and link them with the facts we need to remember.

Animal + Plant

brain = cell membrane

site = cytoplasm

nuclear = nucleus

Mems are very useful for remembering vocab when learning a foreign language.

E.g. in French l’affiche = poster

2. First letter mnemonics

These are most often used in order to remember a list.

A famous example is “Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain” to remember the order of the colours of the rainbow.

Another example is: “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos" where each of the initial letters matches the name of the planets in our solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune).

You can use this technique in your study/revision to help remember quotes/lists etc.

3. The Journey Method

This technique is used to remember the order of something.

The idea is based on landmarks on a well-known (to you) journey and linking them to the facts you want to remember.

The journey could be your journey to school, the route you use to get to your front door in the morning or a tour around a holiday destination you know well. It could even be a journey around a computer game.

You then link them

Information on more mnemonics can be found at:

www.academictips.org/memory/index.html

www.memrise.co.uk

Research shows the factors which make the most difference to how successful our revision is, are:

Starting early
Testing yourself regularly
Check out past papers
Use the exam board mark schemes
Use the work books which match up with your textbooks
Use the questions at the end of each section in the revision books
Get a family member/friend to test you for EXTRA MOTIVATION

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