Do you know how to Revise?

By Sharon Njanjo

Revision, whether you love it or hate, it’s something that has to be done. Although everyone has to do it, you’d be surprised at the amount of people that struggle to revise effectively, ultimately effecting the outcome of the results students gain each year.

Statics shows that 95% of students forget what they learn just 3 days after learning. It is depicted in the forgetting curve, theorised by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, which hypothesizes the decline of memory retention.

Highlighting

Next is, highlighting. Although, adding colour to work may be physically and aesthetically pleasing, all it really does is help you identify potentially important ‘to-be learned’ materials whilst reading. Even though this is more effective then re-reading, it still isn’t the best.

Self-explanation

Above highlighting is self-explanation. If you’re like me and enjoy talking to yourself endlessly, you’d love this. This method requires you to explain a topic to yourself to help improve your own understanding. This method is 4th simply because your brain can pinpoint key mistakes and gaps that are present in your learning and from there you can identify the gaps that need to be filled with re-leaning/revision.

Practice testing

Finally, right at the top of the list is practice testing e.g., Seneca and Quizlet. I think it’s clear why this is the most effective method but just to clarify, this is taking practice tests on material that need to be learned or that has already been learnt.

Considering the information above, I think it’s safe to say that putting yourself in exam conditions for an hour or two could be the difference between a D and an A.

With just 7 working weeks left until the start of the next exams, re-evaluating, and even changing your method of revision should be something we all take into consideration.