Exam Revision - BETA

Exam revision looks different for each individual.  Some find mind maps useful, while others busy themselves with summarising notes. However, there are a number of strategies that are widely understood to be beneficial for effective revision.

Remember: life is the product of the choices you make, so let's make today count!

• Know your Specification

You should be familiar with the content of the course. Exams may unfairly only test a section of knowledge, but unless you have a time machine, you need to prepare for anything they may throw at you. 

Use the revision materials we have provided you to RAG the specification. You then need to plan a calendar of revision that places a stronger focus on your red and amber topic areas. However, do not be complacent, sometimes you think you know a topic area and hit a question that can stump you.

• Know Your Sources

There is a wealth of information for you to access. In exams, the very top grades are often reserved for those that go beyond the basic understand and can demonstrate a deep knowledge. Lessons are already packed and it is impossible for your teacher to provide this depth of knowledge for you; you are expected to use your time to dive into a topic and use a range of sources to further your understanding.

If all of that seems like too much work, and it is, then this is why A* grades are difficult to attain. It's not how intelligent somebody is, but how much effort they are prepared to invest in their revision.

This Google site will provide a wide array of takes on information, as will the textbook, but look further, for example:

• Your own notes or those of a friend

• Yoel's Revision Question site

• Craig & Dave YouTube videos

• Isaac Computer Science

• General YouTube videos

• Other textbooks, even other course textbooks as some areas do overlap

Programming is easy as you are able to use your chosen IDE and run code to see if it works, but what about pseudocode? Pseudocode must be unambiguous and clear. Do a dry run/tracetable to see if your code actually works and get a friend to look through it and see if it makes sense to them.

• Practice and Revise Through Recall

Reading your notes is passive and not as useful as you might think. When revising, you need to retrieve information, not store new stuff. The latter isn't revision, it's learning. Revision is best when you can fetch what you learnt from your long-term memory. Long-term memory is reinforced through practice and recall. The more often you recall, the stronger the memory becomes. This is where you look at something after one day, one week and one month.  But how to you form strong memories?

• • Organise the information.

  • Make associations.

  • Use visual cues.

  • Create mnemonics.

  • Write it down.

  • Say it out loud.

  • Engage in active recall (answering questions is a great way to do this)

• Take Breaks

The worst thing you can do with revision time is overdo it! Your brain needs a rest, so on top of quick breaks every hour, ensure that you're not doing more than 3-5 hours a day. It has been scientifically proven that longer than this has little payoff. 

• Practice Exam Questions

When practising exam papers, do you know what the question is asking?  CAIE use the following terms in questions to elicit different types of answer:

Command word What it means

Analyse examine in detail to show meaning, identify elements and the relationship between them

Assess make an informed judgement

Calculate work out from given facts, figures or information

Comment give an informed opinion

Compare identify/comment on similarities and/or differences

Complete add information to an incomplete diagram or table

Consider review and respond to given information

Contrast identify/comment on differences

Define give precise meaning

Demonstrate show how or give an example

Describe state the points of a topic / give characteristics and main features

Develop take forward to a more advanced stage or build upon given information

Discuss write about issue(s) or topic(s) in depth in a structured way

Draw draw a line to match a term with a description

Evaluate judge or calculate the quality, importance, amount, or value of something

Examine investigate closely, in detail

Explain set out purposes or reasons / make the relationships between things evident / provide why and/or how and support with relevant evidence

Give produce an answer from a given source or recall/memory

Identify name/select/recognise

Justify support a case with evidence/argument

Outline set out main points

Predict suggest what may happen based on available information

Sketch make a simple freehand drawing showing the key features, taking care over proportions

State express in clear terms

Suggest apply knowledge and understanding to situations where there are a range of valid responses in order to make proposals

Summarise select and present the main points, without detail

Write write an answer in a specific way

• Analysis of Papers (MARCKS Method)

Sitting a paper (timed or untimed) is useless if you just move on. Make a note of where you went wrong so you can fix it for next time.  MARCKS is a good way of noting your errors so you can see if there's a pattern and be smarter about fixing it.  See this link for the full article, it's worth a fuller read!

Maths error

This is when you’ve got the maths wrong, whether it’s through incomplete or incorrect calculations, using the incorrect equation to answer the question or not reading/interpreting a dataset correctly.

Application

Perhaps you were given a difficult scenario you didn’t understand. You certainly "know the subject” and understand it, but applying this to a foreign situation can be a struggle. 

Reading the Question

In this scenario you know everything, understand everything, and able to apply your knowledge, but you miss a key term in the question such as “explain” rather than “describe”, leading to you not getting the mark because of how you interpreted the question.

Communication

This is where you might know exactly what you need to say and understand the question, but the wording you use to communicate the thoughts that you knew didn’t get the mark. This is one of the more difficult issues to rectify as it mostly involves doing more practice and past papers to understand what the mark scheme wants.

Knowledge

Did you just not have sufficient subject knowledge to answer the question? Perhaps you had weak knowledge and need to go over your topic notes again.

Statements per Mark

If you have a four mark question but you only made two real points whilst putting in some filler to take up space (we've all been there), you know you need more statements based on the number of marks of the question.

Now we know what to look out for in our past-paper-analysis, it's time to do them! Get some old exams together and take the time to do them as you would in the real thing with exam conditions, timings etc. After you're done, whether you're marking it yourself or getting a teacher to help out, put it through the marking process. If you're doing it yourself, use the exam's marking scheme to count up your points. 

Whenever you lose a mark, recognise why you dropped a particular mark, identifying whether it comes under the M’s, A’s, R’s etc as above. Tally up the number of times each letter appears, and you’ll soon know where you need to improve most to increase your overall score. If you find that you drop lots of points in R for example, then clearly, it’s time to read the question more carefully. 

After this, write yourself a little note of what you're going to do now. You'll know what you've done wrong, what you need to improve on, and what you need to revise more of. Write yourself a note and be specific on what you want to go over, what you need to revise better, and the kinds of questions that you need to practice more. At the end of this process, you will have a game plan specific to you with a method that highlights where you’ve historically gone wrong. 

• Revise With Friends

Discuss the exam and content of your study subject with peers. It is one of the best tricks on how to study for a programming test because it tests your understanding. As you explain to your peers, the concepts become clearer and are committed to memory. The friends will also share tactics they use to revise and handle exams better. It makes learning easier and more interesting. Such discussions are also memorable during exams.

Learn to relax before the exam. A tired mind or body cannot even handle the simplest computer science question. Sleep enough hours, enjoy a movie, and keep the books away. Personalize your study and revision for exams to increase your chances of performing well.