Feature: Top Five Tips for Revision Success

As the summer approaches, so too does the exam period for thousands of university students across the country. Revision can often be a stressful time, but these top tips from St Mary’s University, Twickenham will help you make the most of your revision time: 1. Start Early Revision should begin early to give yourself enough time to steadily absorb the information you need for your exams. As with most things in life, the best way to set yourself up to effectively carry out your revision is to plan in advance. Creating a timetable will give you a coherent structure to your revision, and will make it easier to ensure that you cover all of the topics you need for each of your subjects. 2. Break Down your Notes After several months of note-taking from lectures, seminars and text books, chances are that your revision notes will be little more than blocks of text. These will be difficult to memorise, so you may want to condense them into more manageable ‘chunks’. Drawing diagrams or flow-charts with key facts, figures and thought processes will make it easier to take information in, as they are much more visually appealing than paragraphs of text. 3. Answer Past Papers Under Exam Conditions Ask your course tutor for past papers or download them from SIMMSpace. The format of exams and the types of questions that are asked rarely change from year to year, so you will be able to gauge what you may be asked in advance. You should also practice answering past questions without your notes, under exam conditions, to fully establish your strengths and weaknesses. 4. Don’t Overdo it or Cram It is a good idea to time your revision plan so that you retain the information that you’re reading. Revising for more than 45 minutes at a time will have an adverse effect on your ability to take in information – similarly, ‘cramming’ at the last minute is not an effective way of revising and will limit how much you learn about the topic. 5. Exercise! In addition to breaking up your revision into shorter periods, make sure to keep active and exercise during a break or at the end of the day. This will ensure that your brain gets more oxygen and will reduce tiredness and stress, which will help you keep up your learning in the long run. It’s easy to feel under-equipped for your exams no matter how much preparation you do, but following these points will help you to take in as much information as you can during your revision. Don't forget that St Mary's students can also take advantage of Learning Advisors who will be able to offer more guidance.