Hello friends! Todays post is going to be all about exam revision and is mainly aimed at A-level students but these tips can be applied to GCSE’s or even university exams too!
I get a lot of people asking me how I was so productive and how I kept myself going through exam season in year 13, when I was revising crazy amounts and was still so full of energy/had time for everything else in my life. I was going to post this back then but I decided against it, it was too late to start what Iβm about to say halfway through exam season, plus I was super busy trying to revise myself then. Iβm no expert in education so donβt take what I say to be 100% correct. Iβm just going to put up whatever I was advised to do and worked for me but different things suit different people so keep that in mind whilst reading. Iβve decided to just put up a list of things and you guys can take from it what you want.
1) So, first things first, take care of your body! This is a point I cannot stress enough. It is key to being happy and being more productive but is often overlooked and dismissed as not being important.
- Exercise on a daily. Exercising before/ between revision helps stimulate your brain and youβre more likely to have a more productive revision session if your brains βawakeβ (obviously.) Even if itβs something like jogging on the spot for a few minutes. Just anything really.
- Eating healthy is also crucial, what you put into your body has an impact on your brain too, it makes you feel better and gives your brain the βquality fuelβ it needs to be super productive, plus eating clean makes your skin feel awesome and who doesnβt want nice skin? But just to throw in a few facts, a β2012 study published by Population Health Management found that eating an unhealthy diet puts you at a 66% increased risk of productivity loss.β
- Sleepppp. Sleep is so important. Fix your sleeping routine as soon as you can. Between 7-9 hours is okay, go to 6 if you have to but your brain needs to rest. There is no way you can be super productive for weeks without giving your body time to relax and process whatever information youβve thrown at it that day.
My best friend and I did a 30-day challenge around March time. It was sort of like a detox/exercise challenge and it worked so well for us. We ate clean, swapped coffees and fizzy drinks for water and herbal teas. Exercised everyday and were super productive. Plus they’re good ways of managing stress. Exams and school in general can be quite stressful, use it positively and find something which helps calm you down. (Iβm writing this now after a month or two of having done none of that realising I really need to fix up and bring my productivity levels back up)
Basically, be nice to your body and itβll help you do better at life.
2) When it comes to your actual lessons, ask your teachers beforehand what topic theyβll be teaching you next lesson. Then before the lesson, go over the topic in your textbooks so you understand whatβs going on more. My school, as bad as it was, actually made us do this as homework for each lesson and Iβll admit that it did help a lot. Reading over a chapter and trying to self teach yourself it, then going into your lesson with questions to ask will improve your understanding of the topic.
3) My dad has always told me that every evening I should review the content I have learnt that day. Look it up in my textbooks and go over what I learnt earlier on to consolidate my learning. Then at the end of the week, go over whatever Iβve learnt in that week. Itβs long and is effort but it really does work.
4) Donβt be afraid to ask questions. I was also the loud kid who asks/answers most the questions in class so Iβve never really been one to shy away from questions but I know people struggle with this. If you donβt get something then ask your teacher for help or send them an email after class or anything. Your teachers are there to teach you and explain things, asking questions helps so much because at the end of the day, that question could help you in your exam and affect your understanding of a whole topic and not asking if you donβt understand something because youβre ashamed or afraid or shy or whatever really isnβt worth it. Ask questions; make sure you understand whatever youβve been taught. If you canβt bring yourself to ask during the class then email your teacher afterwards. There arenβt actually βstupid questionsβ chances are someone else is thinking the same but is too shy to ask. Just ask your teachers; itβs their job to teach you, they literally get paid for it.
5) SMART targets are basically what have gotten me though hundreds of hours of revision this past exam season (thatβs not an exaggeration by the way). For each revision session, set yourself a target which is S β specific, M – measurable, A – achievable, R β realistic and T β timed. Write them down on a post it note every morning and tick them off throughout the day. Seeing it there is motivating and crossing things off one by one is quite satisfying and rewarding. What I did was have the titles of whatever I needed to get done that day on my post it note and then send my list of SMART targets to my best friend and update her whenever I completed a task.
6) When youβre learning content, break each revision session into content/questions/review. For example, I spent 20 minutes doing content revision, 30 minutes on exam questions and 10 minutes afterwards to go over what Iβve revised and mark the questions Iβve done.
7) You need to know what way of revision suits you best. Take the learning test, hereβs the link: http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles-quiz.shtml. If youβre a visual, try associating colours to topics and answers, if youβre an auditory then notes wonβt help you much, try saying the content out loud and teaching it and if youβre a mix, try videos. There are so many ways to learn the actual content; I do a range of things. So I make flashcards if its key points I need to know, notes donβt help me at all, highlighting is my life, as are videos. Oh and I teach my teddies (yes I am 18 and I have teddies, no I am not ashamed), I know that if I canβt explain something out loud then I donβt know it. Find what works for you and stick to it. For Year 13 I made all these pretty chemistry notes, they were all highlighted and everything, knowing they never really help me but thinking they might. I didnβt make notes for biology and I got a better grade for bio. Do what suits you; donβt waste time βrevisingβ, donβt play yourself and know that regardless of how you learn you need to. Practice. Exam. Questions.
8) Make sure you take breaks! I probably donβt need to say this because a lot of people start procrastinating and taking 2 hour breaks after 10 minutes of revision (Iβm guilty of this as well) but every 20 minutes or so, put your pen down, get up and walk around or something, break your state then get back to doing what you were. It wakes you up. That and breaks are a good thing to take when you start feeling overwhelmed by your work load. Take a break, calm down and give yourelf a pep talk then get back to work.
9) You have to know yourself and your limits. Donβt be jumping into 10 hours of revision a day if youβre used to doing less than two. Youβll end up burning out and never wanting to look at a book again. Ease your brain into it, start with 2 then 4 then 6β¦ donβt kill yourself revising and be realistic with the work load youβre giving yourself.
10) Location. If you know me then youβll know how much I loved my library days. I could get so much work done in the library in very little time and actually do it well. I was so happy on the days I revised in the library because Iβd get 6/7 exam papers done and marked within like 5 hours and actually do well on them. I was lucky my local library was of the calm and quiet libraries in the area so it worked well for me. Again, everyone has their own place; Costa was another revision spot for me. Iβm not as productive at home but thatβs just me, again. Find what works for you and use it to your advantage.
11) Know your best working hours. Personally (just a heads up thereβs going to be a lot of talking about me) I work best in the morning. Something that takes me 20 minutes at 6am will take me at least 40 at 9pm. Everyone is different, so see when youβre most productive and use the time you work best to tackle your most difficult tasks and your easiest tasks for your βslow working hours.β Another idea would be to not just dedicate a whole day to one subject, pick two or even three and alternate throughout. Just find what works best for you.
12) Revision timetables. Iβm one of those people who hated hearing about them now I swear by the study planner on GetRevising (https://getrevising.co.uk/planner). Back in September, when I started year 13, Iβd logged in all my exams for the year and put in how many hours I wanted to get done before each exam, when Iβm at school, any other commitments I have, etc. and it calculated it all for me. Because Iβm me, I change my mind about which subject/topic I want to revise on the day so paper timetables have never worked for me. The online one on the other hand basically saved my productivity levels. Lots of people say that revision timetables donβt work for them; I used to say that too, until I made it work and gave it a chance. I decided what subjects I wanted to revise and set my SMART targets the night before to mentally prepare myself for the next day. I managed to make time to get a lot of revision done, spend time with family and friends, exercise, and read, because I logged in what I wanted to do early on.
13) Organise, organise and organise some more. Organisation is very important. Keep your notes organised, organise your time. Everything. Of the first things I did at the beginning of Year 13 was make a colour coded excel spread sheet with everything I needed to get done before each exam, it worked a gem. Keeping track of what you have and havenβt done makes life so much easier, it helps set SMART targets for each revision session and it feels awesome to see how much is green. (Iβm a very extra person, but organisation is key.) You may not want to do what I did, but for the exams I did this for and where it all went green, I got As (no Iβm not putting my grades up on a public platform, I donβt tell anyone sorry). Hereβs what my maths spread sheet looked like (yes I did retake a few maths modules because some silly child didnβt take year 12 seriously)
14) Everyone you ask will tell you this so Iβm going to as well. Practice. Exam. Questions. The content can only get you so many marks; the actual application of the content is a whole different game. Practice past papers and exam style questions as much as you can, know past mark schemes to find out what examiners are looking for. Read examiners reports as well. Get your papers marked because thereβs no point trying questions without marking them and know that questions repeat all the time. Closer to exam season make sure youβre doing more and more past papers/questions and are timing yourself. This is the one thing everyone will tell you. I know with the new GCSEs and A levels there arenβt many past papers, I was part of the first year to do the new A levels but still do past papers from the old specifications. There are questions in your textbooks definitely do those. Do the specimen papers and past specimen papers and donβt do them whilst looking at the mark scheme because you might as well not be doing them in that case. Itβs okay to get things wrong, youβre meant to make mistakes so you can learn from them and improve, go over the topics youβve struggled on after each paper, almost every conversation with my mum during exam season was about practicing papers and itβs of the best advice ever. (Iβm mainly speaking for the sciences because Iβm a science student but I guess its similar across the board)
I really hope these tips help, theyβll probably be more useful closer to exam season but there are important things you can be doing from now as well
Take care and good luck for any upcoming exams
I’ve been waiting for thisss since forever. Jazak Allahu Khair! Even though I am done with my A levels, I needed to know how you always stayed so energetic, productive and confident!
Duas for you, and please dua for me too.
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
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WoAahh this ws worth readin π Luvd it .. its helpful β€οΈ
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Thank youu
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So inspiring ! & helpful too β€οΈ
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Thankoos
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Thankyou for this.It will help me alot. :))
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No worries
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thank you for your information. it’s really helpful. thanks a lot
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Very insightful! I am way past my A levels but the tips you wrote above can be used for virtually any program. One thing I would add to the list is constant duas to Allah and being consistent with prayers through this difficult time. I’m sure you’ve done it, but probably forgot to add it :). Keep it up with the blogs! β₯
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I’m glad to hear that, I had that in mind whilst writing and I would have added those to this but thought it would be better to keep that for my post on motivation
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Thank you soo much for posting this! I’ve been waiting eagerly for this. Im a university student and I’ve always been wanting to know how you could be so productive. Must say Masha’Allah! β‘
I’ll be following your tips insha Allah.
Jazakillah Khair. β₯
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Aww no worries lovely, alhamdulillah
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This is so helpful. JazakAllah for this π
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Asalamualaykuuum this has been soo useful, am gnna continue exercising regularly InshaAllah. May Allah make everything easy for you.
I was wondering if you had an email address I could contact u on, regarding studying in medicine in bulgaria.
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Wa alaykum as salaammm, in shaa Allah. The best way to ask about studying in Bulgaria would be to DM me on Instagram @findingdrrimzy
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Get inspired. Istiqamah π
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Just found out about this and thank you so much, i’ve been struggling with my study type esp now that i’m in the first year of med school. And reading this help me know what study type i have and how to study efficiently. I’ll be waiting for another post from you. JazakAllahu khairanπ
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ah! it is satisfying π
iam lucky that i found your pageβ€οΈ
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