6 Solid Exam Revision Tips
May 28, 2007 by
Adam
Filed under
Personal Development
All across the world, the months of May and June are notorious for being the months of exams. Whether you’re doing your Finals, your A Levels, your International Baccalaureats, your GCSEs or your normal End of Year examinations, chances are that you’re gonna have a hill or a mountain to climb in order to get to the next stage of education and your life.
“By failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail”
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
The above is a good quote often used by teachers to stir pupils into bouts of activity. But it’s really true. The best way to succeed is to revise, and whilst this can be long-winded and annoying, short-term pains are necessary for long-term gains, and as entrepreneurs, long-sighted vision is just as important as the present.
So, how can you go about your revision in the most effective and thorough way? Here are 7 pointers that should help you get through the stacks of paper that you’ve been writing on all year:
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1) Make a plan - at the start of your week or half-term holiday, draw up a schedule and list all the subject areas you would like to look over. Then, work out how long each revision slot should be (I recommend 40 minutes) and fill up your day accordingly.
2) Make notes - now there’s a few ways that you can revise and in most situations its up to you to develop your own style of revision. But personally, I find that making brief notes about all the topics and subject areas can refresh your brain and will save you having to look through massive files for repeated revision. Make sure you don’t write in full sentences and develop your own form of notation for quick-hand.
3) Be realistic - don’t set yourself amazingly difficult goals to achieve over a certain period, and don’t try and do a 15 hour day of revision, our brains simply aren’t made for such intense activity (unless you’re bionic). By setting yourself easy ultimatums, you’ll be a lot more content once you’ve managed to finish them (this applies to business as well).
4) Have a break - as mentioned, having a 15 hour day of work is not gonna really get you much done. So in between each 40 minute slot, take 10 minutes out to check your emails, site stats or earnings - everyone’s favourite! That will give you time to refresh.
5) Focus and Concentrate - Once you’ve finished breaking and slacking off, get back to work and try to focus your energy into note writing and memory flexing. There’s no use just day dreaming because that will be time wasted (and time is our most precious commodity).
6) Be confident - Once all is said and done and you’re at the start of exam week, feel confident knowing that you’ve put enough work in. If you know you haven’t done enough work on the other hand, then hope that the questions that will come up will be based on the topics you’ve studied. And if all else fails - you’ll just have to take one step back 
There you have it. Whilst these definitely aren’t failproof ways of cramming in the most hours of work and most efficient forms of revision, they can definitely help you from my own experience. Feel free to add your own tips in the comments below, because they could really help us all as we enter the examinations period.
Great points, Adnan. If I may add one (as tempered by my years at University) it would be this:
Get sleep. It’s tempting when you need to cram to get hopped up on coffee and Red Bull, and to pull all-nighters. I’ve done so more times than I remember. But you pay for it the day of the test when you start to crash mid-exam.
I remember studying from 1-11am for a management test. Memorized tons of pneumonics and other clever tricks in preparation. Felt super-confident. And then got a B for missing what, in hindsight, were easy questions.
In terms of academic preparation you couldn’t find a student more “prepared” than me for that one. But I paid the price in the form of a lower exam score when I failed to prepare myself mentally.
Great post Adnan. Wise advice.
Hey Brian - thanks for the valuable insight. Wow now I can definitely wait before going to University, seems like a lot of hard work!
Yeah another thing apart from sleep would be not to revise the day before an exam. I’ve been guilty of that a few times, and it really doesnt help things stick in your long-term memory.
Thanks for dropping by mate
Adnan,
Good post, economics exam tomorrow… and yeah im pretty much going to be up until around 4am. I find I study best and absorb the most when under pressure and at night time…. anyway… back to study.
Cheers,
Scott
Hey Scott - thanks for the kind words mate. Lol I’ve got my Economics AS Level on Friday (should be fun!). Yeah I suppose when you are under pressure you can get a lot done because you become really motivated. Its just that you’ve gotta leave enough time to get all that work done!
Anyway good luck, and tell me how it goes!
Good luck in your exams
Get plenty of rest and relax. More chance remembering stuff then 
Hey Sarah - thanks so much! Lol I’ll try to relax, but when Uni’s depend on these results, its gonna be a lot harder!
What are you looking to get into at Uni? I thought the same during my A Levels, got everything I needed as required by the Uni (12 points), got there and found people on my course who got onto the course with 1 E ie. 2 points. So why did I work so hard for the same course?!
Of course if you’re going onto a popular course then it’s another story
Erm I’m hopefully trying to do Economics, or Economics/Management at a really gd uni, ie. LSE. So there’s a lot of competition to get into the course, and so a lot of pressure for me to get my predicted A levels!
But I’m looking forward to the challenge though!
I wish I read this before I graduated, good post.
Nice tips. With tip 1, its sometimes hard to follow a schedule, there are times when you completely ignore it. I guess it takes abit of will power to follow one =/