Effective Revision

Mind Maps 

A mind map is a useful strategy because it helps you organise information around a single topic or concept. You start with putting the topic in the middle of the page. Then from there you have different themes/subtopics coming from it from which you can make notes around.

Advantages of using mind maps:

• Can be used for variety of tasks – note taking, essay plans, revision.
• Easy to add ideas at a later date.
• Help to see links between different factors.
• Can add pictures and symbols to make things more memorable.
• Can be used to condense lots of information

Mind maps can be particularly useful for revision when, once you have finished one, you try to recreate it from memory.

Flash cards are a useful revision strategy because they force you to recall key information about a topic. How to make them:

1. Ensure that the flashcards have a question or key term on one side and the answer or definition on the other.
2. Keep the information as short as possible
3. Write clearly. You should be able to read what you wrote at a quick glance
4. Use different coloured cards or pens to categorise your flashcards. For example, use a different colour for each subject or topic. This can help you categorise the information more easily.

Once you have made the flashcards it is important that you use them regularly. When using them start with them in one pile. When you work through them, saying the answers out loud, put in one pile the ones you get right and then in another pile the ones that you struggled with. Keep repeating this process until you have got all the cards correct.

This means combing visuals with written notes. Having the information presented in two different ways can help you understand the information better and can also help you recall the information more easily.

This is a method of note taking that helps you to condense and organise your notes into a one-page summary.

Once the notes have been completed, you can then use the recall cues to test yourself.

Mnemonics are a technique used to help remember things by association. For example, you might have learnt the order of the colours of the rainbow with the phrase “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain” with the first letter of each letter corresponding to the first letter of the colour it represents.

If you have to remember things in a certain order for your exam, making up a mnemonic like this can be helpful.

This way of revising helps you break down a topic into 12 sub-categories. You make notes in each chunk of the clock. Once you have finished making your notes, you revise each chunk for 5 minutes and then either write the notes from memory or recite them to someone.

Your teachers will direct you to any suitable online quizzes or apps. These can be useful to use as part of revision as they test you on a topic and then provide instant feedback.

At Key Stage 4 and 5 the use of past papers for revision is crucial. It is important that you know how to access these and that you use them regularly. By using them it gets you used to exam style questions and helps you to understand the timings of exams. The best way to revise is to complete past exam questions without your notes, and then to use your notes (or a markscheme) to review your answers once you have completed them.

At Key Stage 3 and 4 there are knowledge organisers available for all your subjects. Strategies for using knowledge organisers for self quizzing include:

1. Copy out a section but leave blanks, then cover the KO and fill in the blanks from memory.
2. Draw/write out a section from memory.
3. For a table of keyword definitions, cover the definition and write the keyword, or vice versa.
4. Use the KO to write quiz questions that you can then test yourself on, or ask someone to quiz you.
5. Do a “brain dump” of everything you know from a topic and then use the KO to check if you’ve missed anything and add to it.

If information is not regularly reviewed, you will not remember it. The graph below shows how the percentage of information retained increases each time it is reviewed:

The graph also shows that when we learn something for the first time we need to review it quickly afterwards. The more times we force ourselves to remember something, the longer the gap can be between reviews.

Before any assessment it is important that you construct a revision timetable to plan what and when you are going to revise. With revision it is better not to spend a long period revising just one topic within a subject, instead it is better to revise a number of different topics. For example, rather than spending 30 minutes just revising simultaneous equations, you might spend 10 minutes revising simultaneous equations, 10 minutes revising angles and ten minutes revising transformations. (revision timetable template).

Revising for an hour or two hours in one go can also not be effective. The Pomodoro Technique recommends breaking down revision into blocks of 25 minutes with short breaks built in.