Whether you are in England and Wales and getting ready to sit your GCSEs, or in Scotland and preparing for National 5, exam revision can get a bit same-y. Read subject, make notes on subject, make smaller notes on subject, perform miracles with ant-size writing to make notes even smaller. Remember notes. Rinse. Repeat.
You know you need to find a way to make that final push to conquer the examinations. Keeping your motivation up is harder, and there's only so much chocolate and crisps can do to reward you! This is where our Revision Booster Plan comes to the rescue with a few ideas (bordering on the zany) to make revision at the very least interesting, and at the most, effective.
Record yourself
Instead of writing down all those pesky terms you need to know for Science, French, English, Mathematics, etc. try recording each term and definition on your webcam or mobile phone recorder. Rest your eyes by playing these recordings back, trying to breathe deeply as you take it all in. Lie in a comfortable position and visualise what you are hearing. It sounds a bit like yoga, but if you think about it, you are taking things in using different senses.
Podcasts
Record a summary of a unit of work in bite-size chunks. For example, chapter-by-chapter plot summaries of your English Literature texts. Play these on your way to school as you walk merrily down the street. There are professional podcasts that are free to download too. Try these for size: History Rocks to help you understand your history topics, or listen to poems on the Poetry Archive.
Stick up Facts
No matter how hard you revise, there will be some pieces of information that just won't stick. Your head will not obey you! A good game to play is to write sticky facts on post-it notes and put them up in random places around home. Don't make it too hard to find them, of course. Put up the ones you need the day before the exam and take pleasure in recalling important dates, theories or languages hidden on your breakfast cereal box, hallway wallpaper or family portraits. After you've sat the examination, put up the next set of tricky notes - for the next examination topic. Before you know it, everyone in the family will be discussing these with you and you'll have lots of memories to draw down from.
Ordering the exam timetable
My favourite suggestion here is to write each exam (details, date and times) onto one piece of paper with strips cut into the longest landscaped side of the page. Write each individual exam on the strips in the order you'll be taking them. Take great pleasure in ripping each one off when the exam is over. The end is now in sight!
While life can feel like it is all about exams right now, it will be over soon enough. Give it your all, as it is a chance to be assessed against the whole country and find out what you’re made of! Think how much you’ll enjoy your holiday plans in August knowing you’ve done the best you can. And finally, remember everyone is there to help you, including your parents who can give you a boost or a pep talk, let you watch a great film, or even take you out for Nando’s (other brands are available). Here at MagiKats we’d like to wish all of our GCSE and National 5 candidates all the very, very, best of luck for their exams.
