Theis resource comprises a number of short articles around key elements of effective learning and revision. You should find the advice here useful both for exam revision and for general studying throughout the year.
We hope that you’ll find the articles useful. They are designed to provide quick introductions to the ideas and concepts rather than going into any great detail or depth. Much of the advice in Revision Bites draws on the research and other work collated by the ‘Learning Scientists’, and we recommend that you also visit their website and blog to further explore the ideas raised here.
One key to successful learning is to recognise that what worked for us in the past will not necessarily continue to be effective, especially as we encounter subject matter of increasing complexity. Research shows that many people use the same handful of popular approaches but that some of these techniques don’t really work effectively for university level revision. This section looks at a few of these common but ineffective techniques.
It’s time to start revising for your exams. You choose a lecture or topic to start with, dig it out of the huge lever-arch file where you keep all your notes, and begin re-reading the material. After you’ve read through it you get a fresh sheet of paper –or open up a WORD document – and start making notes. Maybe you try to summarise the original notes, or maybe you decide the best way to take it all in is to write it all out again verbatim. Every now and then you stop to highlight an important line or two. If you’re an advanced highlighter you may even have some sort of colour-coding system in place.
Does this sound like you? If so, there’s no easy way to break this to you – it doesn’t really work. Research has shown these three techniques – re-reading, note taking and highlighting – to be largely ineffective and inefficient. But don’t take our word for it. Here’s a final year Cambridge medic who has researched this for himself.
If you’ve just discovered your approach to revising isn’t really very effective, don’t feel bad. A great many people have learned to learn using this type of approach and, because it has ‘worked’ (probably at school) they stick with it. The good news is that there are other strategies out there which are more effective, more interesting and less time-consuming. We’ll look at some of these in the remaining sections.
Our time is valuable, even more so when it comes to studying and revising. Therefore we want to make the best use of that time, and that means working in a way that allows us to learn effectively and efficiently for both the short- and the long-term. The other sections introduce you to some key strategies for doing just that, so be sure to check them out if you haven’t already done so. And don’t be daunted. It can be a scary prospect to change the way you revise but many of the strategies we suggest are simple to apply and probably build on things you already do. That’s the key – this is about evolution rather than revolution. There may be some circumstances where your existing approaches work just fine. We’re simply asking you to recognise where that’s not the case and to equip yourself with more tools you can turn to in such situations.
This resource aims to equip you with a number of potentially powerful new ways to approach your learning, but perhaps the most important of all is ‘recall’, or ‘information retrieval’. In this section we’ll explain why this approach is so crucial to deep and long-term learning, as well as looking at ways you can easily build recall into your revision technique.
Recall – sometimes known as information retrieval – is simply the process of returning to subjects you have already studied over time to strengthen your understanding and memory retention. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that such an approach is much more beneficial than just ticking topics off as completed and never looking at them again.
Recall is important for two reasons. First, by returning to material and testing understanding you are reinforcing your learning and cementing that knowledge not just for the short-term but for the longer-term too (one common problem with inefficient revision methods is that you may succeed in memorising something long enough to pass the exam, but you don’t retain that knowledge for your further studies, despite the fact that each subsequent year of study tends to build on the previous year’s knowledge). Second, by constantly checking your knowledge, you can focus more time on the things that you are struggling to understand or retain, thus making your revision ever more efficient.
There are a number of different techniques which can help you build recall into your learning strategy – here are a few common approaches to get you started:
The ‘blank page’ method – the simplest method of recall is to write down everything you know about a subject or topic you’ve studied on a blank piece of paper. Allow yourself 5 minutes or so to brainstorm everything you can remember, then go back to your notes and quickly check how much you recalled. Then schedule some time to work on the bits you missed. Depending on your preferences you may prefer to brainstorm in a sketch or out loud rather than producing linear notes or bullet points. There’s no right or wrong way to go about it – just experiment with what works for you.
Questions, questions – another very effective technique is to use past papers or sample questions to test your knowledge of a topic. If you don’t have these available, write your own questions – this is another great way of thinking about the material you've been learning. And this is also a great place to use Generative AI - prompt a large language module (such as ChatGPT) to quiz you on the topic as a whole or on specific areas that you want to test your knowledge in.
Flashcards – a popular variation of the ‘questions’ approach is to use flashcards. Blank index cards are ideal for this purpose, although pieces of paper cut down to that size will work just as well. When you’re revising a particular topic, write questions on one side of the card, and the answer on the other. When you can answer all the questions, flip the cards around so that you see the answer and have to come up with the question. One advantage of flashcards is that they’re highly portable – even a short bus journey or a gap between appointments can be transformed into a high quality study session.
Incorporating recall into your revision is a very simple but extremely effective step, and can be the difference between memorising something in the short-term and actually knowing it for the long-term. Experiment with some of the methods we’ve suggested, and with any ideas you may have of your own, and schedule recall sessions into your timetable for the remaining revision period if you haven’t already done so. It’s an excellent way of boosting your confidence about the things you do know, and of identifying the areas you still need to work on. And that puts you firmly in control of your revision.
Want to know more? In this video a final year medical student discusses active recall and suggests some practical ways of going about it.
In the previous section we highlighted the importance of recall or retrieval practice. This is the foundation block of any effective revision strategy, so if you skipped that section we strongly advise you to take a look now. In this section we look at some other proven techniques that you can use to further refine your approach. Although we’ll look at them as separate concepts, hopefully it’s obvious that they are often interrelated and you can easily incorporate elements of each into an overall strategy.
One problem with traditional revision methods such as re-reading and writing out notes is that they tend to represent a relatively shallow approach to revision – ok (although not great) for memorising facts or details, but not much beyond that. But exams will often require you to do more than simply memorise material – you’ll often be expected to apply the ideas to practical situations, to analyse why and how something occurs, or to synthesise different ideas and come to some sort of position. So your revision should be built around these higher order activities – application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
That is, you need to elaborate – to practice explaining and describing ideas in detail and with analytical depth. Taking a critical approach to the material you are learning is crucial. This means not simply accepting as fact everything you encounter but instead critiquing the material so that you understand not just the ‘what’ but also the ‘how’, as well as being able to recognise weaknesses or counter-arguments. You should ask yourself lots of questions about the material, and about your understanding of and engagement with the ideas or arguments. You can read more about this concept of Elaboration here.
As we mentioned above, one thing that you’re often expected to do at university is to apply what you’ve learned to practical situations. It makes sense therefore to build this into your learning strategy. Furthermore, a very good way of learning and understanding something is to apply abstract ideas to specific ‘real-world’ examples. Since this idea itself is a little abstract and could do with a concrete example or two to back it up, why not check out the examples the Learning Scientists have come up with to illustrate the concept?
Another reason to explore multiple different strategies for learning is that evidence suggests that we learn things better if we can retrieve the information in more than one way. Dual coding, for example, is an approach to studying which combines verbal and visual approaches. You can read more about dual coding, including advice on how to go about it, here.
More broadly, there are a number of simple strategies you could put in place to start learning and processing material in multiple ways. You might, for example, look to turn linear notes into a mindmap, or do the reverse and verbally describe a picture or diagram, elaborating (see above) on what you see in front of you. Another useful technique is to pretend you’re teaching the subject to a class – be sure to actually speak out loud as you explain the idea or concept, perhaps also using a whiteboard or even a piece of paper to illustrate as you go.
Finally, they’re not for everyone but many people can find study groups enormously helpful. We are, at heart, social animals but all too often revision is seen as a solitary activity. But as long as you don’t get distracted from the task at hand a study group can be a great way of explaining, elaborating and retrieving ideas and information. Throw questions at each other, teach each other, argue, debate and disagree, and watch your learning grow and grow.
As you can see, there are a number of different ways you can refine and enhance your revision. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach here –it’s a matter of experimenting and finding out a combination of things that work for you. And then you’ll be well on your way to ditching the time consuming, ineffective approaches to revision and arriving at the exams feeling confident and well prepared for the challenge ahead.
Preparing a study timetable has become something of a cliché, with many people not bothering at all and others producing unrealistic or unhelpful schedules. In this section we look at two powerful concepts related to how you organise your revision - ‘Spaced Practice’ and ‘Interleaving’. We’ll also point you towards further advice on some of the practicalities of creating an effective study timetable.
Revision timetables – you either love them or you hate them, whether you use them all year round or just when it's time to revise for exams. If you’re already a fan, that’s great, but there are always new tips we can learn to make our plans even more effective. If you fall more into the ‘hate them’ camp, then our task is to persuade you that at the very least you need to be giving some thought to how you structure your revision. It’s not simply a case of ensuring you cover all the necessary material – as we’ll explain below, there’s growing evidence that the way you structure your revision can actually radically affect how effective that revision will turn out to be.
Having a plan:
There are lots of different factors which will determine what your plan looks like. Here, we’d like to focus on two important concepts that make planning your revision an indispensable activity: Spaced Practice and Interleaving
Spaced Practice is one of those concepts that sounds obvious but that in practice is sometimes ignored. Research has shown that you gain more benefit from studying a topic if you break that study over a period of time rather than cramming it all in to the same amount of time in one go. You can read more about the basic concept here. One advantage of this approach is that it lends itself particularly well to Recall or Retrieval activities – read about why these activities are so beneficial in ‘Revision Bite – Building Recall’. So when you’re planning your revision, you should aim to allow for several shorter sessions on a particular topic, spread over a number of days or weeks (the longer the better), rather than one long session where you ‘blitz’ that topic.
Interleaving goes hand in hand with the idea of spaced practice. It simply means switching topics or subjects you are studying so that you don’t spend too long on any one thing in a single sitting. Research suggests that this kind of interleaving approach is beneficial when we study and leads to better and deeper learning than trying to take in topics in big chunks. Having some sort of revision timetable will allow you to reap the benefits of this approach to studying.
Originally published as a blog post in Exam Essentials, 7th April 2023
During your time at university, it’s likely you’ll encounter at least one multiple choice test. Whether this is a formative quiz during the semester or a 100% exam at the end of the year, multiple choice tests have their own benefits and challenges. For the most part, the same revision techniques will work for both multiple choice exams and essay exams, but in this post we’ll explore a few techniques that will be particularly helpful for MCQs.
Originally published as a blog post in Exam Essentials, 3rd August 2023
If you’re in a clinical subject, such as Medicine or Dentistry, you’ve probably heard of Single Best Answer exams. These exams tend to count for quite a high percentage of your grade, and they can seem trickier than typical Multiple Choice questions.
Before we start, what exactly are Single Best Answer questions? Simply put, they’re a type of Multiple Choice question where all the answers are technically correct, but only one of the answers is “best.” These questions typically test your clinical reasoning, and they ask questions such as “What is the best investigation?” or “What is the best treatment?”
These types of questions can be challenging at first, but in this resource we’ll highlight seven strategies to help you prepare for Single Best Answer exams.
It might sound obvious, but it’s worth a reminder: read the question! Often, SBA questions hinge on a single detail, such as the patient’s demographic or medical history. Make sure to read the question at least twice and watch out for details that could be important.
That said, sometimes the question will include information that’s not relevant, so don’t feel like you need to account for every single detail when deciding on an answer.
Every course will have Intended Learning Outcomes that list what you should know by the end of each year. All your assessments will match up to these ILOs, so they’re an excellent way to know what to revise.
When using the ILOs, pay special attention to any that won’t be assessed anywhere else. Practical ILOs will often be covered by things like OSCEs, but many areas of knowledge can only be assessed through an exam, so focus your revision on those.
By nature, SBA questions tend to focus on the general, rather than the specific. After all, if you’re asked about the best treatment, and all the answers are potentially correct, what you’re looking for is the solution that is most likely to work in the majority of cases.
In your revision, then, focus on patterns, not outliers. You’re looking for the answer that is most likely, not any that could be possible.
With SBA questions, it’s important to focus on understanding rather than memorisation. The questions will often involve multiple stages, such as combining a patient’s symptoms and medical history to work out a diagnosis, then suggesting the best possible treatment. In these cases, it’s essential you fully understand the condition, rather than just memorising a few facts.
This type of understanding is called “Clinical Reasoning,” and it’s an essential part of being a good clinician. Basically, these exam questions aren’t asking, “Do you know the answer?” they’re asking, “Can you work out the answer?”
Clinical reasoning is all about putting information together to identify the best way to proceed. This means your revision needs to focus on combining ideas, rather than just memorising facts. A good clinician will understand how different information fits together.
One way to do this is to combine different ILOs, or different sections of your course. You might choose two ILOs and ask yourself how they intersect, or pick two lectures and explore how what you learned one week impacts what you learned the next. Revising this way should unearth some interesting connections, and it will also train your brain to bring different aspects together.
SBA questions often rely on scenarios, so it’s a good idea to use them in your revision. Try writing a scenario for yourself, such as, “A 5-year-old female presents with pain in her jaw…” This strategy can work particularly well in groups, as everyone can take turns presenting scenarios and you can discuss them together.
To make this strategy even more effective, try modifying your scenarios. Add or change details and see how that might change the answer. You can also try writing your own answers; see if you can come up with some good options that are correct but not “best”!
While SBA exams might sound quite different from other kinds, the reality is that most effective revision strategies are fairly universal. To do your best on exams, it’s important to understand principles like active revision, recall vs. recognition, and the importance of continuous revision.
If any of those terms are unfamiliar to you, we recommend you check out the Effective Learning resources at the top of this site.
In this resource, we’ve covered seven different strategies for revision for SBA exams. This format is new to many students, but its focus on understanding rather than memorising will help you develop the skills you need to be a good clinician. If you use these strategies and focus on developing your clinical reasoning, you’ll soon become much more adept at picking out the “best” response.
Originally published as a blog post in Exam Essentials, 21st April 2023
Across the university, many exams are now at least partially in essay format. Rather than being asked for a basic fact, such as “What year was the battle of Waterloo?” you’re likely to face a more complicated analytical question, such as “What factors contributed to Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo?” These exam questions can sound very similar to the essays we write during term, but with one key difference: we have far less time to write them.
In an essay exam, we don’t have time to go down rabbit trails or to go off-topic. Instead, it’s essential to focus our revision on the key aspects of the module. In this blog post, we’ll cover three things markers look for in essay exams: understanding, specificity, and critical analysis.
The most important element of essay-based exams is that they focus on understanding, rather than knowledge. It isn’t enough to simply memorise a few key facts. Instead, we need to demonstrate we understand the meaning and significance of all the knowledge we’ve learned.
Two revision techniques that can help improve your understanding:
Even though the focus in essay exams is on knowledge rather than understanding, it’s still important to back up our understanding with specific points. For example, you could say “In 2008, the Bank of England lowered interest rates” but it would be better if you could provide the specific interest rate: 0.5%. To make your answer even stronger, you could put this number in context by describing how the rates dropped from 5.75% to 0.5%, which was the lowest the rates had ever been in the 300 years since the Bank of England began! (Source: House of Commons Library)
As you revise, look out for key bits of information, particularly ones that could be useful in a variety of essay questions. These might include:
When you include these facts, it’s important to show you understand them. You can do this by:
Essentially, good revision will involve some memorisation of facts, but you should always make sure to keep these facts in context and remember their significance.
One of the main things your markers look for in essay exams is critical analysis. They don’t simply want you to copy information from lectures; no, they want you to use that information to say something interesting.
A few revision strategies to help you improve your analysis:
In this blog post, we’ve discussed three things markers look for in an essay exam and identified revision strategies that will help you improve in these areas. Essay exams can be challenging, but if you focus on understanding, using specific information, and critical analysis, you’ll be most of the way there to a brilliant exam answer!
About these Resources
This section contains the archive blog posts and materials from our popular Exam Essentials series. Although there is some duplication with articles elsewhere in this Learning and Revision resource, we include them here so users can continue to access these posts.
Originally published as a blog post 4th April 2023
It’s the beginning of exam season. You’ve got several weeks of revision, then a few more weeks of exams. In just a little while, you’ll be done! But until then, you’ve got so much to do, and weeks of unstructured time stretching ahead of you.
How can we make the best use of this time? A revision plan will help you get everything done, while still having time for rest or time with friends.
Before we discuss how to plan, we should briefly address why planning is important. After all, planning does take time, and it’s important not to get so caught up in planning your revision that you forget to actually revise!
Here are three reasons why making a revision plan is helpful:
Now we’ve covered why planning is important, it’s time to offer our top tips for effective revision plans.
1. Space Things Out
We’ve already heard that cramming is an ineffective revision technique. Instead, we should try Spaced Practice. In this technique, we stretch our revision out over days, weeks, or even months, rather than doing it all at once. This helps us take advantage of the “spacing effect,” which is where revising material in short chunks over a period of time results in better long-term learning than cramming.
A key part of Spaced Practice is giving yourself time to return to material over and over. This is important because, when we learn something new, we’re likely to forget most of it very quickly. The more often we go back to the material, however, the better it sticks in our brains and the longer we’re able to remember it. This phenomenon is called the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve.
When we make our plans, then, we should try to spread our revision out over as long a period as possible. For example, if you budget 20 hours to revise for an upcoming exam, it’s far better to do an hour a day for 20 days, rather than 10 hours a day for 2 days! Whenever you can, take advantage of Spaced Practice and avoid cramming.
2. Break It Down
When we make our plans, it’s important to be specific. Don’t just put, “revise economics” in your calendar for the day. Instead, choose a reasonable length of time (30 minutes to an hour tends to be good) and give yourself a concrete topic to study. Focussing on a small chunk of information will help you retain it better, rather than getting overwhelmed by too much information.
It also helps to be task-oriented in your revision. Instead of just putting, “fluid dynamics” in your plan, think about what you want to do to help you revise. Will you go over your lecture notes? Will you answer questions? Will you create a mindmap? The more active, the better!
Here are a few activities you could do in a 30-60 minute slot:
3. Be Realistic
Finally, we need to ensure our revision plans are realistic. How often have you made a To-Do list, only to find that, at the end of the day, you’d only finished half the tasks? Not finishing what we planned can be incredibly demotivating, and it can mean we’re constantly having to modify our plan to catch up on all the things we didn’t manage to do. In order to plan well, it’s essential to be realistic when managing our workload.
The difficulty is that our brains tend to fall for the Planning Fallacy, where we overestimate how much we’re able to get done, and underestimate how much time a task will take. If we’re aware of this fallacy, though, we can fight against it.
Here are a few ways to create more realistic to-do lists:
In this blog, we’ve discussed why planning is important and identified three strategies for effective revision planning. If you use spaced practice, break down your revision into chunks, and identifying realistic goals, your revision should be much more effective and less stressful!
Originally published as a blog post 29th November 2023
One of the big challenges in creating an effective revision plan is knowing how to make best use of the finite time you have available for studying.
Many people will try to cover everything, apportioning an equal amount of time to each topic covered on the course. However, this is rarely the best strategy, and is likely to lead to relatively shallow engagement with a lot of the material.
A more strategic approach is to identify areas of particular weakness and to devote the bulk of your time to studying these topics, whilst keeping the others ticking over.
But how do you identify these gaps? Here are a few potentially useful techniques.
Whilst you’ll also want to try some of the more systematic approaches below, the fact is you’ll probably already have a fairly good idea of your strengths and weaknesses.
A good way of thinking about it is to ask yourself which questions or topics you hope will come up in the exam, and which you really hope don’t appear. The honest answers to these two questions will tell you a lot about your learning to date and the areas you need to prioritise.
When you’re thinking about individual topics, a useful first step is to get down on paper (or screen) everything you can recall about that particular topic. Don’t think too much about it or worry about being neat and tidy – let it pour out onto the page.
The idea is that you can then go back to your notes and identify the areas that have stuck and those that need more work, and then focus your time on the latter.
Every module will have a set of Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) – you should be able to find them in the module handbook and/or on My Dundee.
All of your assignments, including exams, will be aligned to these ILOs. Judging the extent to which you are currently able to meet each of the ILOs can therefore give you a very good idea of the areas you need to focus on.
Module ILOs can, however, be quite broad, so look also at any ILOs or aims and objectives for individual topics or lectures. In some subjects, the handbook or My Dundee may contain weekly ILOs/aims. And most lecturers will have a list of aims at the start of their classes (on the PowerPoint for example).
Can you see how these could be useful checklists to help you prioritise your revision?
Tutor feedback on any previous assessments you’ve done on the module can be a useful source of information. Look back carefully over any such comments, especially if the exam will follow a similar format, and try to note where the tutor points out specific strengths and weaknesses in the work.
Think about feedback more widely as well – for example, comments tutors may have made in tutorials or practical workshops, points or questions that were emphasised or repeated in lectures, and even moments in class where you felt a little lost or less inclined to contribute. All of these things can help you identify areas that need more work.
There are lots of different ways you can use sample questions or past papers as part of the revision process. One thing you can use them for is to help identify your strengths and weaknesses.
This might simply be a case of looking over a past paper and ranking each question in terms of your level of confidence. Obviously, you would then want to spend as much time as possible on the topics you felt less confident about.
Alternatively, you might try a short quiz, flashcards, or multiple-choice questions, to give you a quick sense of your strengths and weaknesses in a particular topic. You can source questions from past papers, online searches, or even Artificial Intelligence tools.
These are just a handful of ways you might go about prioritising your revision. You may have other ideas about how you’d do it as well – it’s about finding what works for you and, more perhaps importantly, what gives you the most confidence that your strategy is effective.
After that, it’s a case of drawing on the active revision techniques and review and recall processes that we’ve discussed elsewhere in Exam Essentials to ensure that your revision is as focused and effective as it can be.
Originally published as a blog post 26th April 2023
When we think about revision, what strategies come to mind? Often, we think of strategies like highlighting textbooks, watching lectures, or rewriting our notes. These techniques are all good ways to start, but they’re fundamentally passive; they don’t require much thought. To do really well at our exams, it’s essential to spend the majority of our time on more active techniques.
Passive revision is when we engage with the material on a surface level, without thinking deeply about it. Even though passive revision techniques aren’t very useful, they can be tempting because they’re easier than active techniques. They also make us feel productive, even when we aren’t actually learning anything.
Common passive techniques include:
Active revision, on the other hand, makes us think. When we revise actively, we consider information in new ways and make connections between concepts. We also practice retrieving that information from our brains, ensuring we don’t just recognise information but we also recall it.
Active revision is much more work than passive revision, but it’s far more effective. Just a few hours spent on active revision can be as valuable as a full day of passive revision. This is great news because it means, if we revise actively, we can actually spend less time working and have more time left for fun!
Next time you’re revising, try switching out some passive techniques and replacing them with active ones. It may take more brainpower at first, but using active learning strategies will help you revise much more effectively in much less time.
Originally published as a blog post 4th May 2023
Imagine this: you’re working hard, revising for your exam. Every morning you wake up early and spend all day in the library, reading your textbooks and going over lectures. You copy out pages and pages of notes and highlight all the key concepts. But finally, when you get to the exam, you can’t remember a thing.
Unfortunately, this scenario happens all too often. The problem is that many revision strategies that seem useful at the time don’t actually help us remember information long term.
One easy way to improve is to make our revision more active (see previous article). Using active revision techniques is the best way to ensure we’re spending our study time in a way that will actually improve our exam results.
Even if you are using active techniques, though, it’s still good to check how your learning is progressing. Here are three ways to ensure your revision is effective, as well as a few potential pitfalls to avoid.
The obvious way to test yourself is by using past papers or practice questions. Sometimes these will be provided by your tutor, or you might be able to find them online.
One great way to use past papers is to give yourself a mini exam. Set a timer for the length your exam will be, then work through the past paper, just like you would in a real exam. Answer all the questions as thoroughly and accurately as possible, without referring to your notes.
Afterwards, go through and “grade” your exam. Think about the parts that you knew really well, and write down the areas where you struggled. Go back to your notes and fill in any gaps, and spend more time revising the difficult areas.
Potential Pitfall: Make sure you use other revision techniques, not just past papers. If you don’t supplement past papers with other techniques, you’ll end up learning all about last year’s exam, but you won’t know how to answer this year’s questions!
This strategy helps you see what information you’ve fully retained. Choose a topic, pull out a blank sheet of paper, and write down everything you can remember. Then, compare with your notes to see what information you forgot to include. Everything on your brain dump paper is stuff you know, and everything that’s missing could probably do with some more revision.
Potential Pitfall: After doing a brain dump, it’s essential to go back and revise the information you missed. It can be tempting to look back at your notes and think, “oh, I actually know that,” but if you didn’t include it in the brain dump, chances are it could do with a little reinforcement.
Working with others is a great way to test your own revision and ensure you don’t miss anything. Creating a quiz for your friends is a helpful active learning strategy, and seeing how they do on your quiz will give you a sense of if you’re asking the right questions. Similarly, having a friend create a quiz for you will help you test your knowledge. You can also discuss the answers with your friends and work through the content together.
If you don’t have any friends on your course, you can still use this strategy. Simply give your notes to a friend or family member and ask them to pick out bits of information and ask you questions. They don’t need to be a subject expert; in fact, it might actually be helpful for you to provide simple answers that a layperson can understand.
Potential Pitfall: Whenever you’re working with course mates, watch out for imposter syndrome. Revision can be stressful, and it’s all too easy to compare ourselves with others and feel like we’re falling behind. While our peers can give us a good benchmark for our revision, it’s important to remember that just because someone else sounds like they know everything, doesn’t necessarily mean we’re not as good.
As exams approach, it’s important to test ourselves to see if our revision is working. By using past papers, trying the brain dump strategy, and quizzing our friends, we can get a much more accurate idea of what we know and what we still need to learn.
Originally published as a blog post 4th December 2023
This guest post was written by Emma Duke-Williams (CTIL)
Revising, as all students know, can be challenging. It’s difficult to re-read notes, while making sure you understand what they mean, as staff rarely ask you to just regurgitate facts, they want you to show that you understand the content.
So, could Artificial Intelligence tools help you?
Hopefully you’ve seen the Use of Generative AI for Students published in September. This guidance summarises many points about Generative AI (GAI), including a list of (some) potential uses and some points to be aware of.
I’ll start with a few things you should know:
If you’re doing coursework or any graded assessments the University’s position is that you must NOT use GenAI unless its use has been specifically authorised by your lecturer in the assessment brief. This includes remote online exams (i.e. when you’re not invigilated on campus).
However, today we’re looking at your revision. Alongside your highlighter pen and flip cards, could GAI be another tool in your revision kit?
Let’s take some of the ideas for potential use of GAI and think about them in context of your revision.
If you’d rather not share your phone number with external bodies, then we suggest going to Bing.com, signing into it with your University Account and using Microsoft CoPilot. You may, of course, already have an account on ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, etc., in which case you can use that instead.
Once you’ve logged in to your GAI of choice, here are a few potential ways it can help you with your revision.
GAI can summarise longer texts and documents to help you check your own understanding of the key messages and concepts presented.
There are a number of ways to do this, but I’d recommend following Nathan Beel’s advice. He reminds you to check what is generated, and make sure not to use it for your coursework. He also talks about using GAI to generate some multiple choice questions; perhaps you and a friend could both generate sets of questions from two different papers you should have read, and then swap.
There are other tools that will summarise pdfs, such as ResearchRabbit. You’ll have to create an account, and the free accounts are limited to 3 uploads a day.
GAI can act as a conversational or debating partner to develop your ideas and thinking. GAI is very good at answering questions you pose it. If you’re not sure about something, why not start a discussion with an AI?
Martin Compton has made a useful video demonstrating GAI discussions. You might also like a previous video of his looking at enhancing any lecture notes you might have made.
GAI can help you understand tricky concepts. Hopefully, at this stage of the semester, you have covered the basics, and you do understand them! However, if you are very unsure of some of the content, then a quick question about some of the basics could help you. Remember, GAI can make errors, so perhaps using what it’s generated to “spot the ‘deliberate’ mistakes” could act as a useful tutor for you.
What other ways have you found to use GAI in your revision? Do you think it was useful, or do you have other ways you have found more useful?
Finally, remember, revision is critical; GAI can help you, but it shouldn’t be the only way you revise. You don’t have to use it at all, and if you choose to, it’s most effective alongside a range of strategies.
Good luck with your exams!
This section contains a series of posts which were originally published on our popular Exam Essentials resource.
They were written by our team of postgraduate tutors and represent some of the most up-to-date, evidence-based advice on revising and sitting your exams. We hope you find them useful.
This article was written by Taylor Jeoffroy (PhD Candidate in English, and ASC Tutor)
Do you enjoy the structure of your weekly timetable throughout the semester but feel lost when it comes to exam season? Do you need an extra boost of organisation to sort your revision for exams and final assessments? Making a Revision Schedule for those final weeks of the semester can help reduce stress, avoid procrastination, and keep you on track with everything you need to accomplish during this busy time!
So how do you make a Revision Schedule?
Ensure you know when your deadlines are and that you’ve reviewed all the information your module has given you about your exams and final assessments.
Once you’ve answered these questions, go and gather your materials. This could include lecture notes, books, articles, online resources, My Dundee pages, etc…
Take these things into consideration when making your schedule:
You can make a hand-drawn schedule, use a template, or your digital calendar. A digital one is more convenient to have on your phone and allows you to make changes easily, but a hand-drawn one is fun and lets you design it any way you want!
If you’re a visual learner, it can be helpful to colour-code your calendar. Use a different colour for each subject or assignment you’re working on, breaks, and other commitments. This will give you a good visual overview of your time and allow you to see if you’re spending the right amount of time per subject and pinpoint which topics you need to allocate more time to.
Using the information you gathered in Steps 1 and 2, create your schedule.
Tip: Work backwards, starting from your exam, to give yourself sufficient time to review all the material!
A final tip: Be Flexible! When creating your schedule, it’s good to plan more time than you’ll need so you can move things around if something comes up or if a topic is trickier than you expected. Remember: a plan is a tool, so use it the way that works best for you!
See also:
This article was written by Clara Seyfried (PhD Candidate in Psychology, and ASC Tutor)
All procrastinators know how easy it is to trick yourself into feeling like you are being productive. This could be by cleaning the house or doing the laundry rather than focusing on your exams.
When it comes to revising for exams, it is tempting to fill hours going through your notes, highlighting, and adding pretty post it notes, which might be fun, but these are likely not the best preparation for your exams. However, knowing how to revise effectively can help studying feel more useful and interesting. Here, we introduce three evidence-based techniques that can help you revise more effectively.
Also called Spaced Practice, Spaced Repetition is a learning technique that connects how frequently you study a topic to how well you already know it. Effectively, the more you already know or the better you understand a topic, the less you need to prioritise it in your revision. Once you have spent more time on a tricky topic, it might actually be fresher in your memory than the one you had previously known very well.
Spaced Repetition can be particularly easily implemented with flashcards, which you can sort into piles based on how well you know them (this is referred to as the Leitner System). The idea is that you always focus most what you find hardest at the time, and revisit what you know best the least frequently.
The open-source software Anki is an easy way to implement this flashcard system digitally, as the program automatically tests you more on questions that you indicate you are least certain about. In practice, incorporating Spaced Repetition into your revision could also mean beginning your revision by testing yourself, then focusing the most time on your weakest areas.
When it comes to information you need to memorise, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of topics you have covered over a semester. Other people look so good at memorising, but how will you be able to remember all of this?
It might help to bear in mind that while individual differences exist, most humans share approximately the same capabilities when it comes to memory. The cognitive psychologist George A. Miller found that most of his participants were able to judge and remember up to 7 ± 2 (i.e., 5 to 9) stimuli or pieces of information in a range of experiments, leading him to call 7 “The Magical Number Seven”.
Of course, humans are not only able to remember seven facts at a time, otherwise no-one would pass their exams! Miller’s law of the Magical Number Seven also applies to larger pieces of information, such as several smaller bit of information “chunked” together. For instance, you might not be able to remember a list of 18 words after having a brief look at them (that would be equivalent to 18 chunks, so much bigger than Miller’s 7 ± 2), but if they are structured into six subcategories (a chunk of 6) with three words each (a chunk of 3), you might do a much better job.
This shows how important it can be to structure your notes properly when you start revising for an exam – by chunking effectively, keeping the limits of your memory in mind, you can learn to memorise even very large amounts of information.
Another way in which you can increase your chances of being able to retain information, either when you encounter it for the first time (e.g., when you are taking notes) or when you are revising, is to draw on Dual Coding theory. Dual Coding theory suggests that your mind channels information in two different ways: through language and through images.
This is in line with the most common model of working memory, which proposes that humans encode information auditorily (primarily language) and visual-spatially (e.g., images). What this means is that you learn best if you employ different sensory systems.
Generally, studying a topic from many different angles and perspectives can helps you understand it better, giving rise to the related revision technique of “interleaving,”, i.e., switching between ideas when you study.
Also bear in mind that different forms of describing information have their own benefits and disadvantages. Studies have repeatedly shown how effective drawing can be for remembering information, often much more so than writing things down.
On the other hand, not everything is suitable for a visual depiction, so trying to draw everything might just be confusing. That is why it can help to combine text and visuals where possible. Why don’t you try linking information to little drawings next time you are trying to memorise something?
Although you don’t have to use them every time to revise for something, it can be useful to bear these three techniques in mind:
The right type of revision always depends on your subject area and type of exam, but if you stick to these three, you will probably have a better chance at succeeding than when you’re procrastinating by busying yourself rather than actually studying!
This page was written by Dr Conner McAleese (ASC Tutor and PhD English)
For most subjects, exam revision will involve reading. This could include re-reading your own lecture notes as well as engaging with new secondary sources. Simply reading notes or papers, however, can easily become a passive form of revision that only wastes time and doesn’t help you learn. To make your revision more active, a structure like the SQ3R method will help you critically engage with your reading and thoroughly engage with your sources.
While the SQ3R Method is intended as a note taking method, it also introduces a valuable set of skills that can help with reading your own notes, and, equally as importantly, engaging with secondary material during exam revision. It can seem quite complicated at first, but with practice it will become much easier to build into your exam (and overall study!) routines.
A TOP TIP throughout using the SQ3R method is to constantly refer back to the author in your thinking! Hurdy McGurdy says… Alanis Morrisette says… This will help build the author’s name into your understanding of the secondary source which is a nice touch for including within your exam!
The SQ3R method consists of five stages: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review. Let’s look at each of these in turn.
Survey means exactly what it says on the tin – survey the landscape of your source. This means taking note of a few things before you even begin to read. For instance, is this a book chapter? A monograph? A journal article? Each of these sources will come with a different set of challenges to reading them.
Your next step is to survey your source’s structure. What are its headings? Subheadings? Does the source contain figures? Tables? Pictures? The most important aspect of structure for the SQ3R method is to see if your source contains any summaries (such as an abstract at the start). If it does, this may help guide your reading as you can cherry pick which sections you feel would be best for you.
This leads to the last aspect of surveying a text – why are you reading it? How does this source connect to your wider study plan? You can consider what arguments the author makes and whether or not you agree with them.
Remember: While you won’t know what exam questions will come up, you can (and should!) build arguments in your head around your subject’s topic matter. This can aid with memorisation of the materials themselves.
Once you have surveyed your secondary source, it’s time to interrogate it. Be critical here. Before you begin reading, ask yourself some questions about the source. What does it mean by this subheading? Why does it choose to include this section at all? Hopefully, all your questions will be answered as your read your text. If not, then that is a question you could try and answer yourself (is the source incomplete?).
TOP TIP: If your school and/or discipline provides past examples of exams, it’s helpful to use those questions to guide your reading. You can also create your own practice questions by using the source itself. Take a look at the big ideas outlined in the abstract or introduction and draft some questions based on the question the source itself is trying to answer.
By this point, it’s time to start reading! The key thing, though, is that the survey and question stages mean you know how the source is structured, so you may not have to read the whole thing. For instance, if your survey identified subheadings which aren’t relevant to your specific module exam (remember: the scholar has not written their text to align with the module’s Intended Learning Outcomes!), you can just ignore those sections.
When reading the sections you do think will be of value, keep your questions in mind. You may have drawn up questions for specific subheadings during the Question phase of this method – use them. As you read, try and find the answer to those questions. This will trick your brain into retaining more information! Work smarter, not harder.
A TOP TIP for this step is to make sure to read actively and critically. You should use methods like note-taking and annotation to keep you focussed, and be sure to ask questions (and answer your original questions!) as you go.
In this step, you write the answers to the questions you asked in step two in your own words. Once your reading stage is complete, immediately write down the answers to the questions you set yourself. You can do this after each subheading if you wish! When constructing your answers to your questions, try and make them accessible to someone who is not familiar with your subject area. A great way to tell if you truly know something is to try to explain something to a non-expert (perhaps a family member or friend). The more simply you can explain it (and it still makes sense!), the better you understand the material.
If you’re reading a secondary source for this method, it would be worth adding to the notes you have already taken for your classes for this subject. In a similar way to your note-taking style for lectures and seminars, now write concise summaries of what you have read and learned. And keep using the author’s name at this stage, too! This makes the next stage of the method much easier to complete.
This stage is crucial. Now is the time to see how much you have learned!
So, return to your questions. Read your questions aloud and see if you can answer your questions effectively without re-reading your summaries. If you cannot answer those questions straight away – do not panic! It is not expected that you should be able to do this perfectly on your first attempt.
Once you feel confident that you can answer each of your questions without looking at your notes, try and summarise the author’s main points without looking at anything you’ve written. This is key, especially if your exam is closed book! Remember the tip above about including the author’s name in your questions and reciting? Continue doing so. Hopefully, after a few run throughs of these steps, you will be able to describe, explain, and summarise McGurdy’s and Morissette’s arguments with ease!
A really important part of this process is to be self-reflective. Do not ignore any gaps in your knowledge as you go along. Honesty, especially with yourself, is important during any exam revision period. If you don’t know something, say so! Acknowledging what you don’t yet know will help reframe your mind so that you can fill those gaps in your knowledge before the exam begins.
If you want to take your learning further, you can build on what you’ve done here by using the SPE Method, too - we explore that approach in the next section.
This page was written by Dr Conner McAleese (ASC Tutor and PhD English)
For most subjects, exam revision will involve reading. This could include re-reading your own lecture notes as well as engaging with new secondary sources. Simply reading notes or papers, however, can easily become a passive form of revision that only wastes time and doesn’t help you learn. To make your revision more active, a structure like the SPE method will help you critically engage with your reading and thoroughly engage with your sources.
This method can either be used in conjunction with the SQ3R Method (see previous section), or it can be used on its own. This method allows for a flexibility if you have to read a large number of sources in advance of your exam. It’s also a good way to quickly see if a source will be useful before you give it a more thorough reading.
First, take a wander through the source’s structure. Review the contents page for potential chapters of interest, or scan the abstract for an idea of the source’s argument and how it’s structured. Then, consider what the source’s headings and subheadings are throughout the text and note if the source includes any tables, figures or other visual representations of the information. In understanding the structure of the source you are using, you are prepping your mind to engage with it!
This stage is critical for making your source work for you. No author will be familiar with the structure of your module and how your module lead has chosen to lay their material out for you to learn. During the proposition stage, you can read through those portions of the text you believe are relevant to your exam and then collate them in an order that makes sense for you. If you are using the SQ3R Method in conjunction with the SPE Method, then you can do this during either the Recite or Review stages of that method. Summarise the author’s arguments for each section you have read and organise them in a way that makes sense for your learning!
When evaluating a source, don’t be afraid of being harsh. The author will never know, so you won’t hurt their feelings! Do the author’s subheadings truly answer their argument? If not, why not? If they do, how successfully is this done? Be reflective on how you would approach answering the lines of argument the author has introduced and evaluate if this is more, less, or equally as successful as the author themselves. This is step is about retaining information, and this step can help solidify the source as a whole in your mind.
While simpler than the SQ3R Method of reading, the SPE Method can let you review a much larger volume of sources and help you construct wider arguments that engage with the academic discourses around your essay questions more broadly. Depending on your subject, this more straightforward approach to reading might be exactly what you need to prepare for your exams.
This page was written by Clara Seyfried (ASC Tutor, and PhD Candidate in Psychology)
As the end of the semester approaches and exams are loom, fun might be the last thing we associate with revision. However, even if studying doesn’t become your new favourite hobby, enjoying yourself more while revising will ultimately make you more engaged, which can make it easier for you to study more and absorb information more effectively.
In this post, we’ll discuss some tips and tricks for how you can approach revision from the right angle, and perhaps even learn to like it.
Exams can feel like a lot of pressure. If you are afraid of exams and worried about not being able to put enough work into your revision, it can be useful to think about what you can realistically expect to get out of your exams and set goals which you think you will be able to achieve. Depending on your experience with exams so far, it might also help to relativise success and failure in the exam context. What could success look like for you? And what is the worst possible thing that could happen as a result of your performance in this exam? Exams are designed to assess your knowledge and skills, not you as a person! You can protect yourself from getting disappointed by your results by preparing effectively for the things that you struggle with the most.
As you begin your revision, it is also important to remember not to neglect yourself for the sake of studying. It can help to stick to specific time frames or create a revision timetable to make sure that you can still maintain a healthy social life and find time to look after yourself. Also, make sure to continue to eat well, get enough sleep, and take sufficient breaks when studying. Good revision planning can allow you to keep track of your revision (and so stop you from overthinking whether you have studied enough) and help you reflect on your revision afterwards, so that you can find the best way to make revision work for yourself.
Of course, some topics might be inherently more fun than others, but there are always strategies you can try to make your revision more entertaining. Making revision more fun can prevent you from losing interest and zoning out during the time you dedicate to studying.
To some extent, you can do this by approaching your revision topics through the perspectives you find most interesting. For example, you could always start or end your revision sessions which topics you enjoy the most or that come more naturally to you. Of course, you should also be careful not to prioritise these topics over others that might need your attention more (remember the importance of Spaced Practice), but it can be useful to get you find a way to get yourself in the mood for studying.
If you struggle to find motivation during revision sessions, it can help to “gamify” your studying, i.e., to turn it into a game. You can easily do this by quantifying parts of the revision process, e.g., by timing yourself going through flashcards and competing with your previous self or marking your performance on short mock tests.
Gamifying revision can also work very well when you revise with others. Think Menti or Kahoot – adding just a little bit of friendly competition into your study sessions can already make them much more fun. If you are revising by yourself, you could also work with rewards. Depending on what works best for you, you could reward yourself with sweets, longer breaks, or fun activities if you have been particularly successful on any part of your revision. Just be careful not to fall into unhealthy habits, like developing a mindset that you cannot have breaks unless you have earned them.
There are really no limits to the ways in which you might try to gamify your revision. As long as you are still working with the material you are revising, you will likely still learn something. Depending on your topic (and subject), it might be completely justified to watch a relevant film as part of your revision or read up on a subject area you find interesting. You could transform your notes into drawings or associate information with fictional narratives. The key to revising successfully is just to maintain a balance between fun and effective revision of material you need to know.
The good thing about exams is that you are not the only one writing them! You likely share exams with your entire cohort, so a lot of other people are studying for the same things at the same time as you. Revising with others can a feel much more active, and studying in a group also allows for more ways to make your revision fun. It might not be a good use of your time to create fun multiple-choice quizzes on your topic for every revision session, but if one person does it for an entire group every time, the shared effort might easily pay off. If you have group chats or other social channels for studying, you can easily share resources as well as chat socially and engage with content in less serious ways (e.g., by creating memes).
Revising with people who do not have the same exams as you can still benefit you greatly, since you might have to explain things in more detail to someone who does not know the topic at all. Finally, simply being in the same room as your friends when you study can make your revision more fun, as you will be able to spend breaks together, rather than in isolation, and can have useful discussions about how you are approaching your exams.
As you revise for your exams, and especially when it gets tiring, remember:
Good luck and have fun!
This page was written by Adrian Kakinda (ASC tutor and PhD Candidate in Psychology)
Exams feel like climbing a mountain. The peak looks impossible, the path feels endless, and your legs wobble at the thought of another step. The trick isn’t to avoid the mountain. It’s to climb it with purpose, one step at a time, armed with the right tools.
Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Think about that during exams. Whether you ace them or struggle, the key is how you move forward. Exams are part of the journey, not the destination. What matters isn’t how perfect your climb is but how determined you are to reach the summit.
Climbing a mountain without preparation is a recipe for disaster. The same goes for exams. Fortunately, there are many straightforward things you can do now to get ready for exams and stay healthy during the process.
Think about Marcus Aurelius’ wisdom: “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” Worrying about exams doesn’t change the outcome. Preparing for them does.
Today is the day! Are you still stressed? If so, that’s completely natural. It’s normal to feel anxious in high-stakes situations like exams. In fact, a moderate level of stress can actually improve your exam performance.
Of course, too much stress makes it difficult to actually write the exam. If you’re feeling so anxious it’s hard to think, there are all sorts of strategies you can use in the exam itself to help yourself feel calmer.
First, breathe. Deep, steady breaths tell your brain, “We’ve got this.” Try this: inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, and exhale for four seconds. Think of it as hitting the pause button on panic mode and rebooting into focus mode.
Stress Buster 1: The “Palm Press.” Press your palms together firmly and hold for 10 seconds. Release slowly. This small action grounds your body and gives your brain something else to focus on.
Start with what you know. Small wins build confidence and give you momentum, so begin with the easiest parts. If a question feels overwhelming, skip it and come back later when your mind is clearer.
If your mind goes blank, don’t panic. Just write down anything—keywords, formulas, phrases—even if it feels incomplete. Fragments can lead to ideas.
Stress Buster 2: The “Tense and Release.” Sit up straight, clench your fists and tense your shoulders. Hold for five seconds, then release completely. It’s like shedding a weight you didn’t realize you were carrying.
Don’t let the clock intimidate you. It’s useful to check the time every once in awhile, to make sure you’re making good progress, but don’t obsess over it. Just answer the questions you can easily answer, then go back to the trickier ones.
Theodore Roosevelt said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” That’s your motto during the exam. No one expects a flawless performance. What matters is showing up and giving it your best.
The exam is done. Now it’s time to step back and reflect.
Let go of what you can’t change. Obsessing over answers won’t alter them. Instead, ask yourself what worked in your preparation and what didn’t.
Celebrate small victories. Did you answer every question? That’s a win. Remember the tricky formula you studied? Another win. Are you still breathing? Another win.
Seek feedback. Ask your lecturer or compare notes with classmates to learn from the experience. Fear of constructive criticism holds many students back. Growth happens when you face it.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” Take that wisdom to heart as you prepare for the next challenge.
Originally published as a blog post on Exam Essentials, 9th May 2023
Whether you’re writing a 2-hour exam in a hall on-campus or a 23-hour exam at home, staying focussed can be challenging. We’re so used to being distracted by phones, TV, or other people, that getting our brains “in the zone” takes a bit of work.
In this blog we’ll discuss four strategies to improve your focus in your next exam.
Before your exam, make a plan for managing your time. Figure out how many questions there are in the exam and how much time you’ll have for each of them. Make sure to factor in time for reading all the questions at the beginning, choosing which questions you’ll answer (if you get a choice), and checking everything over at the end. For example, if you have a 2-hour exam with two questions of your choice, you might allocate 10 minutes at the start to choose your questions, 50 minutes per question, and 10 minutes at the end to check everything over.
If your exam is essay-style, it’s also helpful to spend time planning each answer. Out of those 50 minutes, maybe take 10 minutes to brainstorm your main points, then the remaining 40 minutes to write your answer. Taking a few minutes to create an outline will give you a structure to follow for the rest of the exam, which will help your mind stay focussed.
If you’re writing your exam at home, prep your environment beforehand. Find a quiet place, if you can, and clear it of all distractions. Gather any materials you’ll need, like books, notes, paper, or pens, and arrange them so you’ll be able to find everything when you need it.
It’s also good to have a plan for your phone. It may be enough to put it on silent, but if you know you’ll keep pulling it out for a quick check, it’s probably best to remove the temptation. Try leaving it in another room, or uninstall your favourite apps during exam season. If you think an important call might come through, give your phone to a friend or family member so they can keep an eye on it for you.
If you want your brain to do its best work, you need to keep your body healthy. Before an exam, it’s important to get good sleep and eat healthy food. Taking poor care of your body, like cramming all night or relying on caffeine to keep you going, will make you lose focus and crash during the exam.
It’s also helpful to get healthy food and drink to enjoy during the exam itself. If you’re writing in an exam hall, you’ll be restricted in what you can bring, but a bottle of water is always a good idea. If you’re writing at home, make sure to have some of your favourite healthy snacks on hand, like fruit or nuts.
Finally, if we want to improve our ability to focus, it’s a good idea to practice. The best thing is to consistently work on building up your focus, little by little. At first, just try short bursts, perhaps as little as five or ten minutes of focussed work, uninterrupted by distractions. As time goes on, try building up the time to 30 or 45 minutes, or maybe over an hour.
If you don’t have time to work properly on your focus, you can still try a practice run before the exam. Set a timer for the length of your exam and find a concrete task to work on for that time. This is especially effective if you have a past paper to try, but you can also use the time for other revision strategies, such as writing summaries of your notes or doing a “brain dump” on several topics. Whatever task you choose, it will help get your brain used to focussing for the length of time you need for the exam.
Focus can be challenging, but just because we live in the age of the smartphone doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We do have to be intentional in our preparation and how we fuel our mind and bodies, but a little effort will go a long way to making your exam experience as seamless as possible.
Originally published as a blog post in Exam Essentials, 4th December 2023
When we talk about exams, we often explore strategies for effective revision, such as active learning or making a revision plan. It’s true that strong revision techniques are the best way to do well in exams, but there are also strategies that can improve our performance once we’re actually in the exam itself.
In this blog, we’ll explore seven top tips that will help you do your best in your upcoming exams.
Doing well in exams is mostly about good revision, so make sure you check out our other resources on revision techniques! Once you’ve got those down, though, the strategies here will make sure you do your best in your exams and truly demonstrate everything you’ve learned.
Originally published as a blog post in Exam Essentials, 4th April 2023
During exam time, it’s natural to feel stressed. The pressure to perform well, the overwhelming amount of information to absorb, and the fear of failure can all contribute to increased stress levels. However, managing stress during this crucial period is essential for maintaining a healthy state of mind and optimizing academic performance. In this blog post, we’ll explore four strategies that can help you navigate exam-related stress and cultivate a more balanced approach to your studies.
Creating a study plan is an excellent way to regain a sense of control over your workload. Break down your study materials into manageable chunks and be realistic about how much you can accomplish. A well-structured plan will not only help you stay organized but also provide a clear roadmap, reducing anxiety and increasing productivity.
Incorporating restful activities into your daily routine can have a profound impact on stress reduction. Take short breaks to practice deep breathing exercises, meditation, or yoga. Getting outdoors can also reduce stress by lowing your cortisol levels. All these activities help calm the mind, increase focus, and restore a sense of balance amidst the busyness of exams.
During exam time, it’s crucial to prioritize self-care. Ensure you’re getting enough sleep, eating well-balanced meals, and staying hydrated. Adequate rest and nourishment provide the foundation for improved cognitive function, memory retention, and overall well-being. Regular physical exercise, even in the form of a brisk walk, can also boost your energy levels and reduce stress.
Remember that you don’t have to face exam stress alone. While it’s usually good to revise by yourself, it can also be helpful to occasionally study in groups. Similarly, save time to spend with family and friends, even when you’re busy. Spending time with others gives you a place to share worries and receive support. You can also get help from teachers, tutors, or academic advisors who can offer valuable insights and resources to aid your studies.
Managing stress during exam time is essential for maintaining both mental and physical well-being. By implementing these strategies you can navigate the exam period with greater ease and achieve optimal results. Remember, it’s not just about acing the exams; it’s about fostering a balanced approach to studying that promotes long-term success and personal growth.
Originally published as a blog post in Exam Essentials, 25th May 2023
After weeks of revision, spending countless hours packing a whole semester’s worth of material into our brains, exams are finally over. Instead of spending our days in the library, we can finally relax and do whatever we want. Instead of staring at our screens, we might finally get the chance for a little “me time.”
Except, recovering after a stressful exam season is harder than it sounds. It can be hard to relax properly and stop feeling stressed all the time. It might be difficult to know what to do with our time now that we’ve lost the structure of uni. And, on top of all this, it’s quite likely we’ll come down with a cold or other post-stress illness.
So, how do we recover well after exams? Read on for our three top tips!
We’ve all heard that stress can make us ill, but the reality is that stress can actually boost our immune system— for a little while. Moderate amounts of stress make us less likely to get sick during stressful times, but when the stress is removed (e.g., after exams are done) our immunity drops. It’s so common to get a cold after exams that this even has a name: the Let-Down Effect.
All the strategies in this blog post will help combat the Let-Down Effect to some extent, but the best thing you can do is to keep up some level of activity. Instead of staying in bed all day binging Netflix, make sure to get up and go for a walk/run. Alternatively, give your brain something to keep it busy, like a good book or a puzzle game. Short bursts of moderate physical and mental activity can soften the Let-Down Effect and prevent us from getting ill.
Chances are, you probably didn’t find exam time much fun. One of the sad parts of being a student is that sometimes all the hard work can crowd out our love for our subject. Once exams are done, however, you have time to explore things you’re genuinely interested in without any pressure.
Over the holidays, take time to enjoy your subject. If you study English, read a book just for fun. If you’re into languages, watch a foreign film. A geographer could go walking in the hills, or a chemist might follow the news to learn about recent breakthroughs in the field. Whatever it was that got you into the subject in the first place, try doing that thing again. Don’t worry about any of this being useful or related to your modules; the only criteria is it should be interesting to you.
We talk a lot about the importance of Work-Life Balance during busy times of year, but what about during quiet times? It can be hard to know what to do with ourselves once the busyness of semester is over. In this case, it’s important to remember two things. Firstly: it’s okay to rest sometimes! You don’t always have to be doing things, because our value as human beings is not defined by our productivity. And secondly: good rest often looks like intentionally doing something restful. Instead of scrolling social media, try taking a walk or having tea with a friend or watching a favourite TV show. You’ll feel much better rested if you intentionally do something you enjoy, rather than sitting around doing nothing.
Of course, for many of us, the uni holidays may not be quiet at all. We may have caring responsibilities, or a job, or other obligations at home. If the holidays are a stressful time for you, it’s important to incorporate small elements of rest and celebration after exams. Have a special dinner one night to recognise your achievement, or plan a quick get-together with your peers. You can also try micro-breaks, like a five-minute meditation while you make tea or a short walk just before bed. It doesn’t have to take long, but even small pieces of rest and celebration can signal to your body that the stressful exam season is at an end.
Although settling into life post-exams has its challenges, it can also be a wonderful time to rest and recharge. It’s important to recognise some potential difficulties, such as the Let-Down Effect, and to plan to use our time well. If we’re intentional about staying healthy, rekindling our love for our subject, and celebrating out wins, then the weeks after exams can be a really enjoyable time to relax and reset our work-life balance.