Answers:
I know exactly what you mean, im currently revising for 4 completely different A levels, 2 of which are psychology and sociology...
what i do is, read through and make notes on small sections, and make loads of notes....then for a while, take a break, then test yourself - see what you can remember, its ok if at first you dont remember everything, just refer back, just DO NOT copy off because that doesnt help. Try and reword what you read off, and if you cant reword, atleast try and UNDERSTAND what it is saying.
When you have thorougly taken notes, at this stage a few pointers should be lingering in you head, so make mind maps, ONLY WITH THE HEADERS...no specific detail...this comes afterwards...
Make mini essay questions starting with "Describe and evaluate...or Discuss......etc etc" - this is where you include all details and maybe evaluate - its your own question and hopefully you will know what you need to include, it helps...trust me.
I guess you're not doing A levels, but this would also work with any other essays you need to revise for...unless they're not for essays lol
Good luck
i always read a paragraph of whatever i'm reading and then stop and think about what i took from the particular paragraph, then write it down. it sinks in more than just highlighting random sentances/paragraphs.
Gather all your refferance books, have foolscaps size note book,a couple of pens & pencils and a portable tape recorder if possible. Find a nice tree to sit under away from distractions. Do one subject at a time and do not spend more than 1 hour per subject. Go over what you have learnt, take notes, look up anything you are not sure of and take more notes. Then, apply the 3 principals of fast learning and memorising--- 1-write information, 2-see information, 3-read information. The theory is that you Write, See and Hear the information that you read will help you to retain more easily what you need. By recording the information as you read it gives you back up that you can refer to. Never do any revision the day before exams. You need to give your mind a rest so it is fresh for exams. It worked for me 40 yrs or so ago!!! Happy Eggs'Ham & Bacon(Examination)! P.S. If you can't find a nice tree-any very quiet spot will do.Just remember to have a bottle of water and something healthy to snack on(Chewing increases the power of concentration) .GOOD LUCK.
The BEST WAY TO MEMORISE IS - Do it when you are fresh, mentally and bodily. Best time would be early in the morning or after a small nap. Take a rough note book and write what ever you want o memorise. It will take some what more time and as you write you can repeat a few times, what you are writing. Writing and memorizing is equal to reading for 5 times atleast. If you do it two or three times you will get the portions memorised fully.
Apart the above I take the previlage of giving few tips how to organize for success in examination. The answer is little long please do not mind.
1.Prepare for the examination. There may be little time for formal revision at the end of teaching so you must revise as you go along!
2. Look at past papers. This prepares you for the types of question you will be asked, and the time you will have to answer each question. If there has been any major change in the format of the examination, then you will have been told about this in the course literature.
3. Never try to 'spot' questions and never revise selectively. This is a recipe for disaster. Even if your predicted topics do come up in the exam, there is no guarantee that you will be able to answer the specific questions that were set on these topics. Instead, you should go into the exam with enough knowledge to answer questions on any of the major topics in a course.
4. During the examination, organise your time effectively. This is the single most common cause of under-achievement in exams.
- For example, if you have a 3-hour exam in which you must answer 4 essay-style questions, then that means 45 minutes per question. BUT you should allow yourself 5 minutes at the start (to read the questions and decide on the ones you will attempt) AND 15 minutes at the end - see below. That leaves you 40 minutes per question.
- Now start on the first question, but stop immediately when the 40 minutes has passed. Don't worry if you have not finished the question - you have left 15 minutes at the end, so you can come back to this question and any others that you need to finish off.
- Tackle your second question, and again stop after 40 minutes, and similarly for the third and fourth questions.
- If you always adhere rigidly to this approach you will maximise your chances of success. You will never run out of time for all the questions because you have kept some time in reserve. Equally important, you will have scored the highest overall mark that you possibly can get, because exam marks follow the rule of "diminishing returns" - you get most of the marks for a question early on (in the first 20-30 minutes), and after that you have to work harder and harder for the remaining marks. In fact, the last 10% of marks for a question is almost impossible to get - very few examiners will give a mark above 80 or 90%.
5. Always answer the full number of questions.
-- You would be surprised at the number of students who miss out questions and therefore fail an exam or obtain a lower degree class than they deserve. The reason is obvious - they cannot answer all the questions (usually because they didn't revise) and so they decide to spend all their time on the questions they can answer.
- This is foolish. For example, if you can answer only 3 of the required 4 questions then you cannot possibly get more than 75% of the marks for the whole exam. But it even worse than that - even if you get three first-class marks (70%) for your three questions, this is still only 210 marks out of the possible 400. That's 53%, which is only just above the D/C borderline (or the third/ lower second class borderline).
- Even if you think you know nothing about a topic, you can always get a few marks by making some sensible comments, and that can make the difference of a grade.
- The same advice applies to questions that require you to answer several parts - each part of a question has marks allocated to it, and if you miss out a part then you cannot get the marks for it.
6. Read the question carefully, underline all the relevant words, and stick rigidly to the question as set. Again this might seem obvious, but again many students fail to follow this advice. Remember that examiners think very carefully about the wording of every question, and expect your answer to be directly on that topic. No examiner asks you to "Write everything you know about a subject"!
7. For every question, stop writing after the first few minutes and re-read the question, then stop again to recheck before your time is up. Be absolutely honest with yourself, and ask 'Have I drifted off the subject?' This is surprisingly easy to do, and if you don't stop to check periodically then you drift into "irrelevant".
8. Make rough notes at the start of a question, so as to organise your thoughts. Then start your proper answer.
You almost certainly will be told to cross out the rough notes. But my advice is NEVER CROSS THEM OUT. Remember that anything you cross out cannot be marked, but if you leave your rough notes then the examiner should look through them (if only briefly). Perhaps you made a point in your notes that you forgot to put into your proper answer. That can count in your favour.
9. If there are options to answer, never answer more questions than required. You can only get marks for the required number of questions. Every marker sticks rigidly to this rule, because we have to be fair to all the candidates - including those who did exactly what was required.
10. Put yourself in an examiner's shoes and ask 'What impresses an examiner?'
Imagine that you are spending your evenings and weekends ploughing through 400 exam answers - because that's what examiners do!
- The examiner will get frustrated if he cannot read your writing. A badly written answer takes a long time to read, and by the time the examiner has ploughed through it he will have forgotten half of what you said. That's bad news for you! And don't try to obscure your lack of knowledge (e.g. a scientific name or a technical term) by illegible writing. We have seen this hundreds of times. If it cannot be read, it cannot get marks.
- Underline key words or phrases. After reading through the whole answer, an examiner looks back at the number of ticks he/she has made, or the number of key words or phrases that you have identified. If you highlight these then the impression is favorable - the main points covered, so you will get good marks.
- Never repeat things, even in a concluding paragraph. You can only get the marks once, no matter how many times you repeat the same point.
Best of Luck-
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