GCSE Revision Tips: Student Led Blog

Introduction

Revision can be tiring, and if you're studying for a lot of exams at the same time, it can feel overwhelming. Ensuring that you’re well prepared for this time of year - and that you know how to stay motivated - is the key to exam success, and will prevent the risk of burnout.

Alongside our team of expert educators, we’ve asked GCSE Save My Exams student Rauan to share his favourite revision tips. He discusses time management, memory hacks, and tips on staying motivated when preparing for those all-important GCSE exams. These are all great tips, and very important - breaking down your revision into manageable bitesize chunks and rewarding yourself with breaks is key to staying motivated throughout the exam season. Read on for more of his brilliant advice.

Our student expert

Rauan is an avid reader and also enjoys baking in his free time. He is sitting his GCSEs this year and plans on taking Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry and Physics for his A Levels next year.

Time Management 

Managing time as a student can seem daunting. Trying to find the balance where you are achieving the grades you want but not burning out may seem completely unachievable. And that happy medium looks different for different people. Some can endure more focused study hours than others, but that is completely fine.

One of my biggest tips for managing your time is not to look at what others are doing. This can be difficult, but remember, it is you versus yourself, and not you versus everybody else around you.

Another tip is to ditch the extremely rigid time-specific revision timetables. While they are a very popular way of organising your time, they do not take into account the spontaneity of everyday life. This can mean that you feel guilty when you don’t stick to the timetable down to the T, and can ultimately discourage you from revising; what is the point in carrying on with revision when you are already three hours behind with your tasks?

Instead, I would recommend printing out subject-specific checklists for all your subjects and picking a handful of sub-topics to handle week by week, while also considering any homework that you have to do and the topics you struggled with in the past week. Then, plan a couple of realistic tasks for each day of that week, considering other activities or outings you also have planned. However, don't schedule these tasks to be done at a specific time of the day. In this way, you will work to finish the tasks, not the time allocated, and you can adapt the time it takes you to complete the tasks if you need to. By taking this approach, week by week, you are not attempting to predict what topics you will need to revise six weeks into the future, and you can successfully target your weakest topics.

Memory tips

Another common issue with revising is trying to remember everything you learn. One thing I would really recommend to help with this is spaced repetition. For example, let’s say you learnt about photosynthesis in a biology lesson on Tuesday. That same day, when you get home, try to come up with a number of quick-fire questions based on the content that you learnt. Then, the next day, test yourself with these questions, until you can answer all of them correctly. Once you can, mark this date down on a revision planner. The next Saturday, retest yourself with these questions, then do the same in three weeks and again two months later. By constantly retesting yourself and increasing the intervals each time, you are tackling the learning curve and maximising your chances of remembering the content you have learnt.

Create some flashcards to make it easier to test yourself with these questions. While this may all seem daunting and like it’s too big a task, remember that this can be achieved in 10–15 minute intervals each day. The example above was based on biology, but this could apply for any content-based subject, like history, chemistry or physics, where you are trying to remember specific concepts or facts. For maths, you could print off a worksheet of the sub-topic you are trying to tackle. You'd then complete a few questions from it the same day, and the rest at different spaced intervals on different days. 

Another memory trick is to read a page of a textbook (or any study material, like Save My Exams' Revision Notes) and then close it and write down the concepts that you were trying to learn on paper (this does not have to be neat!). Try to explain them as if you were speaking to a five-year-old as this helps to consolidate your learning. You should then grab a different coloured pen and reread your textbook to add any information that you missed the first time. Repeat this over the next couple of days until you can write everything down without checking the textbook. 

You could also try sticking up little sheets of paper in places around your house that you'll see frequently. By this I mean little flashcards containing anything from English literature quotes to physics equations, or even a timeline of your entire history course. Every time you walk past that area, you’ll review the notes. This really helps them to stick in your long-term memory.

Lastly, a point you probably won’t want  to hear: you should not listen to music when revising. Instead try to find a quiet and cosy place where you enjoy working. The reason for this is that music has been proven to make focus worse and decrease our ability to create long-term memories. As well as this, when you learn your study materials in silence, it makes it much easier to regurgitate what you have learnt in the exam hall as it will also be silent there.

Motivation

And last but most certainly not least: motivation. Keeping motivated in exam season is tough but there are a few things you can do to help yourself. You may find it useful to have an "accountability partner". This is someone who is also struggling to stay motivated. Accountability partners can gently guide each other in the right direction when they are struggling.

You could also consider changing your usual place of revision. For example, if you always revise in your room, try going to the library or a local café; sometimes a change of scenery can make all the difference.

Another good tip, if you are lacking the motivation to start a task, is to set a five-minute timer and tell yourself you can finish studying at the end of that time. Usually, once people have got past the five-minute mark they will choose to carry on as the task is not as bad as they had anticipated. However, if the five minutes are over and you are still feeling largely unmotivated, you may be suffering from burnout. If this is the case, take your mind off your studies completely and take a break so you can come back even stronger the next day.

And finally, as clichéd as it is, remind yourself of your goals and why you are doing this in the first place. Studying is a privilege, not a chore, and many people would do anything to have the opportunities you have. Another key thing to remind yourself is that the price of your procrastination is the life you could have lived. You don't want this to catch up with you, leaving you with regrets.