Best exam revision techniques

CONTENTS

1. Effective study methods

2. Revision strategies to keep you motivated

3. Best revision techniques to help you learn

4. Exam revision FAQs

Whether you are an A Level student or a university student sitting your finals, revision can be tough. To help, we outline some tried-and-tested revision tips for students to make your exam prep more manageable. These include:

• Revision strategies to plan your time and keep you motivated.
• Techniques to improve your recall, such as flashcards, mind maps, or setting yourself a past paper.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, choose the revision ideas you’re most likely to enjoy. The trick is getting started, so if you try a technique and don’t like it, try something else!

In this video from our sister site Whatuni, current university students tell you how they REALLY revised for their exams.

Effective study methods

Whether you’re taking A Levels or studying for a degree at university, the first of our exam preparation tips is to start early – with good study habits. One of the best study hacks for exams is to take good notes! You’ll find revising so much easier if your notes are simple and make sense when you re-read them months after you wrote them…

Our top note-taking tips for students include:

• Identify the main points or themes. You can’t write down everything about a topic, so focus on the key terms and any issues or arguments.
• Revisit your notes later the same day or that week; see if you can make links between ideas, or write a summary, or do both.
• If certain words or phrases are important, underline them – you may need to refer to them in exams.
• Note down the main sources or references you might need to quote. It is incredibly frustrating when you think, ‘I know I read that,’ but can’t remember where!
• Don’t copy anything word for word, in case you forget and present it as your own work. Plagiarism is never good, even if it is not intended. Write notes in your own words. If you are writing quotes verbatim, be very clear that they ARE quotes.
• If any points confuse you, get help to understand them sooner rather than later. The same goes if you have questions about a topic – research the answers.
• Share your notes with others, in case they noted down something you missed.

Revision strategies to keep you motivated

If you’re struggling with how to revise effectively, then planning your time management for revision or studying with friends can help keep you going. Or you may find it helpful to recreate the exam scenario, so that when the time comes, you’re well prepared. You can combine these strategies with our list of techniques to choose the best revision methods for you.

Revision timetable

If you’re looking for effective revision tips for students, you’ll know already that you should start with a timetable. But if you’re unsure how to make a revision timetable, a good tip is to use the ‘2357’ method to structure your learning. As well as helping you plan how to revise if you have lots of exams, it uses ‘spaced repetition.’

By taking longer breaks between the days you revise a subject, you can see which information has stuck in your memory and which hasn’t. This helps you focus your revising more effectively to prioritise the topics you need to memorise.

Find out more about creating a revision timetable, where we explain how to create a 2357 timetable.

Pomodoro revision technique

‘Pomodoro’ actually means tomato – it’s another time management method, based on the classic tomato kitchen timer. It’s also a really effective revision strategy for avoiding procrastination!

• Set a timer going for 25 minutes and study during this time.
• When the timer rings, take a five-minute break: move around, have a snack.
• At the end of the five-minute break, repeat the 25-minute timer.
• After four pomodoros, take a longer break.

Doing this helps keep you focused and helps to avoid burnout.

Study buddies

Studying in a group or pairs can be a great motivator, as you can look out for and encourage each other. By revising with other students, you can help one another understand different topics.

• You may be able to help someone else understand a topic that you find pretty simple, and vice versa.
• By discussing questions from past papers, you can see how another student could approach the problem from a different angle.

Exam practice

How long will the exam be? How many questions will you have to answer? What are examiners looking for in your work? Get to know exactly what happens on the day of the exam by asking tutors or students who've previously sat it, so you can avoid any unwanted surprises.

Best revision techniques to help you learn

These are our top study techniques for exams. Many of them use active recall to help improve your memory. Each tests your memory in a different way, and you might prefer one method over another. But in all cases, we’d recommend doing several past papers in each subject, as they’re one of the most effective ways to revise for your examinations.

Mnemonics

A mnemonic is a useful memory strategy to help you remember details. You can create your own mnemonic that's based around a phrase or an acronym. A classic example is the phrase "Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain." It helps you remember the rainbow colours: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet.

Another example is "How I wish I could calculate pi." By counting the letters within each word, you have the first seven digits of pi (3.141592). How = 3, I = 1, wish = 4, and so on.

Mind maps

A good exam revision technique for visual learners, a mind map can help you see the connections between related ideas.

• Start with the main topic at the centre of the page.
• From here, draw branches out to link the key themes.
• Smaller branches can go from the key themes to sub-topics, definitions, key words, the names of case studies, or important dates that you need to remember.

This can also be a handy visual aid to glance at before going into an exam. Diagrams and flow charts are also good revision techniques for visual learners. If you try drawing a mind map from memory, you’ll test your recall.

Flashcards

Among the best-known exam revision techniques, flashcards help you memorise what you need to know for your exams. Also known as cue cards, they’re a particularly good method for revising case studies in subjects like law and business.

• Write down on a set of cards the information you're revising, such as names, dates and definitions. Use coloured pens and drawings if you like.
• A5-sized cards are good as they’re compact enough to carry around.
• You can write a name on one side of the card and the details of the case study on the reverse.
• Test yourself by only looking at the 'name' side and see how much you can remember before turning it over and checking.

Similarly, you could create Q&A revision cards to test what you can remember. Write down a question on one side of a notecard and the answer on the flip side. Get a friend, fellow student, or family member to test you by reading out randomly selected questions from your stack of cards that you must then answer. Anything you can't remember, you can spend time learning again.

Be the teacher

Sometimes known as the ‘Feynman Technique’, teaching someone else topics that you know can help you solidify your understanding. As a teacher, you have to know the subject more than your student does. This exam revision technique works even if you don't have someone to teach – simply prepare and practice as if you do.

• Learn the topic as thoroughly as you can from your notes.
• Teach it to someone else – clearly explain to your 'student' what the topic is all about; if you do have someone else to practise on, see if you can answer any questions they may have.
• If you identify gaps in your knowledge, revisit your notes to eliminate them.
• Repeat teaching the subject again to see if you are still missing any information.

Blurting

When revising, test yourself to see how much you remember about a topic.

• Without looking at your notes, write down everything you can remember on a subject, ‘blurting’ it out. Don’t worry about whether it’s neat or not – just get it down on paper.
• When you’ve finished, go over your study notes and see if there’s anything that you missed or wrote incorrectly.
• Highlight these sections, and spend time learning about them again.

Repeat blurting it out over and over again until you remember everything you need to know.

Past papers

Past exam papers should be available from your tutors. Always include them in your exam revision techniques, as they can build up your stamina for taking an exam.

• Make you’re free from distractions or interruptions and set yourself the period of time you’d have for your exam.
• Answer all you can from the past paper.
• Don't be tempted to look at your notes or use the internet.
• If you have the marking scheme, you can see how well you did and if you missed any key points.

This will test you and help you see which areas you find most difficult and need to work on. Past papers are really useful for revising for several reasons:

• You learn what kind of questions you're likely to see in an exam.
• You may spot the topics that come up most frequently if you compare papers from over the years, helping you to focus your revision strategy.

Exam revision FAQs

How to stay motivated to revise?

Our tip is to have tick lists so that you can note your progress. That way, even if it feels like you still have a lot to do, you can celebrate what you’ve already achieved. And more importantly, give yourself rewards for tasks completed – such as completing four revision sessions earns you a snack break.

Best revision apps for students

There is no shortage of revision apps for you to choose from – we’ve gone with the tried and tested ones that have been around for a while. Apps need to make their money, so most only offer the basics for free.

• Pomodoro Timer apps are easily found and can help keep you focused on your studies.
• Quizlet is a revision app recommended by students; it lets you create digital flashcards to test your learning. If you’re studying with a buddy, you could take it in turns to set the questions.
• Gizmo AI is another digital flashcard app that’s free to download, with in-app purchases.

Even ChatGPT can turn your revision topics into flashcards if you give it the right prompts.

How many hours of revision a day for A Levels

While 15-20 hours per week is the average given by The Student Room, you should focus more on the quality rather than the quantity of revision. There’s no point in going over the things you already know well, or in making yourself tired.

• Short, effective revision sessions are better.
• Use active recall techniques to truly test your memory and spot gaps in your learning.

How can I stop procrastinating during revision?

A lot of the revision techniques shared on this page will help you.

But it’s also important to forgive yourself if you feel you’re procrastinating – giving yourself a hard time won’t improve things. Your mindset is really important – read our top tips on how to revise for exams to help keep your brain fresh. And then pick a technique for revising and get started.

How to avoid exam stress

Preparation is key. But so is looking after yourself. Read our 10 top tips for coping with exam stress to find out how to balance the two.

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