Look ahead and identify your commitments, your work, your children, holidays. Some things can be moved or left for a while, others cannot. Decide whether the housework can be reduced for a couple of weeks, decide which evenings you can realistically set aside for revision, and decide that you do not really want to take all that work on holiday with you, so get it done first!
Once you have made some sort of timetable for your revision, think about what you are going to revise. Take advice from lecturers, past students, and if possible look at past papers. It is rarely necessary to revise a whole course, plus it would be almost impossible, so you need to be selective. It is often useful to know some parts of a course really well, so that you can give an in depth response, other parts may only require a more superficial understanding.
Hopefully you have organised your notes well, so that you can work though them systematically. Probably the most effective way of revising is to create new condensed notes as you work through. These concentrated notes could also be transferred to audio cassette so that you are using auditory memory as well as visual. This is particularly useful if you have limited time and spend some time driving.
If you can, try to extract the main points and put these on to a summary sheet. Index cards are also extremely useful for this and are easy to carry around. You may like to use spider diagrams with the main theme in the centre and related points forming a pattern around it. Use highlighters to mark key words or points.
Try answering a past exam question if possible, or plan one out, but remember you will note have the time to write a full essay. And don’t forget to re-read your essays, they can provide useful revision notes since you ‘pulled’ together parts of the course when you wrote them.
Keep in touch with other students, it is
reassuring to know you are not alone. Utilise the skills you already have,
practise self hypnosis, give yourself suggestions for calmness and confidence,
and also for recall and retrieval of material from memory.
The Exam
On the day itself it is probably best not to do any last minute revision, it will only disturb and interfere with what you have already stored and remembered. I cannot stress enough the need to read the exam questions and instructions carefully. You would be surprised how may students start to answer what they think they have seen on the paper!
Do not rush to start, take a few minutes to plan what you are going to write, jot down the key points, examples etc., that you are going to include. Remember how to structure an essay, include an introduction, the main answer and a conclusion. You will not be expected to write a reference list.
As in an essay, don’t just make statements, back up your writing with reasons and explanations. Keep it straightforward, precise, coherent, and legible. Don’t wander off the point and include irrelevant material, you will not necessarily get extra marks if you do.
If you have time, read through your work at the end to make any corrections, and check each sheet has your name or number on it.
Finally, when you have finished you will
feel quite exhilarated, so don’t rush home and check all your notes. You
cannot change anything now, so put it out of your mind until your certificate
or diploma drops through your letter box!
Good Luck!
References
ASHMAN, S. & CRÈME, P., (1996) How to write Essays. 4th ed. London: University of North London
ASHMAN, S. & CRÈME, P., (1996) Reading for Study. 4th ed. London: University of North London
ASHMAN, S. & CRÈME, P., (1996) Taking Notes from Lectures. 4th ed. London: University of North London
FISHER, D. & HANSTOCK, T., (1998) Citing References. Nottingham: The Nottingham Trent University
NORTHEDGE, A., (1990) The Good Study Guide. Milton Keynes: The Open University
TEMPLE, M., (1997) Grammar Book.
London: John Murray Ltd.