Useful Guide to Effective Revision
Revision is an important activity that every student needs to practice, apart from the general revision in the class by the lecturers, which may or may not be done, it is quite imperative that after you have studied and read your books over the semester, when tests and examinations are drawing near revision should be done. Revision is necessary for you to know how prepared you are for a particular examination, the more you revise the more you will retain the knowledge that you have gained through study. You might think that you have gotten the points on the topic, the ideas discussed in the course or in the concept while studying but if you do not revise appropriately the possibility is there to discover that you can’t remember important details when you’re supposed to reproduce the information you have assimilated. Revising appropriately is one of the important strategies or keys to ace your game to achieve success in your examinations, you don’t want to leave any stone unturned so you should take revision seriously. Apply the right guide to effective revision.
1. Put it in view
If you really want to have the time for revision before your examinations or test, it is important that you start studying as early as possible during the semester because if you leave your study till maybe a few days to the test or examination then the possibility is there that you might not have time to really revise, you will be trying to cover up on topics here and there that revision might not even be anywhere near what you can do. It’s therefore better to start studying early to cover all you need to cover so that you can have enough time to revise and get the knowledge settled in your brain. You can even decide to have a scheduled time for your revision so that you are working towards that time in your study.
2. Start early
Start revising early as well, the more time you have to revise, the more collected and calm you’ll be and the more effective the revision is likely to be. If you do your revision in a rush then you may not achieve as much as you should have if you had given it enough time, if you had started revising as early as possible. You do not need to wait till the whole course is completed or when exams are near before you start revising you can keep revising your notes even before the course is completed, if you do your revision this way, as in taking it bit by bit, then it will be easy to revise collectively when you are nearing examination time.
3. Apply the right style(s)
While doing your revision you can use different styles of approach, use the style(s) that suits you. You can use flash cards; you can also paste notes around your room, or you can use memory techniques to store information in your brain more easily and to have them at your fingertips when you need to reproduce them. So, use whichever styles you can, styles that work well for you.
4. Use past questions
Use of past questions is a very good way of evaluating what you have read, by means of revision. After studying and covering a number of topics, it is good for you to use past questions to test yourself and test your knowledge on how well you’ve been able to assimilate the concepts and topics that you have covered. If while practicing the past questions you discover that there are some areas you are unable to answer well or questions you are unable to solve as you ought, then you know you need to still go back and study those areas more. Using past questions is also a way of preparing yourself for the exam mood and to know what kind of questions to expect or the format of the questions to expect especially if you are using past questions from the same lecturer on the same course.
5. Appropriate study space
Of course, to revise you need a good study space that is free from distraction, this cannot be overemphasized. If you are revising in the place where there are distractions, then you may not be able to stay focused and concentrated as you ought and that might make the revision to either take longer than it should take or not be as effective as it ought to be. Therefore, find a good study space where you can have full concentration, let the lighting there be good, don’t revise on your bed, find a good chair/bench and a table to go over your note.
6. Get someone to question you
Another method you can use which is very good for revision is to get someone to ask you questions from the materials have read and studied, let the person ask you questions and you answer, giving answers to the questions asked that will help you to engage your mind in an active way to reproduce what you have studied. If you discover during the cause of the questioning and answer that there are areas, you are unable to provide answers for as expected then you know that those areas demand more study. You can even provide the other person with some past questions to use in asking questions so that you can provide answers.
7. Teach someone
Another good method you can apply to revise is to look for someone who is not doing that particular course and you explain concepts that you have studied. This will of course likely be an added knowledge for the other person while you are also actively engaging yourself to recollect and reproduce what you have studied and learnt. By teaching someone else, you are going to make the knowledge to stick more to your mind, and you will likely get to understand the concepts better.
8. Take your notes with you
I think going with your notes everywhere you go can also be helpful to revise, you will be able to study or revise anywhere and anytime you have the opportunity to do so. If you leave your notes at home or elsewhere, you will have to get back home or get back to where your notes are before you can probably study or revise but if you go with your notes everywhere, it will be easy for you to pick it up at any given opportunity, revise and go through some things again.
9. Group discussion
You can also have a group discussion with your colleagues. You know, after you have studied, you can decide to solve questions together or ask yourself questions and answer questions on the courses that you are preparing for. By using group discussion to revise your work you will be able to rub minds together with others, and one person might touch on an aspect that you have not paid too much attention to before and then you can also add your own value to the discussion, that way, iron sharpens iron.
Revise as much as possible, it cannot be too much. The more you revise, the more than knowledge settles well and the more you can produce reproduce what you have read in a settled manner, also you get to understand better.