study smarter: essential revision skills
You have a test, assessment or exam coming up and you know you need to revise. Where do you start? What revision skills and techniques can you use?
Don’t panic!
For revision to be effective, once you’re familiar with a few key strategies, you will give yourself a huge boost to your test and exam success!
Each strategy is backed by science, cognitive science to be exact, and the great thing is that you can use them not just for exams. So the best thing you can do for your revision is to watch these really short videos to get you started.
Useful links
The science of revision
Understand the difference between active revision and passive revision.
In order for knowledge to stick, revision has to be active.
What do we mean by this?
Re-reading notes – passive. Re-reading notes and using them to create a mind map – active.
Highlighting notes – passive. Taking the highlighted sections and using them to make flashcards – active.
The key to effective revision, is taking everything you’ve studied throughout the course, and finding a strategy that tests you. That actively makes you try and recall information. And this is best done over a period of time.
Regular Retrieval Practice
The brain is a muscle which means it needs a regular work out.
Retrieval Practice is just the exercise it needs to be really effective when you’re preparing for an assessment, test or exam.
Regularly and repeatedly asking your brain to retrieve or recall information helps to create the pathways it needs to lock that information into your long-term memory. It’s what we call making it more sticky.
Get to know key revision tools
Fantastic Flashcard Fundamentals
One of the simplest and most effective revision tools you can use are flashcards.
Flashcards are quick and easy to put together and used regularly, get your brain actively recalling information and answering questions which helps to lock it in to your long-term memory. You can use them to test yourself or get somone to test you – but the trick is to say the question and answer aloud. Don’t just read them. Say the answer then check that you have remembered it correctly.
Magical Mind Maps
Welcome to the world of Mind Maps!
This simple method does many things and is a super useful tool for anyone revising for an exam or test.
First of all, they are an active way of recalling information and showing you how much you remember of a topic. But don’t worry if there are gaps, because you can fill them in later! A mind map also helps you to spot themes, connections and links within a topic. This level of insight can be used when organising your thoughts, forming a position, or planning an essay.
Ask the Oxford Revise team your revision question
No question too big or too small!
The Oxford Revise expert team is made up of teachers, examiners, cognitive science experts and revision specialists who all want you to do well in your exams!
They’ve also been through exams and test preparation before, so know have a lot of experience to help you.