Revision Strategies

Strategies & Techniques

What is not a good way to revise?

Reading notes and highlighting endless parts of them – you need to get active in what you do.

Retrieval Practice

This is a learning strategy where we focus on getting information out – retrieving it from our minds.

Through the act of retrieval, or calling information to mind, our memory for that information is strengthened and forgetting is less likely to occur.

Retrieval practice is a powerful tool for improving learning.

Use your notes/textbooks etc to make a list of important information and content that you need to know for your subject.

Create quizzes for yourself, use flashcards, complete past exam questions – just make sure that you DON’T use your notes when answering.

Retrieve as much information as you can before you check your answers. It’s important for you to find out what you still need to work on and where you should focus the next stage of your revision.

How can you make it even more effective?
o Spacing

Cutting up your revision into smaller chunks and spacing them out over a period of time is much more beneficial than cramming an entire subject in a day. An hour of Physics each day for 5 days is much more effective than 5 hours in one day.

o Interleaving

To improve your results further, also consider interleaving. This is where you mix up the subjects and topics you revise: 30 minutes of Shakespeare, 30 minutes of algebra, 30 minutes of Poetry, 30 minutes of Ratio - rather than an hour of English and an hour of Maths.

Useful Videos:

Retrieval Strategies