10 Effective Ways Students Can Revise Before Exams

Getting ready for a pending examination, preparing, and reviewing notes and textbooks as part of revising for your examination must be done the right way if your preparation will yield the desired results. While there are many ways to study, research has shown that most brilliant and high-scoring students often use 10 effective ways to revise before exams. This is exactly what this post will cover to help you master the art of studying—the features of good study practices and habits that will lead to better examination outcomes.

What Are The 10 Effective Ways Students Can Revise Before Exams?

Create a study timetable

This is the first of the 10 Effective Ways Students Can Revise Before Exams. Do not forget that preparing for an exam demands time and planning to help you cover all the topics. Your timetable is very important and will help you stay organized from start to finish.

How can you start a journey without knowing where to start and where to end? A well-planned study timetable is very important. Ensure you have a flexible timetable, but be very disciplined to follow it at all times. This will help you cover more topics and develop a good study routine for yourself. Students who start preparation without a timetable are never well organized and may end up not paying attention to some subjects at all.

Revise actively when studying

Engaging in active revision or study is the second of the 10 Effective Ways Students Can Revise Before Exams.

When you study, do not just read throughout. You must engage in active learning or active study. What is active learning or active study?

If you do a combination of the following, you will be engaging in active learning:

• Asking questions while reading a textbook to ensure understanding.
• Creating flashcards to quiz yourself on key terms.
• Explaining concepts to a friend or imaginary audience.
• Highlighting and summarizing important ideas in your own words.
• Practicing problems for subjects like math or science (solving sample questions during the study or right after studying). You can also write definitions several times to help retain them in memory.

Active learning helps you remember better and understand deeper!

Observe regular breaks when studying

When you are studying, remember that your brain is an important internal organ that must be allowed to rest after it has been used for some hours. Taking breaks in between studies is an excellent choice and a must. If you study for 50 minutes, get a 10- to 15-minute break before you come back to, let’s say, review the facts and proceed to the next topic. Breaks during study are important for brain health and better retention. It is one of the best practices for a healthy, functioning brain.

Teach others what you study to help retain more facts

Have you wondered why your teachers can remember whatever they teach you? Well, they often do because they continue to teach several students the same facts. That is their secret. If you study and teach others, you will first of all be helping them to understand the facts. But more importantly, you will be testing yourself to see whether you can recall what you studied. The easier it is to remember and teach others, the better and easier it will be to reproduce the same facts in the examination hall. When you learn a topic, do not be greedy. Teach others and help yourself.

Use mnemonics and acronyms

Sometimes, the best students do not struggle to remember important facts in the exam hall because they make good use of mnemonics and acronyms.

• A mnemonic is a memory aid using patterns, words, or phrases to help remember something.
• An acronym is a word formed from the first letters of a group of words.

Example of a Mnemonic:
“My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles” (to remember the order of planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune).

Example of an Acronym:
“HIV” (stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus).

Mnemonics are like little stories, and acronyms are shortcuts.

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Read and record yourself

Studying and preparing for exams can be boring sometimes, especially when you feel too lazy to sit and read. One thing you can do to help yourself stay in the studying mood is to read your notes or textbook aloud and record yourself. The recorded notes and textbooks can be played repeatedly whenever you are not in the mood to study. You can also listen to the audio when on your way somewhere, washing, or cooking. This method is enjoyable because, after listening to your notes a few times, you are likely to start imitating and reading along, and soon the information will stick in your memory.

Summarize the key facts in your own words

One mistake students make when studying is always going back to their textbooks instead of the summaries they’ve created. When you are studying, also make notes on what you have studied. Sometimes, you can use a highlighter to emphasize key points. However, writing or summarizing the facts is the best method since it is part of active learning. The notes you make can even be in the form of questions and answers.

Engage in retention tests

As part of the 10 Effective Ways Students Can Revise Before Exams, you need to engage in active retention activities to help keep information in memory.

Often, we tend to forget what we learn over time. To prevent this, try early morning or bedtime retention tests. Before you sleep, ask yourself what you learned today. Repeat the facts silently, like silent reading. The same retention tests can be done first thing in the morning. This practice helps reinforce what you studied and identifies areas to revisit.

Practice with past questions and projected questions

After all the studying, revisions, and note-taking, you must put yourself to the test by solving past questions related to the topic or subject. This will help you assess yourself and identify areas that need improvement. You can also simulate exam conditions by timing yourself while solving questions. Setting predicted questions and answering them can also sharpen your skills. These activities are active learning methods that prepare you for exams.

Stay healthy (exercise, sleep, and be positive-minded)

All work and no play…well, you know what it means. You need to study, but you also need to reward yourself with rest, fun, and games. Allocate time for these on your timetable. Get good sleep, exercise, and maintain a positive mindset. A well-rested, active, and healthy body and mind are essential for effective study sessions.

Now that I have shared the 10 Effective Ways Students Can Revise Before Exams, it is your turn to put them into daily practice.