Okay, I know the title is a little dramatic, but trust me when I say these tips for revision and studying will completely change how you revise. Many of these I discovered completely serendipitously, but have made my student life significantly easier and more productive, so I'm sharing them! As someone who's taking their GCSEs this year, I've collected some of my favourite study tricks, to help stay on task, improve efficiency and overall make revising a lot more productive. Let me know if you have any other tips that you religiously follow!
Time-lapse Vlogging
Do you ever get distracted on your phone, when you're supposed to be studying? It may sound counterproductive, but one of my favourite tips I've ever discovered is to put your phone next to you while revising and have it on selfie mode, taking a timelapse. By recording yourself studying, you'll be less inclined to procrastinate or pick up your phone, since you're on camera, and once you're done with your study session, you'll have a nice little clip documenting all of your progress!
Make a podcast
This works especially well for subjects with oral examinations, such as Languages. For Chinese, I had to memorise a whole speech before the exam itself, and one of the ways I familiarised myself with the content was by recording myself reading it through once (make sure you don't make mistakes during this recording!), and then listening to the recording while in the car, waiting for the bus, or queuing for food. After listening to it a couple of times, try making another recording of yourself saying your oral, this time from memory, and make sure to go back and listen to the first recording if there are any sections you stumbled over, or weren't as confident on!
Question your notes
My DT teacher shared this tip, and it made note-taking significantly more effective during exam time! While taking notes during class, make sure to add slightly more complex questions into your notes as well as the relevant content and answers, and highlight the questions with a different colour. When it comes to revision time, test your recall of the concepts by reading the questions and trying to answer them, and if there are any you're finding challenging, read about the relevant topics and answer in the notes! If you answer the question correctly on the first try, it's a sign to move on, and focus your revision on other areas you're less confident with.
An example of this: if your exam is on plant nutrition, one possible question you could write into your notes could be "How does water travel from the soil up to the leaves, where it's needed?" and then your notes on transpiration, osmosis and water potential could be directly below, to help if you get stuck.
Mark Scheme Cheat Trick
I absolutely love practice papers when it comes to revising for exams, as they are the most similar to the actual exam itself, but without marking them or checking to see if you understood the concept, it may be hard to see where to improve. While going through a mark scheme for practice papers, for any questions I got wrong, or didn't get the full marks for, I like to write the model answer in my notes, along with any areas to keep in mind (such as specific keywords to use, points to mention et cetera). This helps to ensure that you won't repeat the mistake in the actual exam!
The Comic Sans Trick
Last but not least, the singular best study hack in existence, and the main reason I'm passing Enterprise GCSE. I know it sounds ridiculous, but hear me out. While writing a report, a speech, or any type of lengthy essay, change your font to Comic Sans, before changing it back to a more polished font before you submit. I don't know what kind of witchcraft is in the font, but it tricks your brain into thinking that what you're writing isn't deathly important, preventing you from overthinking, procrastinating or getting writer's block. I was a large sceptic of this hack too, but after seeing it online and testing it out, I found that this is the singular biggest cheat code you'll ever need when it comes to churning out words, fast. Don't believe me? I convinced two of my equally doubtful friends to change their font to Comic Sans before we each wrote our business reports, and what was meant to be a three-week assignment took under an hour, as the three of us wrote 2000+ words each, in under forty-five minutes. Miracles do exist, after all.
Let me know if these tips were helpful, and all the best for your exams!
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