Revision tips

1. Introduction
Every students have there own level of study. Some of them does much efforts to pass the exams and others are not even interested. However in many cases, I noticed that a great number of students failing their exams after taking so much time to learn and revise. Reasons for these failure may be; lack of self-confidence, stress or sometimes because the subject is so bulky that they don't want to revise or they can't accomodate.

2. Reasons for failure
Anyway, they are going to school and/or private tuition to learn everyday but according to me, the time taken to learn doesn't matter as long as you;
• have a good tutor,
• know how to learn and
• what are the important points.
Sometimes, it may be enough studying a subject at school and even a private tuition won't help to pass the exams. The problem is simple, they are learning subjects, but no-one taught them how to learn and how to do revisions.

3. Importance of revision?
Learning may not be the most important matter. It is normal to forget some points after one year of studying a lot of subjects. This is why revisions are much more important. It is the only way to refresh your memory and it needs to be done very seriously.

4. Types of subjects and associated revision methods
There various types of subjects and the most common ones are; theoretical and calculation.Theory subjects are much bulky subjects where you should learn a lot of theories by heart. Examples can be Chemistry, Biology and Computer Studies. Whereas, subjects like Mathematics, are purely calculation subjects which normally compose of a lot of figures, functions, graph, equations and formulae.
Futhermore, some subjects may be mixed types (ex. Physics and Economics).
To be able to plan your revision, you should be able to identify which  kind of subject you are pretending to revise. If it is a mixed type, break it into two different parts.

5. How to tackle calculation subjects?
In subjects like mathematics, the tip is to remember all the formulae and know where and how to apply them. I know that this is not that easy but with time and practice it comes naturally. Calculation subjects are tricky subjects that test your logic and where you apply your formulae. They requires a lot of practice and to tackle them you need to focus on working on past exam papers rather than revising the formulae all the time.

Just write all the formulae in a small notebook and start working on your past exams with your notebook by your side. If you don't know what formula to apply, then open the notebook and search for the suitable formula and apply it. Repeat this and after 4 or 5 past exams you should be able to know every formulae by heart. And you shall be ready to start working on a past exams by your own.

Now, only time will matter. Proceed by doing 3 or more past exams in the required time frame without your formulae notebook.

The advantage with these subjects is that it becomes so easy and interesting once you know how to do the calculations. Hence, you won't forget anything as long as you understand the logic in it.

6. How to tackle theoretical subjects?
Theoretical subjects are bulky subjects consisting of theories that should be memorised by heart. Start by dividing every chapter in you copybook, using a bookmark,  apply the following steps.

Step 1. Highlight all and every main points in each chapter using of a highlighter.

Step 2.  Take an A4 paper for each chapter

Step 3. Summarise and re-write all the main points on the A4 paper in smallest characters possible.
Note: The trick here is to use one A4 paper only (recto & verso) for each chapter. Use the maximum space possible but don't take more than one page per chapter

Step 4. Start to read and revise each chapter.

Step 5. The next day, take a highlighter and highlight every point that are difficult for you to remind.

Step 6. Finally, you shall have a single A4 paper with all highlight points. Re-write all difficult point from all chapters in the A4 paper (recto & verso). This A4 paper is the only sheet you shall use to revise this subject on the eve of your exams.

Here, the importance of doing all these steps are; to highlight, summurise & re-write. Sometimes copybooks seems very bulky at the first look and this may discourage a student to open it.

Highlighting make it easy for you to see main points clearly so that you don't need to search them everytime.

By summarising the copybook of 200 pages into 10 pages approximately, encourages the student as it is a very big step. Now, it seems easy for the student to revise as he/she knows what and where to revise exactly.

Eventually, the only technique that helps you to remind something is to "re-write it". If you don't remind it, then re-write again. The more time you re-write, the more chance you remind it.

Note: This method of revision works only if it's done individually.