How to create the perfect revision timetable

Whatever you are revising for it is good to set out a plan of action; set times and amount of revision, give yourself goals and rewards.

Plan early
Preparation is key! Create reminders in your phone of your revision times or setup a calendar on the wall; use something that you will look at every day and works for you, so you can track your progress. Make sure to spread your time out evenly and you give yourself breaks in-between each session so you give your brain a rest. When structuring your revision plan, you must make sure that sufficient “blank” time is left close to the exam to revisit those subjects, modules or topics that you feel require particular last-minute attention.

Practise, practise, practise
Set up practise tests each week so you can track your progress and see what you still need to work on. If you can find some past test papers – these are great tools to help you understand the kind of questions you will face.

Strict yet flexible
Clearly any sort of revision requires good discipline and will power to ensure you stick to your set revision plan. Falling behind on your revision could mean you miss out on an important part of the exam and lose marks. However, whilst you should stick to your plan as much as possible you need to not be rigid in the execution. If one area takes longer to revise than expected, then you should not panic – hopefully the time can be made up in the planned “blank” space.

Motivation
Why not start your day off with a task you know you can accomplish? This will give you a much-needed motivational boost first thing and provides a positive mental attitude. Make sure that you keep the next slot reserved for a heavier subject, so you don’t just put these off.

Fail safe revision techniques for everyone
Whilst it’s a good idea for you to focus on revision techniques that work for you, if you are not sure are or lacking inspiration, here are a couple of techniques that are very effective for everyone:

Become the teacher
You can’t teach something, and particularly you can’t answer questions about it, unless you know and understand it inside and out. So, when you’ve finished learning some content find someone to teach it to. If you can’t get them to understand then you don’t understand or know it well enough yourself yet.

Revision cards
The beauty of revision cards is that they force you to reduce what you need to know down into bite-sized chunks. These days you can choose between actual physical cards or an app like Quizlet. However, we would encourage you to go the old-fashioned way as actually going through the process of thinking about what to write and physically writing it down is part of the process of getting the information to stick in your head.

Over to you
These are some best tips on how to choose revision techniques that work for you and will lead to you maximising your potential in your exams. It’s up to you now to take responsibility for your revision and constantly monitor what’s working and stop doing, or change, the things that aren’t.