REVISION!

REVISION Dos and don’ts DO – revise in short bursts. Your brain has an attention span of 20 minutes and then it starts to switch off. Revise for 20 minutes then have a break of at least 10 minutes. An ideal plan is as follows: Organise – 5 minutes Revise – 20 minutes Set questions on what you have revised – 5 minutes Go away (watch TV, sing, dance – NO COMPUTER or MOBILE) Come back after 10 minutes – answer the questions you set Look at how much you managed to remember and look up the stuff you didn’t know Consolidate – summarise into bullet points / pictures / poster what you learned Don’t come back to this topic today! If you do this kind of revision for THREE topics in one revision session, you should then have a break of at least TWO hours before you start revising again. DON’T – don’t confuse quantity with quality – you can spend a whole day revising solidly and it will not be as effective. The brain gets tired and the mind gets bored. You will find yourself easily distracted and will get tired quicker. This may lead to you feeling that you have ‘ticked the box’ for revision but you have not actually learned anything! Use your time more effectively for effective learning. DO – look after yourself. Revising is hard work and you need to keep your body and brain fed and watered if you want it to work for you. The brain uses a lot more calories in the form of pure glucose and this can leave you dehydrated and unable to concentrate. You should aim to drink glucose drinks (safely!) and eat sugary foods while you are revising- but not too much! This should only be for a short space of time as the sugar drop after two hours will leave you unable to concentrate – you should then eat carbohydrates and drink plenty of water or sugar free drinks to restore your body’s sugar balance. Do not follow this advice if you have underlying health issues (e.g. diabetes, hypoglycaemia, food intolerance etc.) DON’T –don’t drink high energy drinks or caffeine based drinks (Kick, coffee, Red Bull) – these will not help you to revise. The concentration of glucose is too high and the brain will become over stimulated making you easily bored and easily distracted. DO – revising is stressful and you often do not see the effects of the stress that you are under. Your body is being exposed to steroids and hormones that you are unaware of – exam stress is constant and underlying all of your thoughts regardless of whether you are feeling prepared or not! Your glands are releasing cortisol and adrenalin and these are both having harmful effects on your body and mind. You need to counteract this by forcing yourself to relax – the two best ways to combat stress of a mental nature are through physical activity and water. Going for a run, a fast walk, a bike ride or simply running up and down the stairs a few times in between topics when revising will work miracles! If you are revising with a friend, find a physical activity that you can both do – it should only last for about 10 minutes otherwise it will be counterproductive as prolonged exercise will release hormones to make you sleep! The other way to beat stress is through water – a soak in the bath, standing in a hot shower or simply getting the washing up liquid, a whisk and some jugs and playing in the sink for 20 minutes will restore your relaxation. Water is excellent for stress – trust the thousands of generations that have gone before you and treat yourself to some Radox! Obviously swimming combines water and exercise and is the ultimate stress releaser. Swimming is the ideal stress buster and we have a pool on site...go figure! DON’T – try not to add to your body’s stress by giving it more toxins to deal with. Smoking and alcohol will put your body under physical stress when it is trying to cope with the mental stress of revising and exam pressure. No one who takes their health seriously should smoke or drink (if they are over 18) to excess. DO – use your brain! You have learned about memory – use that knowledge to get the best grade!! You know that smells, different places and moods will help you to remember. You also know that the more you process the information, the more you remember. I have discussed memory in a previous blog. You also know that if the information is meaningful (semantic processing) you will remember it more! Use this information – process your notes. Reading them over is STRUCTURAL processing – the worst kind for revision! The more you change the information, the more it will be rehearsed and transfer into the long term memory. Use all of your senses – make your notes colourful, use certain smells for certain difficult topics, draw pictures or act out research, use phonetic processing – speak your notes out loud, preferably in a different accent. Trust me – these do work! Work hard now and it will mean less in the summer….