Author: Gordon Spark

One of the big challenges in creating an effective revision plan is knowing how to make best use of the finite time you have available for studying.

Many people will try to cover everything, apportioning an equal amount of time to each topic covered on the course. However, this is rarely the best strategy, and is likely to lead to relatively shallow engagement with a lot of the material.

A more strategic approach is to identify areas of particular weakness and to devote the bulk of your time to studying these topics, whilst keeping the others ticking over.

But how do you identify these gaps? Here are a few potentially useful techniques.

Trust your instinct

Whilst you’ll also want to try some of the more systematic approaches below, the fact is you’ll probably already have a fairly good idea of your strengths and weaknesses.

A good way of thinking about it is to ask yourself which questions or topics you hope will come up in the exam, and which you really hope don’t appear. The honest answers to these two questions will tell you a lot about your learning to date and the areas you need to prioritise.

Knowledge dump

When you’re thinking about individual topics, a useful first step is to get down on paper (or screen) everything you can recall about that particular topic. Don’t think too much about it or worry about being neat and tidy – let it pour out onto the page.

The idea is that you can then go back to your notes and identify the areas that have stuck and those that need more work, and then focus your time on the latter.

Use Intended Learning Outcomes

Every module will have a set of Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) – you should be able to find them in the module handbook and/or on My Dundee.

All of your assignments, including exams, will be aligned to these ILOs. Judging the extent to which you are currently able to meet each of the ILOs can therefore give you a very good idea of the areas you need to focus on.

Module ILOs can, however, be quite broad, so look also at any ILOs or aims and objectives for individual topics or lectures. In some subjects, the handbook or My Dundee may contain weekly ILOs/aims. And most lecturers will have a list of aims at the start of their classes (on the PowerPoint for example).

Can you see how these could be useful checklists to help you prioritise your revision?

Use feedback

Tutor feedback on any previous assessments you’ve done on the module can be a useful source of information. Look back carefully over any such comments, especially if the exam will follow a similar format, and try to note where the tutor points out specific strengths and weaknesses in the work.

Think about feedback more widely as well – for example, comments tutors may have made in tutorials or practical workshops, points or questions that were emphasised or repeated in lectures, and even moments in class where you felt a little lost or less inclined to contribute. All of these things can help you identify areas that need more work.

Sample Questions

There are lots of different ways you can use sample questions or past papers as part of the revision process. One thing you can use them for is to help identify your strengths and weaknesses.

This might simply be a case of looking over a past paper and ranking each question in terms of your level of confidence. Obviously, you would then want to spend as much time as possible on the topics you felt less confident about.

Alternatively, you might try a short quiz, flashcards, or multiple-choice questions, to give you a quick sense of your strengths and weaknesses in a particular topic. You can source questions from past papers, online searches, or even Artificial Intelligence tools.

These are just a handful of ways you might go about prioritising your revision. You may have other ideas about how you’d do it as well – it’s about finding what works for you and, more perhaps importantly, what gives you the most confidence that your strategy is effective.

After that, it’s a case of drawing on the active revision techniques and review and recall processes that we’ve discussed elsewhere in Exam Essentials to ensure that your revision is as focused and effective as it can be.

Once again, thanks to everyone who joined one of our Exam Essentials workshops this week, where our focus was on Effective Revision. If you missed the workshops, you can view the recording of the online session at https://eu-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/5ab52ea85d5f404d82bf174f96633b9d

Meanwhile, here are some of the key takeaways from this week’s workshops:

1. You may not need to change much – talking to people this week, one striking thing was just how much good practice is already going on out there. Many people are using at least some active techniques in their revision, and also recognising where certain approaches are increasingly unsustainable. So it’s really a question of constantly refining your approach, reinforcing your good practice and wherever possible eliminating the less effective techniques.

2. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ – we’ve explored lots of different active revision techniques across this week’s workshops and blog posts, but not all of these techniques will work for you, and the ones you do like won’t necessarily work in every context. The important thing is that you experiment and find out what works for you, and in which situations. Think of it as a toolbox – you use different tools in different situations, and some of them you just don’t use at all.

3. Study with the type of exam in mind – one important thing to consider is the format of the exam(s) for which you’re revising. For example, essay-type exams are likely to require a different type of revision than multiple-choice exams. Make sure you know the format your exams will take, and think about what you need to get out of your revision as a result. Then apply the appropriate tools for the job.

Next week we’re tweaking the format slightly. We’ll still have our regular blog posts with tips, links and the recorded workshop, but Monday’s online workshop will focus specifically on the online exam environment whilst Wednesday’s on-campus session focuses on – you’ve guessed it – the on-campus exam environment. We’d love to see you at one of the sessions.

Today we want to introduce you to some resources that will help you when it comes to revising more effectively. And scroll down to the bottom of the post for the link to the recording of Monday’s online workshop.

You can access most of our revision resources via our dedicated Revision page.

Our Revision Bites resource contains information about all the ideas we’re exploring this week, including pages on ineffective learning techniques and powerful revision strategies. And for an accessible introduction to the science behind our suggestions, check out the Learning Scientists site.

If you prefer your advice in book form, check out Pass Your Exam, a nifty little number written by members of the ASC team which contains tips and advice on effective revision and more  – you can find it in the library.

What resources or tools have you discovered to help you revise more effectively? Why not share your suggestions on this week’s Padlet? All posts are anonymous.

Be sure to check back here for Friday’s post, where we’ll pick up on some of the key themes from the week and respond to some of your questions and suggestions from the Padlet.

Last but not least, here are links to the recording of Monday’s online workshop on Effective Revision and the slide deck:

https://eu-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/5ab52ea85d5f404d82bf174f96633b9d

In week 2 of Exam Essentials, we’re focusing on Effective Revision.

Last week we acknowledged that it is impossible to study everything and identified the importance of prioritising what you revise and planning accordingly. But to make the most of the time you plan for revision, it’s important to be using techniques that are effective and efficient.

So that’s the focus of this week’s workshops, blog posts and resources – how to avoid ineffective and time-consuming techniques and instead supercharge your revision with approaches that are proven to work.

We’ll explore these approaches over the course of the week, but here are a few tips to get you started:

• be prepared to change and experiment – learning and revising effectively at university and in your specific subject may mean you have to ditch or adapt the way you’ve worked in the past
• recognise and avoid common but ineffective techniques – be aware that the way you’ve studied in the past might not work at university. In fact, common and popular revision techniques such as writing out or memorising notes have been proven to be insufficient for the type of learning required at this level
• make your revision active rather than passive – one reason these techniques are ineffective is because they involve taking a passive approach to revision. By taking a more active, focused approach to what you study, you’ll make your learning deeper and more sustained

We’ll unpack these ideas in this week’s workshops and blog posts but if you just can’t wait, you can read about it all in our Revision Bites resource.

Meanwhile, why not share your thoughts and experiences in our Padlet?  All posts are anonymous and we’ll respond to some of the key issues in a later blog post.

Don’t forget we’ll be running an online workshop on Monday and an on-campus workshop on Wednesday, all about Effective Revision. The online workshop will be available as a recording later in the week if you can’t make it along to either session.

Be sure to check back here for Wednesday’s post, where we’ll share the recording of the online workshop as well as highlighting some useful resources about revision techniques, and again on Friday when we’ll pick up on some of the key themes from the week and respond to some of your questions and suggestions from the Padlet.

Padlet link https://uod.padlet.org/gordonspark/hx9ucfgax6konjtc