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ASC Exam Essentials – Week 1 Round-up

Thank you to those of you who attended one of our Exam Essentials workshops this week, where our focus was on Planning Your Revision. If you missed the workshops, you can view the recording of the online session at https://eu-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/6bd776945cc4495d9c37d3f1b36712e9

Don’t forget we do it all again next week, this time on the theme of Effective Revision Techniques. Meanwhile, here are some of the key takeaways to come out of this week’s workshops:

  • You can’t cover everything. Everyone was in agreement on this one. Especially with the exams following on directly from the end of semester, there just isn’t time to extensively revise all the material. So it’s important to prioritise by identifying your strengths and weaknesses and focusing as much time as possible on the things you don’t yet know. It’s a hard thing to do, but you have to accept that you probably won’t be able cover everything
  • Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) and lecture aims & objectives can help you determine what material you might need to prioritise. Each module has a set of ILOs which outline the learning you should be able to demonstrate by the end of the course, whilst individual lectures and classes will often have even more specific learning goals. You can use these aims, objectives and outcomes to get a sense of where you currently stand in relation to the desired learning, and to prioritise accordingly
  • Revision plans need to be achievable and balanced. It’s easy to produce an impressive revision timetable which has you working like a well-oiled machine and covering all the content on the course. But it’s entirely counterproductive, and even harmful, if that timetable is impossible to achieve and only leaves you feeling overwhelmed, stressed and overworked. This is where the previous points about prioritising come in – your plan needs to be realistic and achievable and needs to include looking after yourself and striking the right work-life balance

Next week we’ll look at effective approaches to learning which help you to maximise the time you are able to give to your revision. Join us for one of the workshops and keep checking back here for next week’s blog posts. In the meantime, have a great weekend.

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ASC Exam Essentials Week 1 – Planning Your Revision – Useful Links

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

Our Revision Bites resource has a section on Scheduling Effective Revision, including some advice on revision timetables and an introduction to two important concepts which can supercharge your revision – ‘spaced practice’ and ‘interleaving’  .

There’s some more detailed advice on timetabling your revision in our set of three Sway Resources – Organising your Revision, Avoiding Procrastination, and Focussing your Revision.

One of the keys to revising successfully is staying focused and motivated. If this is something you feel you struggle with, or you’d just like a few more ideas, you might want to check out our recorded Lightning Sessions on Focus and Motivation and Avoiding Procrastination.

If you want a break from online resources, two members of the Academic Skills Centre team have co-authored a book called Pass Your Exam which contains lots of tips and advice – you can find it in the library.

What resources or tools have you discovered to help you with scheduling your revision? Why not share your suggestions on this week’s Padlet? Your comments there 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’s the link to the recording of Monday’s online workshop on Planning Your Revision: https://eu-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/6bd776945cc4495d9c37d3f1b36712e9

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ASC Exam Essentials Week 1 – Planning Your Revision

This week on Exam Essentials, we’re focusing on Planning your Revision.

Starting out on the revision process can be a daunting and sometimes overwhelming task. Carefully planning your revision can help you gain control of the situation, but only if that plan is realistic and effective.  

So that’s what we’ll be looking at in this week’s workshops, blog posts and resources – how to plan your revision so that it is both effective and manageable.

We’ll unpack that process over the course of the week, but here are a few suggestions to get you started:

  • plan strategically – rather than allocating an equal amount of revision time to every topic, weight the time you allocate according to need and where you’re likely to make the biggest gains
  • plan realistically – there’s not much point in having a detailed revision timetable if there’s no prospect of being able to stick to it, your plan needs to be achievable
  • plan to look after yourself – it’s counterproductive to spend all your time revising, you need to look after yourself by planning for breaks, leisure time and exercise

Why not share your thoughts on these points, as well as any other questions or suggestions you have about planning your revision, 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 Planning your 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 to help you plan your revision, 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/20z7eiko3i9xsc3o