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Creating a Revision Schedule

This post was written by Taylor Jeoffroy (PhD Candidate in English, and ASC Tutor)

Do you enjoy the structure of your weekly timetable throughout the semester but feel lost when it comes to exam season? Do you need an extra boost of organisation to sort your revision for exams and final assessments? Making a Revision Schedule for those final weeks of the semester can help reduce stress, avoid procrastination, and keep you on track with everything you need to accomplish during this busy time!

So how do you make a Revision Schedule?

Step One: Gather Information

Ensure you know when your deadlines are and that you’ve reviewed all the information your module has given you about your exams and final assessments.

Exams:

  • How many exams do you have? When are they?
  • What style are your exams? Essays, multiple choice, short answers? Can you bring any materials into the exam with you?
  • Have you been given specific information about what content will appear on the exam? Is it on particular week’s content, chapters, or books?

Final Assessments:

  • How many assessments do you have? When are they due?
  • Read over the assignment information. What materials do you need to complete these?

Once you’ve answered these questions, go and gather your materials. This could include lecture notes, books, articles, online resources, My Dundee pages, etc…

Step Two: Planning

Take these things into consideration when making your schedule:

Evaluate how much time you need to revise for each exam:

  • Which areas are you most confident in? Which areas do you need more time to review the content?
  • For each exam, break your revision down into different topics or styles of revision (reviewing notes, flash-cards, preparing for an essay question)
  • Be realistic!

Evaluate how much time you need to complete an assignment:

  • Break each one down into sections: research, reading, writing, editing, etc.
  • How long will each section take you?
  • Be realistic!

Think about how you’ve revised well in the past.

  • Time: Do you prefer mornings? Evenings?
  • Setting: Do you work well with someone else? Do you need silence or a loud environment?
  • Structure: Do you like to dedicate one day to one exam topic? Or switch between different things?

Step Three: Make your Schedule!

Select a Design for your Schedule

You can make a hand-drawn schedule, use a template, or your digital calendar. A digital one is more convenient to have on your phone and allows you to make changes easily, but a hand-drawn one is fun and lets you design it any way you want!

If you’re a visual learner, it can be helpful to colour-code your calendar. Use a different colour for each subject or assignment you’re working on, breaks, and other commitments. This will give you a good visual overview of your time and allow you to see if you’re spending the right amount of time per subject and pinpoint which topics you need to allocate more time to.

Fill in your Schedule

Using the information you gathered in Steps 1 and 2, create your schedule.

Tip: Work backwards, starting from your exam, to give yourself sufficient time to review all the material!

  • Start by adding any scheduled exams and other commitments you have (events, meetings, work, etc.). Putting essential things in first will ensure you don’t accidentally double-book yourself when scheduling revision sessions.
  • Divide your allocated revision time across several days/weeks to allow yourself to come back to the same material several times with breaks in between.
  • Schedule Breaks: short breaks every 25 to 30 minutes will allow you to vary what you study throughout the day. You should also schedule larger breaks, including rest days and rewards, to keep you motivated over the full revision period.

A final tip: Be Flexible! When creating your schedule, it’s good to plan more time than you’ll need so you can move things around if something comes up or if a topic is trickier than you expected. Remember: a plan is a tool, so use it the way that works best for you!

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Can AI Help me Revise?

This guest post was written by Emma Duke-Williams (CTIL)

Revising, as all students know, can be challenging. It’s difficult to re-read notes, while making sure you understand what they mean, as staff rarely ask you to just regurgitate facts, they want you to show that you understand the content.

So, could Artificial Intelligence tools help you?

Hopefully you’ve seen the Use of Generative AI for Students published in September. This guidance summarises many points about Generative AI (GAI), including a list of (some) potential uses and some points to be aware of.

I’ll start with a few things you should know:

  • Generative AI does not know facts; it simply generates content based on existing content. It can’t validate the accuracy of its information.
  • Some sites require you to sign up and supply an email or phone number, which you may not be comfortable doing.
  • There are concerns about various ethical practices of these tools.

If you’re doing coursework or any graded assessments the University’s position is that you must NOT use GenAI unless its use has been specifically authorised by your lecturer in the assessment brief. This includes remote online exams (i.e. when you’re not invigilated on campus).

However, today we’re looking at your revision. Alongside your highlighter pen and flip cards, could GAI be another tool in your revision kit?

Let’s take some of the ideas for potential use of GAI and think about them in context of your revision.

If you’d rather not share your phone number with external bodies, then we suggest going to Bing.com, signing into it with your University Account and using Microsoft CoPilot. You may, of course, already have an account on ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, etc., in which case you can use that instead.

Once you’ve logged in to your GAI of choice, here are a few potential ways it can help you with your revision.

Summarising

GAI can summarise longer texts and documents to help you check your own understanding of the key messages and concepts presented.

There are a number of ways to do this, but I’d recommend following Nathan Beel’s advice. He reminds you to check what is generated, and make sure not to use it for your coursework. He also talks about using GAI to generate some multiple choice questions; perhaps you and a friend could both generate sets of questions from two different papers you should have read, and then swap.

There are other tools that will summarise pdfs, such as ResearchRabbit. You’ll have to create an account, and the free accounts are limited to 3 uploads a day.

Debating

GAI can act as a conversational or debating partner to develop your ideas and thinking. GAI is very good at answering questions you pose it. If you’re not sure about something, why not start a discussion with an AI?

Martin Compton has made a useful video demonstrating GAI discussions. You might also like a previous video of his looking at enhancing any lecture notes you might have made.

Understanding

GAI can help you understand tricky concepts. Hopefully, at this stage of the semester, you have covered the basics, and you do understand them! However, if you are very unsure of some of the content, then a quick question about some of the basics could help you. Remember, GAI can make errors, so perhaps using what it’s generated to “spot the ‘deliberate’ mistakes” could act as a useful tutor for you.

What other ways have you found to use GAI in your revision? Do you think it was useful, or do you have other ways you have found more useful?

Finally, remember, revision is critical; GAI can help you, but it shouldn’t be the only way you revise. You don’t have to use it at all, and if you choose to, it’s most effective alongside a range of strategies.  

Good luck with your exams!

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How do I Manage my Time in Exams?

When we talk about exams, we often explore strategies for effective revision, such as active learning or making a revision plan. It’s true that strong revision techniques are the best way to do well in exams, but there are also strategies that can improve our performance once we’re actually in the exam itself.

In this blog, we’ll explore seven top tips that will help you do your best in your upcoming exams.

  • Read the Instructions: Before diving into the questions, take a moment to carefully read all instructions provided by the examiners. Make sure you have a clear understanding of what you need to do in each section. For instance, do you need to answer all questions in a section, or just choose one or two? Are your markers looking for lengthy answers, or just a full bullet points? Getting clear on these points before you start writing will save time later on.
  • Skim the Questions: Begin by quickly scanning through the entire exam paper. Identify questions that you find relatively easy and can answer quickly. Getting an overview of the whole exam helps you mentally prepare and boosts your confidence by reminding you how much you know!
  • Create a Time Budget: Break down the exam into manageable segments, considering how much time you have for each section. Prioritize your tasks based on the point value of each question. A common mistake is to spend too much time on a single question, meaning you run out of time to answer the others. For example, if a two-hour exam has four questions, all worth 25%, then you should spend approximately 30 minutes on each of them. It may help to write a little timeline for yourself, then keep an eye on a clock throughout the exam to make sure you stick to your schedule.
  • Start with What You Know: Once you’ve scanned the exam, start with the questions you are most familiar with or find easiest. This strategic approach work for two reasons: first, it helps build confidence as you work on a familiar topic; second, it makes sure you don’t spend all your time working on difficult problems while you run out of time to put down the information you already know.
  • Stay Calm: Exams can be a stressful experience, but staying focussed will help you do your best work. Try taking a few deep breaths to calm your nerves, or close your eyes and meditate for a minute. If you can’t think of what to write, pull out some spare paper or open a new document and try writing down whatever comes to mind, in any order. An ideas dump at the beginning of an exam can help you get important facts out of your head, then you can structure them into full answers later.
  • Flag and Return: Don’t let yourself get stuck on difficult questions. When you find something you can’t answer right away, flag it and move forward. Returning to challenging questions after completing the rest of the exam ensures that you make the most efficient use of your time. As you answer other questions, the your mind will be working on the original problem in the background. When you come back to it at the end, you may even find the answer has already come to you!
  • Review Your Work: If you have time, save a few minutes at the end to review your answers. Pay attention to areas where you might have made errors or could provide more detail. A thorough review not only helps catch mistakes but also allows you to refine or add material that can make your answers even better.

Doing well in exams is mostly about good revision, so make sure you check out our other resources on revision techniques! Once you’ve got those down, though, the strategies here will make sure you do your best in your exams and truly demonstrate everything you’ve learned.