How do you Revise?
 

Well in one week today the first of six exams start. I am kind of shitting myself, even though I know I can pull it off.

Basically for each exam I have 8 questions, I then choose 2 questions to answer in two hours. We are taught 10 topics, which means to be safew I need to revise 4 topics (will prolly revise 5 just incase one question is really shit) I can revise a topic in rouhgly an hour or two, and then nearer to the exam I will answer past questioons.

Going on this theory, If I spend roughly 8 hours a day revising I can get at least a subject done (thus it will take me 6 days) to finally be done with revising, then I can re revise.

Anyway its exam season so was wondering how you revise and if you have any tips.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

What year are you in at Uni?

Re: How do you Revise?
 

an hour, tops

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Second

Re: How do you Revise?
 

In third year at Uni i spent 3 days revising total (for all exams).

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Anyways it's cool with essay based questions.

First make sure your notes are in good order.

Next read through them a few times to make sure you understand the subject.

Make short hand notes on the subjects you wanna learn (ie so you can memorise the basic facts).

Then get all the past papers you can and figure out what questions will most likely come up.

Figure out what essays you wanna right on, write out the essay, break it down into short hand notes, memorise the notes, go into the exam and ace it.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

I wait till around 9 hours before the exam (3 hours to revise, 5h of sleep and 1h to get up and go to uni).
Then I start to revise (that's usually somewhere between midnight and 1 am). I'm only able to actually revise when there's "some" pressure of time.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

so you get examined on whether you can remember 20% of what you were taught.

sounds challenging.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

i don't usually revise (o r at least i didn't when i was in school)
cause really.. if you don't know it now, you won't know it then.
just pick out some key points on each topic and memorize them.. then make up BS to fill an essay during the test. you've probably got at least an hour for each question right?
if you're allowed, take two answer booklets, or scrap paper, whatever. write down your key points as soon as you sit down, (as soon as you're allowed to start). then you can't 'forget' them later. do this before you even read the questions.

i usually got B's or A's on my test essays. i swear half of them are made up BS.. but it's those key points which earn you your marks. (B is about 76-83% and A is 84-100%)

Re: How do you Revise?
 

copy/summarise/perfect notes

look at past papers

summarise topics on one side of A4

do past papers.

and read, obviously.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

I don't understand. What does it mean to revise an exam? You get to take the exam home and redo it?

Re: How do you Revise?
 

being an idiot you would not understand the concept. You are not tested on 20% of what you are taught, you are taught a certain amount of topics, in brief and then have to answer on two (or three in my case) aspects of the topic. You cannot get away with just copying what you are taught.


what lokken says is absolutely true. I find that reading is the first step (research). Then i summarise my reading into more simple topics. then i make my summarised notes into smaller topics on cue cards etc, having indicator words etc.

People who say revision isn't important are wrong in my opinion, especially for a proper degree. You need to research topics fully, if you haven't already, and have broad understanding of a certain aspect of a topic. That is the most important thing, making sure that you have done the reading.

On of my teachers at sixth form gave the class the most brilliant advice, that revision is a personal thing and its important to find the best revision method for yourself.

She also believed that a good method is to write and copy down information. On the belief that the more times you write something down, the more likely you are to remember it. This has always helped me in my exams. Copy and pasting information from one place to another, without a computer!

doing past papers, or atleast looking at them is obviously important. Most exams are the same year on year with certain simple changes in the wording of questions. I always look at past exams and then pick topics from them to revise more closely,

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Yahwe may be many things, but he's not an idiot.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

I must be an idiot because when i read:

my maths tells me that 2 answers from a paper of 8 topics when you were taught 10 topics

means he was taught 10

and answers on 2

or as i put it. 20%

my my, you are an angry young man.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

My method of revision involves:

1) doing sweet f.a. till the night before.
2) watch some tv.
3) on no! it's getting late.. time to whip out some online gaming..
4) sometime around 3-4.00 am, take a look to see what this exam thing is about
5) hmm.. this may take a while, keep the caffeine rolling in
6) sometime around 7.00am.. brilliant, I've sucessfully learnt half of what I need to know, this is going be easy
7) off to school, exam time..
8) finish the day, go home and sleep it off

Re: How do you Revise?
 

tonnes of past papers,
learning the notes as u do the papers,
redo the papers, remembering how u answered the questions, relate it to the notes
go into the exam apply the same types of methods, because they are likely to be the similar with the amount of past questions u did
come out feelin like a twat adn thinkin u failed
open ur results to see u passed

Re: How do you Revise?
 

My anthropology professor used to call this 'avoidance rituals'

Re: How do you Revise?
 

yes

they're not restricted to homo sapiens

how curious. i didn't know you knew anthropology.

such a worthy use of a mortal mind

Re: How do you Revise?
 

My undergraduate degree is in anthropology. I'm still deciding what I want to do for graduate school.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Maybe he's wrong about the exact figure, but the basis for his argument is solid. It's true, pig isn't revising his entire syllabus.

That's what it is to be "clever" now though, supposedly. How well you can relate the knowledge you've learnt in class. Originally the idea was to use the skills and knowledge you've learnt in case studies, lateral thinking, or another type of situation where you need to adapt them. Now though, with past papers, there are only so many questions you can be asked. If you look at the past papers you can pretty much predict what will be coming.

So being academic doesn't mean "being clever" usually - it means "working hard". So perhaps you aren't supposed to be tested on your lateral thinking skills, or ability to adapt knowledge. You're just being tested on how hard you're willing to work. Which is fair enough for employers to base their recruitment on.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Now I've handed my project report in, I will be in the library (or somewhere without my computer anyway) for around 4 hours each morning revising my mathsy-type topics. Then I will have lunch, then find somewhere more comfortable to read and make notes on the non-maths stuff for around 3 hours. Then I will come home, relax a bit but dip in and out of note-taking throughout the evening.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

It's for Yahwe's reason i despise exams, there elitest and never show a persons true knowledge of a subject.

However, i tried to avoid a last minute rush of revision by making some short consise revision notes , then come exam time you have 20-30 pages to revise from rather than 200-300. Just make notes on notes, rinse and repeat til you have one or two pages of key points you cant remember easily.
________
VAPORIZER GUN

Re: How do you Revise?
 

I've spent the past two weeks or so interleaving heavy drinking with revision, though I've nine exams timetabled awkwardly so there's about a day between each one to brush up on the next.

Yesterday's did not go well.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

I don't quite understand why you have to write essays for an exam? We always got a list of questions, 20-30, open or multiple-choice, that we needed to answer. It has been like that always. The only time I had to write an essay was for the subject Dutch for my final exam when I was 17 years old.

In uni we had project-oriented studying, which meant a group of students (2-8, depending on the project) got handed out a project with a goal and we had to design and implement it. We got rated for the result, which included the actual application (software èh), the documentation and a final report.

I'm not sure what I should think of all this essay-writing. It kind of fits the image I have of the English way of doing things: very cultural, very conservative, very... Victorian... I don't know... I can't really explain. When I was in London I was kind of surprised about the sheer number of people with a servicing profession (as opposed to production/development professions). I saw people walk around with red signs on a pole with a yellow M painted on it, so to say, and the number of people cleaning up the stations. Here in the Netherlands you find a trashcan on every corner of the street so you can toss your own trash away, but in London you have these guys who walk around with their trash-wagons. I often found myself walking around with an empty can because I couldn't find a place to toss it away.
Or kids with "security" on their shirt. Very weird. But I know I only saw the tourist part of London, so I don't have a good total image of England to compare with.

On the other hand, the manner of testing is good for professions where one needs to be good with words, like lawyers or business people. But I feel it's a tad unfair for professions where skill and understanding of systems, such as in software, is more important.
But I don't know what pig is studying, so I probably don't have a good total image about how educational things work there on your island.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Surely being "elitist" (as you put it) would mean that it is biased towards the best, in which case it does show a person's true knowledge of the subject.

Exams are the best way to test knowledge. It's as simple as that.

What else would you use? Coursework? That's even more skewed to "more work = better mark", and in any case you can never be sure what kind of outside influences affect the end result, let alone whether the candidate wrote it themselves.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

That isn't necessarily true.

Sure, you can do enough to get by by only revising 20-40% of the syllabus.

Those who put in the time and effort are more likely to reap the rewards though, as they can select the question they'd be able to answer best, and get the maximum marks to their ability.

People who do less work are restricted to one or two questions, from which it may be harder to extract marks from.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

I generally do something like:

Look through past papers from the last 3 years to see what the questions are like. From this I will generally pick a few topics I want to work on.
Read up on these topics through my lecture notes and then textbooks making some notes as I go along.
Redo the tutorial questions.
Do the releveant past paper questions.

That will all be done in 1 day about a week before the exam. Then again the night before I will:

Rewrite up the notes I made.
Redo the tutorial and past paper questions.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Your quite correct about exams being the best way to test knowledge, but can never show if a student has truely understood whats going on. It's very easy to remember some statistics and facts and regurgitate those during an exam. Not everyone can do themselves justice in an exam enviroment. I'd much rather see more monitored coursework with small tests to accompany them.
________
Colorado Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Re: How do you Revise?
 

So I'm pretty sure I've just failed my degree then.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

No offence but can you be properly tested if you dont write a good 3-5 pages on a topic, I had two multiple choices exams this year and they were for computing (which is obligatory for once subject and the other was optional) now I got a 90% and didnt revise, why? Because I chose the most reasonable answer and general knowledge got me through, I knew no specifics, thus didnt really know the subject. My law and politics however is completly different :/

Re: How do you Revise?
 

How can you be properly tested if you know how to write difficult sentences and know all the pretty words, but don't have a clue about the subject?
I experienced this in some subject at school called ITIL. We got this case where we had to "implement" ITIL in some virtual company. Our group did almost nothing that course, and we should have flunked, definately... but in the end we had to give a presentation before the teacher and the other students about our implementation. The presentation was average, if it wasn't for the final line of the conclusion, in big bold letters on the screen (we had a beamer and stuff) "ITIL + company = winning formula". The teacher (a one time substitute for this course) found this so great he almost spontaneously ejaculated.
We got a 90% for that course, and the other students couldn't quite believe it.

From that time on I kind of dispise people in suits and with a tie who go to a customer to magically solve their problems, because I honestly believe that these kind of people do not master their profession and need their presentation to leave a good impression with the customer.

And that's why I don't believe in writing essays either to truely test a person on his abilities. The presentation of an essay is as important, if not more important, than the actual contents or ideas behind it. If I had to write an essay about software, I'd probably fail because my handwriting is crap, and I'm not good at writing sentences correctly the first time around. The backspace on my keyboard is my greatest friend.

[edit]
And so is the edit button...

What I wanted to say is, there is no full-proof system of testing people of their abilities. The best one I have experienced it project-oriented studying where one is rated on the final product and the overall course of the project. But it takes a lot of time for the examiner to track the project.
[/edit]

I could also tell you how we barely passed a website-project at school thanks to my l33t photoshop skillz, but I'll leave that for another time ;).

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Well in exams its down to content. At least at my uni we get as I said 8 topics, 2 questions from the 8. We are taught 10-12 topics which means that to cover your own back, you need to revise 4-6 topics well, this I believe is better to know 4-6 in depth topics rather than have a general knowledge, general knowledge is great of a subject but what differs a degree from a high school education is "thinking outside of the box" developing ideas and finding flaws in the ideas of fellow academia, these are skills that will be much more useful than the standard 1+2=3 (ie ideas that are in a box, a set of rules that you have to keep too.)

Im sure if you ask jerome now who is taking his GCSEs in Britain he is going to be rather pissed off that he has to learn a pile of bollacks, that doesnt let him think. Sure he can learn it and look at him he gets As because he remembered a chapter from a text book, but critically speaking he can do jack shit. At my university at least we are encouraged to take an incredible "critical" approach to the way we look at things, we learn the rules and boundries, then we can see whats good, bad and what can be changed.

Writing essays in exam conditions is completly different, you have one hour to show off, and in that one hour you have to try and do what you can, its not about presentation its about content. I could walk into an exam, put loads of fancy words on the page, beautiful handwriting and articulate grammar and spelling. But I dont, I go in scribble my answers down on the page in a way that the examiner can understand and hope for the best mark.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

OK the rest of your post needs to be commented upon too but i cba atm.

On this point however i shall:

THE UK IS ON A HEIGHTENED SECURITY LEVEL DUE TO THE TERRIST THREAT. THIS MEANS NO TRASH CANS* IN ANY PUBLIC PLACES BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THE BAD MEN PUT THEIR BOMS!!!

Do you understand now?



Also if you judge the UK on what you see in London (/Edingburgh during the fringe) then you are a very stupid ****er.
















*rubbish bins

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Thats why we here in Britain drop our litter on the floors, its not only stopping the n0rty evil terrorists, but it provides food for animals (rats and pigeons ofc), and provides jobs.

Everyone is a winner

Re: How do you Revise?
 

That brings me to the subject of those policemen walking around with automatic machineguns and that convoy of five policevans loaded with policemen that came rushing through the streets.
I found this all a bit silly. Surely beating terrists is important, but walking around with machineguns? I felt unsafer in London because of this than here in the Netherlands where the police isn't allowed to use their gun unless they're bleeding and dying already. And even then they only get fluffy bullets.

I know, I get the same thing when I'm on holiday and I tell people I'm Dutch... "oh Amsterdam, you got drugs?".
But still, London left a certain impression, and it makes me curious if the rest of the UK is even remotely like it.

Blame Hollywood.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Police arent allowed to carry guns, unless they are part of what I believe is called SO19 (Armed Response Unit or summet like that) Theres only a small group in each force, the average bobby or detective can't carry guns.

I think you will find the rest of the UK isnt really like London, I myself despise London, its overcrowded, a bit of a shithole in places, and thinks its the dogs bollacks, for an experience of a real UK city try Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham where you will find something that resembles the European culture but is still British. We also have beautiful countryside, the yorkshire/derbyshire moors, penines, Cornwall etc etc. Well worth another visit.

Incidently, my theory on travel is that you can only truly experience a country if you arent a tourist, if you act and do as the locals do then you will get a feel for what the place is like!

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Yes they can, and frequently do :confused:

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Although you do get bins in the rest of the country, you never (for example) get them in train stations. This is because train stations were traditional IRA targets. This isn't the american definition of "terrorism" (one attack on the country, a couple of lone nuts), this is organised and consistent terrorism that has been going on for decades.

That's not a criticism of the "essay", that's you telling a story where the teacher was a moron.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Give him bad reputation!
Rá!!
that will teach some manners



:(

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Most of you start off with large texts and then you go breaking it down into smaller and smallers texts until it fits on hand notes.

Here in brazil most people do the same, except that when the texts are that small, they write it down on the desks the tests will be taken


i think its called cheating...

:(

Re: How do you Revise?
 

How many teachers do you know who aren't morons?
J/K.

But obviously your kind of "essays" are different than ours. We got rated for presentation as well as contents, which is what I experienced during my final exam of middle school where I had to write an essay for Dutch. I nearly flunked because of that bloody essay, and not because my Dutch was so incredibly bad.

My final report for my graduation only got a 75% too, because the presentation wasn't great. Not a SINGLE remark about the contents. Not ONE. All points were deducted for presentation... headings on a fourth level that were too deep, colours of images that were fked up by the printer, page-numbering thingies, typo's that I missed and a few other things.
Sure, it's a tad different than an essay you write in a few hours, but it shows that people do mind the presentation of a document.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

Drunk.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

That's about as useful as replying "with my brain", or "while I'm breathing".

Re: How do you Revise?
 

This one time I was sober and forgot where I lived :(

Re: How do you Revise?
 

That's pretty similar to how I revise, except for before going to bed I

9) start the computer and sign up for the 2nd date of the exam. :(

Re: How do you Revise?
 

I read whilst pacing up and down repeating key words over and over for about 4 weeks. Then I wake up at 5am on the day of the exam and revise solidly. To clear my head I walk from home to the exam hall. In this time I learn three obscure facts with which to scare friends because they don't know them minutes before the exam.

After 3 hours or so I try to forget all the knowledge I have just gained through the mediums of drink and bad horror movies. And people say computer games are a waste of time.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

nonsense

the best way to asses is clearly a one on one system where the examiner experiences the student's work, thinking and ability over a long period of time (3 years seems about right).

this is undoubtably the best method.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

because such an essay, no matter how well written gets a low mark.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

I consider most revision cheating.

And I don't really agree "grading" in most subjects anyway. It seems fairly ridiculous most of the time.

Re: How do you Revise?
 

It is, however, impractical, as it requires complete disinterest on behalf of the supervisor. Whilst it does remove some of the problems ("performance on the day"), those are things that tend to be isolated to individual exams. What if your supervisor dislikes you? That's three years ballsed up. Furthermore, different supervisors will look for different things, when you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of people it makes much more sense to have some sort of standardised test.