Your exams might seem to be a long way off, but those that want to do well need to begin their revision now. Studies by Psychologists have proven that spreading out revision improves the retention of information and improves grades – this doesn’t mean doing nothing in between though. It means working out a realistic programme, including building in time for relaxation, and sticking to it. Planning takes time, but without it you will undoubtedly waste time by not revising the right material, or in the right way.

Practice what you will be tested on and in what way
The right way involves practicing what you will be tested on and in the way that you will be tested. If you learn material for an essay answer, but never practice writing the essay you are only doing half the job. Equally, you may have written the perfect model answer, but if you aren’t able to reproduce it within the time limits of the exam paper, you are jeopardising your chances of doing well before you even start.
Exam boards provide past papers, marking schemes and examiners reports, and these should be used to group topics and plan responses to questions. Look at several years of exam past papers to identify the range of questions asked on any one topic.

Answer the question that has been asked
One well recognised error is for students to rote learn a model answer to a particular question and reproduce this in an exam, despite the exam question being worded differently. That is why you will have frequently been told to ‘answer the question that has been asked, not the one you want to be asked’.
Recognise that whatever techniques worked for you for previous exams won’t necessarily work for the next exam, particularly if it is at a higher level. Just re-reading your notes is unlikely to be of much use in remembering them.
You need to re-organise your notes in some way so that the information is retained in the process, but this does not mean just copy-ing them out again.

Increase your chances of retaining information
Preparing prompt cards, writing paragraphs on key topics, drawing a ‘mind map’ of how subjects or themes relate to each other, and drafting model answers are all possible ways of increasing the chances that the information is lodged in your memory.
Testing yourself on only the things you already feel confident about is a mistake. Sometimes you need to not do so well at something to maximise your learning – to be motivated to do your best you need something to aim for. It’s obviously better to do this in your revision that in an exam!

You’ll often find that you know more than you think
There are plenty of online tests and mock exams around, and most teachers will encourage the submission of test questions, so make the most of them. Find someone who can test you or who you can try and explain something to – you will often find that you know more than you think, and this can be a really useful way of structuring answers so that they are coherent and succinct, but contain all the key information.