Six of my Best ACE Revision Signposts

Don’t forget to ‘have a life’ as you prepare for your exams. Reward yourself after a long study session share an online movie or video call your friends. Try your best to develop your own balance between work and play. Ultimately, reward yourself with breaks-taking a reasonable break after every good hour’s work. There is nothing wrong with rewards like chocolate, ice-cream or a packet of gummy bears; as everyone who has done something constructive deserves a little thank you. The best reward you can give yourself on study days are breaks.

It is important to keep up communication with your friends and family around exam time. Let them know how you are feeling especially if you are anxious about a subject. You will feel so much better about a problem if you ‘chat’ about it to someone. It can be easy to get cut off from the outside world when you are highly focused, so try not to let this happen. Balance is the optimal situation here. Having a study buddy or study group you can lean on and work with is a super way of staying connected.

Using your family to help you learn is a useful tool that few utilise properly. Some of your siblings will have completed exams and may be able to pass on some good quality information or advice to you, so remind them to save their notes. Even if the content of their notes isn’t suitable for your learning style, their methods and notes structure could give you some ideas on preparation of your own. If you are the oldest in the family, get your parents involved and tap into knowledge and practical advice they may have on subjects they enjoyed in school.

You need to view revision as a fulltime job making sure you stick to the plan you set out for yourself. In my opinion, this involves not having a part time job, getting that Lifestyle Timetable in place, attending all your classes, and doing homework to the best of your ability. If on ‘no school’ days you decide on nine a.m. as the start time for study, get up before then, have breakfast, get ready and begin studying at that exact time. The students that do well are those who apply this self-disciplined approach and it guarantees that you are getting maximum efficiency out of your time. A high level of satisfaction will come when you get your exam results; knowing you gave it your all. It is better having a plan in place and fail sometimes on it than no plan at all. Try not to beat yourself up if things don’t fall into place exactly each time. Get up and start again.

You should keep the big nights to a minimum. Try to organise Friday nights as at least then by Monday morning, you will be well rested and ready to focus again. Getting to bed at a reasonable time and getting plenty of sleep at the weekend will allow you to stick to your goals and plans. You will have more time during the summer to have fun. Now is the time to focus.

I have known top students to have sticky notes stuck to the inside of cupboard doors, on the edge of mirrors, laptop monitors, TV screens, etc. Anywhere your eyes fall, you should put a post-it (sticky note) with key information on it! Repeatedly seeing information as you walk past or glance in the mirror will help to secure it into your long-term memory, in the same way that seeing adverts helps you remember a brand. Use different coloured and sized sticky notes for different subjects. Again, it is all about developing your own system and methods that you like. Stickies come in all shapes, sizes and colours. Use different ones for different subjects. Get creative in order to remind the brain to remember things.