Exams - Revision.

KeyserSoze_3

Its that time of the year again where we start to stress and eat loads(well i do when i am stressed) over our upcoming exams.
I could do with some opinions and views of how to go about revising, my revision technique isn't very good to be honest, and i have 7 exams (yes SEVEN!!) in 10 days, i'm screwed :eek:

To make matters worse, i got 4 in 4 days between 15th to 18th May, HELP!

Moley456

HI

I don't want to get you down, but revision is very much a self orientated thing. While you can do essay timetables and plans, if this doesn't work for you you just end up wasting time. If going to the library doesn't work then don't waste time trying to make it work.

What you do find is that as time gets closer and you start to realise how important and how close they are, you tend to realise that you really just need to learn. Start early and just keep trying. Between the exams you will work like crazy and you will get tired but when you are done, everything becomes so much sweeter.

Don't worry about the exams just worry about not proscrastinating.

Good luck,

Gemini21

Hi,

I'm facing my finals the week after next (where have the last four years gone?!?) and I find covering my walls and wardrobes with brightly coloured mind maps works best for me - I seem to absorb the information without noticing!!

Eat fish around the time of your exams, and fresh fruit and veg, especially a banana as you arrive at the exam room - which gives you a boost of energy about half way through a three hour exam! It works for me anyway, could have a psychological effect too?

Good Luck!

Gemini21

[Deleted User]

I loved my exam ritual. I had an irish tea (whiskey and tea) followed by a paracetamol - hear me out! The whiskey calmed me down (not much of it in the tea) and the paracetamol was to stop any potential headaches. The cafeine in the tea would also speed your brain up a little. Hehe, it was my thing and it was probably stupid.

I always took polo mints into the exam with me for a constant supply of sugar. It would be interesting to see what other things you could do to peak your brain's activity for 3 hours. Maybe something to increase bloodflow might help, mild pre-exam exercise anyone?

fran_from_willesden

Have you been able to go through past exam papers?? I know this isn't relevant for everyone but by looking at past papers you can get an idea of the kind of subjects covered in your exam.

For example, in one of my exams a couple of weeks ago, I went through past papers going back about 4 years and there were only about 7 topics that covered the course material...instead of me revising 12 topics, I only studied 7 and all of them came up!

I find they always help...especially if you can answer the questions, then you know the basics of the subject.

Good luck!

viru.doshi

I had an aritificial intelligence exam on friday, past exam papers did not reflect this years exam in the slightest so becareful. Fran, personally i think you were lucky, but that's awesome it worked out for you, hope you aced it!

lellie

usually unless the lecturer is a moron the past exam papers are pretty similar.. if you do an essay based subject.. try and answer a few of the essays on past papers or make up your own questions.. do them timed!! Then afterwards go through them with your notes and see how you could improve them.

Skyhigh

Wooo AI!
Didn't use a bit of PROLOG by chance?

A big problem I've found with my exams over the past 3 years is....the department keeps changing the course and modules, so there are not relative past papers, which means we're always going into exams without past papers to look at - whereas other courses, such as English have past papers for up to 10 years!

And as I do a CS course, the papers and questions can easily be completely difference from year to year, with technology and languages changing so much

Last exam tomorrow - most people at my Uni (Hull) finished LAST WEEK.
Last exam ever....if only I wasn't doing my Masters next year. D'oh!

The 16th for my FYP presentation....joy...
You'd think the 39k documentation and 15k lines of code would be enough......!

:!:

viru.doshi

Yes, lecturer is a moron, unfortunately!

A good motivator I find is to think about where you don't want your life to be like in 20 years time, put in the blood sweat and tears now and you'll be happier later on (potentially, at least).

SkyHigh Lol, no prolog used - was all theory based, neural networks, fuzzy systems, clustering algorithms etc.
Handed my fyp 22nd march, did a Poster Presentation about it too. I did a sms-to-speech application for mobile phones. What did you do?

Chalky87

Don't know if it's just my Uni but our lecturers have pointed us in the direction of what should be covered in the exam; seen as they wrote it themselves...and so far so good, I've revised what they've suggested and been OK. It's been a god send actually, otherwise would have ended up trawling through loads of material!!

viru.doshi

its not just your uni, its just that you have nice lecturers! wish mine gave me hints!! or better still the exam paper haha