Help for revision - AS Level

74jax

Caroline_a wrote: »

Surely this should be a question for her teachers? As others have said, different people revise differently and additionally different subjects require different styles of revision. So, you wouldn't revise Maths as you would revise English Lit, or French as you revise Physics.

Yes but she asked me. I didn't want to say 'can't help hun, ask your lecturer tomorrow'. I did say it I might be being dumb but is revision to condense information.

I really appreciate everyone's answers, lots of different approaches,much more useful to her than what I could have told her and also better than 'just ask a lecturer'.

74jax

meritaten wrote: »

Different ways of revising suit different people. Some can just 'read through' their coursework and it works for them. others virtually have to 'redo it'. most people go through the work and condense it into short paragraphs. some highlight 'key words'. others do 'mind mapping'.
while she still has time perhaps she could try the key words or mind mapping to see if it works for her (explanation of mind mapping and how to do it can be googled). it sounds as if she had a very good retentive memory for her GCSEs which may suit this method of revising.
you can also buy 'revision guides/aids' in most subjects. Personally, I swore by the Letts guides which actually taught me Statistical and Quantitative Mathematics.

She does like her mind maps.

pollypenny wrote: »

For English lit, learn key quotations for themes and characters.

Ensure that these are 'brief, apt and accurate' as the old rubric said. It may be useful to do this in chart form. The teacher will probably have groups doing this in class, for display and each student will make a A4 copy for themselves.

I did Sociology A-level when it was a new, exciting subject. I read, read, read and read, not just the set books, but around the subject. I had a carp teacher who didn't set essays so I had little essay practice. My English skill got me a B.

That's really helpful thank you.

arbrighton wrote: »

I'm less able to help with English Lit etc though

That's all fab advice, thank you, don't worry about the English lit, others have really good ideas, but thank you for your comments.

meritaten

Oh and Good luck to her! and YOU! I remember when my kids were revising for exams - its hard on parents too. I think my 'key role' was making sandwiches, supplying drinks and ensuring that they got enough sleep and some 'fun' at weekends!

kitrat

74jax wrote: »

Can anyone help me in how to revise? It's been almost 30 years since I was at school, so I am not even sure we did revision then......:rotfl:

My DD has her AS exams this year and is trying to revise. She sailed through he GCSEs without really doing any work for them as she just had a nack of being able to 'get by' with good grades.

Fast forward to A Levels.......

She didn't attend revision classes for GCSE as didn't need to, so has never been taught the whole how-to-revise theory.

She is very good at using you-tube to find ideas, getting lots of folders, wonderful colored pens, lost of post-its etc etc but ACTUAL revision part I'm not so sure is happening. Although she can spend 4 hours on a Wednesday 'revising' so I guess she is doing something....

She's just asked me 'how do you revise?' and to be honest i'm stumped. She does read through her work and make notes, she does this mainly every evening after the the day at college and then on a weekend files them in the subject folder. I've told her to read her notes, she then said 'but do what with them'....... is the idea you keep condensing your notes?

Her subjects are (in case it makes a difference) Sociology, psychology, english lit and communication & culture. I know her psychology is based a lot of case studies so she needs to know dates, topics names etc.

Does anyone know how best to revise? Without meaning to sound stupid, is the reason to revise to come out with key words that then trigger a whole passage of writing (rather than learn the whole passage of writing)?

Any help would be great. Thanks you.

I guess everyone works in a different way, I liked to condense notes as you said. Doing past papers is a good way of both revising the topic and understanding what they want in an exam.

purpleshoes_2

People have different learning styles, I write things down, that's how I learn, however, I was recently studying for an anatomy exam and I also had access to online videos with quizzes at the end and I was surprised by how helpful that was to me.

There's no one size fits all, I know things will have changed a lot since I sat my Highers, but back then it was a matter of studying as much as you could of the syllabus and then doing past papers, you can't guess exactly what you are going to be asked on the day, some papers will be tougher than you expect, others easier, but if she puts the work in, that's half the battle.

One thing I will say is there's a big jump between GCSE level and above, Im not sure what stage AS level is, whether its equivalent to the Scottish Higher (as that's not quite at the level of A level), but it's much easier to sail through GCSE's or equivalent with little revision than when you take the step up. I sailed through my O grades with minimal revision, my Higher year was much much tougher.

Savvy_Sue

There's a two page article in this week's New Scientist about how to learn (and revise / make it stick) at any age.

You should do things which require physical skills, like piano practice, in the evening, apparently. Which would explain why DS1 is such a talented juggler: his post 16 education was accompanied by the rhythmic swish-swish-swish THUD as he honed his skills after doing his homework.

sazaccount

I found Mind maps really good for a range of different topics, mainly at uni (as "I fell of the wagon" a bit during my last year of GCSE's and A-levels)

I would start with mind mapping using the books and different pieces of teaching material about a given topic, I was science based at uni, so eg the formation of the solar system. I would then look at a past question and without looking at books and teaching material form a mind map on this. Comparing the 2 to give me an idea of what info I needed to be re-learning.

I also used this for essay planning so have the title in the middle then the different paragraphs/ideas coming off, It helped give me structure and I would do mini ones in the exam to keep me focused (I'm dyslexic so would go off on a tangent or have complete mind blanks.)

One of my main issues at A-level/AS was trying to understand what the question was asking, This is where I lost a lot of marks as I wasn't able to decode the question. This is possibly something your DD can ask the teachers at school to go though some examples and break the questions down.

Good Luck to her xx

Kynthia

Depending on the subject I generally start by reading through the course notes/text books/syllabus and writing condensed notes on the most relevant points. Then I do loads of revision questions and study up on what I got wrong, what I didn't know, how my answer differed from the correct answer and what I could have done to get more marks. Then I might condense my notes even further. Then I'd do some past questions to time to learn to get a good answer in that time, and a few days before the exam start doing a whole paper, or more than one, to time. This is because doing a whole paper in time is a skill to practice in itself as many people run out of time and spend too long on early questions. I might then refine what order I tackle the questions or assign a time limit to each section so that I don't run out of time for the last ones. It's possible to pass many exams without finishing a question, as generally you get more marks in the first ten minutes of the next question than you do on the extra ten minutes you spend on the previous one, so learning to stop and move on is a good skill to learn.

Jagraf

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

There's a two page article in this week's New Scientist about how to learn (and revise / make it stick) at any age.

You should do things which require physical skills, like piano practice, in the evening, apparently. Which would explain why DS1 is such a talented juggler: his post 16 education was accompanied by the rhythmic swish-swish-swish THUD as he honed his skills after doing his homework.

Reminds me of my daughters singing. All day at the moment quiet and then come six shes practising her extra curricular drama and singing skills. That's when we go to the pub

littlegreenparrot

For most people memory works best if it is multi layered, so for example if she can do something with the information.
So - you might read through your notes, create a mind map, then use that info (without looking!) to answer a past question, then explain it to someone else.
The different processes, and using the information in different ways, help to memorise it.