In Out And Shake It All About!

Many students cram their learning into the last few days before the exam and then wonder why they (a) feel exhausted and disorientated and (b) don`t do that well! Learning is a process that takes time. Its a 3 stage process. Information IN. ORGANISING that information, and then information OUT. In, organise and then out. If any one of these stages is missed, then the learning becomes difficult and understanding is limited. Information IN is what most students do. They read and read and read some more. Maybe make a few notes and then read some more! What actually needs to be done is a variety of ways to get the information into the space within your head `the learning zone`. This can be done by speaking it out loud, recording it and playing it back to yourself when you are busy doing something else, using colour, highlighters etc. Once this stage is complete then all that information needs sorting out. Its a bit like opening your bedroom door and chucking loads of stuff in there and then walking back in later and wondering why you cant find anything and its all a mess. So it is with knowledge. So you need to sort it into categories. Make links and connections between things. This is easily done by doing flow charts, mind maps, spidergrams, grids, anything that makes accessing whatever you need quicker and easier. Once that is done you then need to produce something using all this orderly information! this is the OUT bit of the revision process. Best way is still by doing past papers. Doing bullet plans of what you think might go in the answer. Checking it against mark schemes. Looking for the gaps in your knowledge and revisiting the in - organising stage for that bit of missing knowledge. As you can see, revising is not a quick and easy thing. It takes time, and effort but it is well worth it in the end when you come out with that A!