By Alex Reid

Over here in England we have finally entered the season on the school calender that everyone dreads: Exam season. It’s not a pleasant thought that the next month or so could be a pivotal point in your life, every hour of revision altering your destiny. Whithout going into the philosphical side of it it’s also hard on everyone in the respect that our social lives are dwindling as revision creeps into every spare gap in my school timetable, free time at home and genrally every waking moment. However if it is done right the rewards could be long term and substantial.

Anyway I thought I would give you a few tips on revising.

• Firstly get motivated-if there is mountains of revision, get stuck into it with gusto, its not like you’re the only one.
• The more varied ways in which you learn something the more it will sink in, (your brain notices it more is the only way I can think of explaining it). What you need to do is learn the same information in as many different ways as possible. Learn with friends, testing each other, go on the internet to revision sites, speak into a tape player and play it back to yourself trying to predict what you say, write down a glossary of all the key words and stick them by your bed, write mini essays on things, use cue cards, do practice papers – the list is endless and makes the entire process a little bit more fun. Well about as fun as it gets.
• Revise for 30 minute blocks, it is scientifically proven that your attention span rapidly drops beyond this point. So 30 minutes with a five or ten-minute break will keep you going.
• Make a realistic revision timetable that you can and will stick to, once you have stuck to this for a week it becomes routine and you will get better at revising.
• Don’t eat sugary snacks while you work; they mess around with your blood sugar levels-stick to the usual three meals a day. A better alternative is a piece of gum; in fact it is also a scientific fact that chewing helps the learning process and remembrance of facts so get chewing!
• Don’t do midnight cramming sessions, its is really a bad idea, for starters you need to be fresh for the exam and secondly you simply wont take much in, and will certainly take very little into your long term memory. All night cramming is virtually exam suicide.
• Don’t get over stressed, and don’t let it take over your life completely. Find a nice quite place to revise and make sure no one disturbs you. When your finished really make use of your spare time, relax in a bath or something.
• Don’t listen to music while revising! Tests show that in order to recall information learnt whilst listening to music you need to listen to it again. I also think the examiners might object if you drag a sound system into the exam.
• Start revising early, something I always forget. The sooner you start the easier it will be to recall information when the time comes.
• If you get stressed punch random things, younger siblings are great because they make a noise.
• No drink binges or worse, I know this is obvious but it has been done: this is a definite no, no in exam season and will mess up your head and will make you really regret it. You can let yourself go a bit after the exams but not before.
• On the day don’t get stressed. Have an early night before (and I mean early) and wake up with enough time to eat breakfast, have a shower and gloss over your notes one last time. Before you enter the exam chew gum, if your nervous this helps. If your getting really scared remember that its never too bad once you get going and also that once its done its done and you will never have to touch that maths book again.
• Lastly, after the exams are over have fun destroying all the revision guides, notes and annoying books that you will never need or use again in your life in imaginative and varied ways. This is a nice therapeutic way to calm down and de-stress yourself. Just don’t set alight to your mother’s carpet and make sure you don’t actually need any of the information your feeding into the kitchen blender.

Wish us luck here in England as we enter the fray, if there is one thing that we all have in common it’s exams. Try and make use of these tips and try and get motivated, things become easier once you are. I find I go back to being very lazy after it’s all over. Roll on summer.

Do you have any advice or pointers that I don’t know? Because I need them!

Do you want to vent out stress on your work break? Visit www.ishouldbeworking.com?

Have you got any views or comments about exams and/or exam stress?

IMPORTANT WEBSITE: I found this excellent website when looking for pictures, go there for further advice: www.staithes.demon.co.uk/ exams.html

E-mail me at: www.alexmreid@hotmail.com

Alex Reid, Bishop Heber High School.