Top Tips: How To Revise To The Best Of Your Ability!

Are you a student wondering how to revise to the best of your ability? With exam season fast approaching, it’s important to focus and have a strategy in place.

Learning how to revise effectively is a key skill that you’ll learn in university, and is just as important as the skills you’ll pick up as part of your studies.

There are different aspects to doing well at revision, from learning how to make a revision timetable that suits you, to choosing where to revise to get the most out of your time.

You need to look after your own mental health and physical wellbeing to ensure that you are in top condition to perform to the standards expected of you in your studies.

In this blog, we look at how to get the best out of your abilities through revision and put together some hints and tips to help guide you through what can be a stressful time!

Don’t worry, you’ve got this!

How To Revise With Apps

It would be remiss of us not to begin by talking briefly about technology and how revision apps have become a key component of modern-day revision and student life.

You’ll be aware of how every classroom, library, and study area in schools, colleges, and universities up and down the country now have technology front and centre, utilising tablets and apps at every turn to enhance the learning experience for students.

Learning and revision apps have proliferated in recent years and there are some fantastic tools that you can use to help you with your revision.

Some are developed to help you plan your revision timetable and to get organised, others have the specific topic information that you need to remember.

When you find the right student revision app for your needs it will become a core part of the learning environment and help you smash revision and be ready for your exams!

Want some more tips for remote working and organisation? Check out our blog here!

The Benefits Of Revision Apps

There are a few reasons why you should find revision apps to help you along with your studies. What are the benefits to using revision apps?

Learn From Everywhere

Learning through apps and utilising online learning has changed the way people look at education.

By just having the option to use your phone to revise means that you can revise and study from any location, at any time.

It broadens your options for study and enhances your chances of success as a result.

Active Learning

Instead of revision being boring and just lists and dates and sheets of paper for you to learn information, apps provide a platform for engaging and exciting active learning.

Through gamification and the use of a bright colour palette, students can actually have fun when revising and look forward to logging into an app for a revision session.

Improve Specific Areas

If you are struggling with certain topics and you want to target those areas with in-depth revision, you can seek out apps that help you with those topics.

There is such a wide range of choice when it comes to revision apps that you can find the support you need in a variety of formats and topic choices.

How To Make A Revision Timetable

The first step in ensuring that your revision goes well is to be as organised as possible.

This means setting up a revision timetable that suits your needs and your habits.

Setting up your revision timetable is also a fast and efficient way to get a quick and easy win.

You’ll feel good about ticking an item off your task list, it will be beneficial to your long-term revision goals, but it won’t actually take that much hard work to complete.

Sit down and focus on the different types of revision sessions that you need, build in specific items that you need to focus on, and schedule in certain aspects to suit the schedule of exams and deadlines.

The idea is to build a revision schedule that gives you the best chance of success and never leaves you cramming revision sessions in at the last minute.

Find a steady flow that builds good habits in how you study and revise, whilst allowing enough downtime to relax and recharge your batteries, as you are no good to anyone if you are overworked, stressed, and tired.

It is also a great idea to have a handwritten timetable somewhere you can see it in your study area at home, but also to have an online timetable.

Use cloud storage solutions, such as Google Drive or Dropbox, to store your revision timetable and to allow you access to your schedule wherever you happen to be.

If you are revising away from home, you’ll still have a solid idea of when and what you are revising.

Take A Smaller Approach To Revision Sessions

Instead of tackling that massive topic that you are struggling with in one go, think about how you can be better served by breaking down topics into more manageable sections.

When creating your revision timetable you’ll make a long list of everything that you need to revise, and from there you can begin to break each down into sub-categories.

It can be daunting to look at the topic as a whole and worry that you’ll never learn everything you need to in time before the exam.

By breaking everything down into smaller chunks of learning, you’ll feel much better as you reach each mini target.

Set Realistic Targets

Talking of targets, by building a revision timetable that fits smaller chunks of topics into your schedule, you’ll be helping create a set of smaller targets.

The targets will be realistic for you to reach and where each one fits into the larger goal you are aiming for.

In the long-term, you’ll have major goals that you want to achieve, in terms of your exam results for example.

With your revision, however, set yourself a mini target that you would like to achieve with each revision session.

This could be that you want to learn 2 new things in one hour, or you want to cover a specific chapter of a book, or anything else that you find a realistic target.

It is important to set targets that are manageable yet challenging, but the idea is to build positivity in your mindset and to feel good after every single study session.

Learn How To Write Effective Revision Notes

It is proven that writing things down helps us to remember things.

When you are learning how to revise effectively you need to learn how to make revision notes that help the information stick in your mind, but that don’t take up too much time and space for you to actually write.

This process can take some time for you to refine, so you might start off with making extensive notes.

Then, slowly pare them back until you have bullet points or short bits of information that you can glance at and immediately know the wider context and the information you’ll need for your exams.

You want your notes to stick in your mind, so once you have created effective short notes, read through them all.

Don’t stay on one set of notes for too long as it can become boring and have the opposite effect of helping information stick in your mind.

Keep A Healthy Balanced Life

It is so important that you keep your mind and body healthy during your studies!

Exam stress and learning how to revise effectively can begin to have a negative impact on your state of mind and your physical health if you are not careful.

One of the biggest things that you can do to help is to stick to a routine with your sleep.

Getting enough sleep (at least 8 hours a night is recommended) is such a massive part of your health.

If you do not get enough sleep, you’ll be tired and irritable, find it harder to revise and to make things stick in your mind and you’ll be more likely to suffer from ill health, both physically and mentally.

Alongside sticking to your sleeping patterns and avoiding all-night study sessions if you can help it, think about what you eat and your exercise regime.

Stick to a balanced and healthy diet on the whole (but also allow yourself some treats occasionally) and get out and exercise every day.

This doesn’t have to always be strenuous exercise, but it is always a good idea for your mental health to get out and about in some fresh air at least once a day.

Find The Right Revision Partner

There will be times when you need some alone time with your study; complete silence to make sure you learn everything that you need to within the allotted time.

Within your revision timetable, however, build in sessions that include other people.

Be careful though if you do want to do this, as your best friend might not be your best study partner.

Think carefully about who will work well with you and help you revise more effectively, and vice versa, rather than choosing to study with someone you have a good time with and laugh loads around.

Think About Your Background Noise

Every person is different when it comes to the environment in which they study.

For some people, it is impossible to write if the radio is on or if music is playing that has loads of lyrics.

Others want ambient music, white noise or just complete silence, there are no strict rules here, but there is an answer that makes sense for you.

Make some study playlists in advance of your revision sessions (it would be too easy to start making a playlist during revision and waste an hour having fun doing something else!)

Avoid adding your all-time favourite songs and bangers that get you up on your feet dancing and singing along at the top of your voice.

Choose music that helps you focus in on what’s important and phase out everything else around you.

As well as your choice of music, it can be so easy to find distractions all around you.

This is why it is so important to have a dedicated study space where you are not distracted by the television, by Netflix, by that book on your bedside table, by WhatsApp conversations with friends, Instagram and TikTok etc.

Switch all of those potential distractions off before you sit down for a revision session and focus entirely on the work in front of you.

This helps to build good habits and gives you the best chance to succeed over time and reach your targets.

Using Your Luxury Student Accommodation To Revise

Learning how to revise is one thing but knowing that you have a dedicated space to revise that is all your own can be just as important.

At your luxury student accommodation, you’ve got a study space and desk area that you can use to maximise your chances of success with your coursework, revision, and exams.

It is your safe space, and you can create the perfect environment to suit your needs when revising and studying hard.

There are, of course, other dedicated spaces to revise and study within your university campus or you might prefer to find quiet places to grab a bite to eat and get some study in away from home in a café.

Your study space at home though provides you that base and foundation to study hard and get in the right mindset for your revision.

We hope that you’ve found our guide on how to revise helpful. We’re always keen to hear from you to see what tips and guidance you might want to pass on to other students, as we know there are countless ways in which you can set-up your revision schedule and find the right combination of approaches to your study. Every person is different in how they revise, so let us know what works well for you when working out how to revise effectively.

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