Revising for Exams: How Do You Do It?

[Hootenanny]

Examination time has come round again (for me) and I was just wondering how those of you who are students revise for exams?

Personally, I get all my notes together and then set about condensing them into as small amount as I possibley can (usally in the form of bullet points). Then I get as many exam type questions as I can and do as much as I can without looking at my notes, only referring to them when I'm completely stuck. I'm not a fan of timed practise exams.

Regards,
~Hoot

 

[DaveC426913]

"revise?" I do not think that word means what you think it means.

However, yes. Your method is a good one; it's the one I use(d). Rewrite all your notes in condensed form. This forces you to extract the most meaning and discard the chaff.

 

[Ouabache]

useful study methods

I realize that in the U.K. revise has the meaning of study or review, pertaining to exams. The method Hoot describes is a useful one. I've used that many times myself, especially in science/math courses. In classes that are strickly information based, I've also used another method; read through my notes, highlight the important points, then review again just catching the highlighted material.

 

[Pseudo Statistic]

Examination time has come round again (for me) and I was just wondering how those of you who are students revise for exams?

Personally, I get all my notes together and then set about condensing them into as small amount as I possibley can (usally in the form of bullet points). Then I get as many exam type questions as I can and do as much as I can without looking at my notes, only referring to them when I'm completely stuck. I'm not a fan of timed practise exams.

Regards,
~Hoot

Usually I take a look at what we covered in the textbook and try to properly understand it rather than memorize; also, for physics, I go over some specific kinds of problems I've had with questions we've done.
However, now that AP exams are coming up, I'm focusing more on past examination papers in order to get a "feel" for what to expect/study.

 

[kdinser]

No matter how much theory you know, there are always little problem solving tricks that most students need to be shown and go over to be ready to use on tests. Spend a lot of time on these. If your not sure what I'm talking about, think about the problem that stumped you for 20 to 30 mins or more and when you found the solution (either on you own, or someone showed you) you smacked your forehead and screamed "OF COURSE!" At the same time, it's the theory that will give you shot to suddenly come up with the solution to a type of problem that you might have forgotten about or never seen.

I usually spend about 30% of my time going over proofs and theory, and 70% going over specific problems that we seemed to spend a lot of time on in class or in the homework. It might not be the most balanced approach, but It's saved my ass more times then I can count.

Also, talk to your fellow students, if they seem concerned about something that your not, you may have missed something. Maybe your oversimplifing something, or maybe you just know it better then they do, but check it out. Never assume you are ready for a test, be paranoid until it's over .

Edit:
one other thing that has helped me out a lot. Get together with some weaker students to study. Answer their questions and show them how to do things. If you can easily tanslate what you know into language that they can understand, you have the subject nailed, if their questions throw you off your game, you still have some work to do. I can't tell you how many times a friend of mine has asked me a question that I couldn't answer without looking things up in the book, and then it showed up on the test. Honestly, if I hadn't made some truly epic stupid mistaks on tests, I would have 96% average on my general circuirts/digital logic tests. As it is, I've scored 88% to 92% on all 3 of them, so take my advice for what it's worth.

 

[0rthodontist]

Just make sure you understand everything that happened in the course (theory + problems) well enough to do it all yourself. If you can't do every proof and every problem gone over in the course by the time of the test, then you're not making par. If you don't have enough time to do all that right then maybe you are taking on too much work (like I did this semester). Beyond that, practicing more problems doesn't hurt.