Revision! We all hate it, we all need to do it.
Reading The Brain Box will help you take the pain out of painstaking and if you remove the pain, you’re just left with staking which is an anagram of skating, and skating is fun! See – it’s all about how we see these things…
Confused? Never mind – this will help:
Cats have an easy life. Frankly, I’d like to be a cat! Here’s how we can all be revision CATS:
Creativity:
Don’t just stare at the page. Try and do something a bit creative with your revision – draw a mindmap, make some cards, do a poster, tweet friends, make an mp3 file of you speaking out loud what you need to learn.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”
– Albert Einstein.
Attitude:
Think you can do it? If you believe you are more likely to achieve. Hard work and a positive attitude are proven to give students great results in their exams.
What does a poor attitude look like: not believing you are capable… trying to ‘wing it’ without any work… Not caring how you do… Assuming everything will be alright and thinking you don’t need good grades. Be wise! Get a good attitude.
“If you can believe, you can achieve. Innit.” – Dizzee Rascal.
Time:
Plan your time. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Break your revision into 15 minute chunks.
Plan to spend a minimum time revising each day. This could be 15minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, two hours. But once you’ve decided how much you will do, stick to it.
Have a revision planner of some sort (see our Two Great Methods in The Brain Box book)
“Procrastination is the thief of time.” ~ Edward Young
Strengths (and weaknesses)
Play to your strengths and try to work on your weaknesses.
Do you work best straight after school or later in the evening? Are you better first thing in the morning?
Do you work better alone or with others?
Do you find doodling helps or hinders?
If your X-Box is a massive distraction, unplug it while you are working. We heard of one student who took his games console into school and asked his form tutor to lock it away until after the exams!!
Does it help you to revise online or do you just end up playing games, going on social networking sites and wasting the time?
“If you love what you do, you will never work another day in your life.” ~ Confucius
Work smart not hard.
Use the revision CATS!
Tim Benton is an associate of Independent Thinking Ltd and co-author of The Brain Box. He is also the lead practitioner at Blue Caterpillar.