Revising for exams

WHEN you are at the end of the semester, revision becomes a lot easier when you have good exam notes.

Here are a few tips that will help you develop a killer set and hopefully get awesome results.

Box it up

The eye reads long sentences, but the mind doesn’t remember them very well. Keep your notes as concise as possible: think PostIt notes.

If you are typing notes in a Microsoft Word document, make little boxes or just use half the page.

Bullets hit home

Revision is about taking an ocean of subject, understanding it and then condensing it into a beautiful reduced thick sauce.

Read, understand and then summarise the absolute main points in a few pithy sentences or facts.

If you present them as bullet notes, your mind will remember them even better.

Number the bullet notes

If you have five things to remember about working with dementia and three things to remember about the invasion of Persia, you’ll find it easier to manage your memory.

Acronyms work

If you have six things to remember about ethics – autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, fidelity and veracity – put the first letter in bold so that you get anbjfv. Make an acronym of it such as “All Naughty Boys Justify Feisty Virgins”, which will help you reconstitute the list in the exam hall.

Use bold and colour

Even short exam notes have bits that are more important than others, so use bold and splashes of colour to underline the most vital stuff.

This should be no more than 10% of the whole, otherwise the mind becomes too confused by the mass of colour.