Help if you please.

S

shira

Shinigami
Guys i've got a problem I should have addressed earlier really.

With the A Levels i've been sitting, i've been struggling to revise effectively. I was wondering, to those who are in Uni/Passed their A Levels if they could help.

The technique i'm using is one where I am condensing all my notes by rewritting them, and hoping to take as much in as possible. The subject i'm currently revising is Law.

I was wondering, how long do you often revise for, and followed by how much of a break? Also, is there a more effective way to remember things such as The Arbitration Act 1996 or similar? There are so many acts and cases to remember, I need a way to revise them so I won't mix them up.

My Law exam is tommorow, so i'm sure this is too little too late, however, all advice would be appreciated as i'll have more exams in a couple of months.

These are actual A Levels before you ask if these are mocks lol.
 
Erm, well my A-level course (BTEC Nat Dip) was a coursework based project, and my Uni work was similar (no revision needed). So I'm probably not the greatest source of knowledge here...

But here may be some ideas to go through:
1) try linking the subject to something easy see/do. You can try things like rhymes, gestures, pictures in your head, trigger word etc. I.e. Law on assault = punch the air, "A knife to take life was jailbait in '68" and so on...

2) If it's places or areas within law, you could link them to famous figures, towns and animals. I.e. the Human Rights Act was established by the EU in Berlin, which is also known for it's good chocolate. (Meh!)

3)Try and list it out in dates/chronological order, that way you can continue down the list and then if you know 1 thing about a law, you start to remember the rest of it.

As for revision (going back to GCSEs), I studied an hour or 2 on each subject but I did 1 subject a night. That was based on weekdays when I'm obviously at school for the day. Otherwise (the weekend) I would probably go on-off on it, doing at least a few hours on it, so that I didn't overload my brain and I had time to absorb it all.

Hope that helps, but like I said, I haven't done any of that for a while.
 
What you're doing actually helps a bit but you need to combine your note taking with other techniques to help them stick.

A common tip I find helpful is to use a highlighter pen and highlight things I might find useful. For example, make the title of a section orange, what the notes are about in green and the notes themselves in yellow. When you move onto another section, swap colours around or add some new ones for variety. I find the colours help me know what category/tier/priority everything I've written has.

I also find reading outloud my notes then trying to say them outloud without looking at them effective. It's most effective when my eyes are closed to block out distraction. Keep trying this and you'll be able to memorise a surprising amount of stuff. Just make sure you have no distractions, including music.

Study for 30-45 minutes at a time. If you go over that you'll just get sick of it. When taking breaks, give yourself about 15-30 minutes. Give yourself enough time to grab some food or maybe watch some TV to relax. Just don't relax too long or you'll lose the motivation.

Don't put off studying until late evening. Get up earlier than you normally do. Getting up earlier for something gives you a goal to work towards and it will boost your motivation and enthusiasm. It also means you haven't been sitting around all day worrying about not doing it. Simply being active about it is a great confidence boost.
 
Thanks Chaz & Maxon :)

@Chaz: I've never been able to do the associating-things-with-stuff style of learning. I'll try number 3 though :)

@Maxon: I've just started colour co-ordinating it with highlighters actually :) I've got the notes written out plain, pink highlighted for the important parts, Yellow for headings and Orange for Acts of Parliament.

Oh, I have instrumental music on. Mainly classical.

I'll try bursts of 30-45 minutes from here on, and see how it goes. I'll watch one episode of anime between revision or something. (Unlike a game, I can't accident run over there. Like I just have...)

Thanks a tonne for advice. All is appreciated :)
 
I like the poster idea. Make some posters, like spider-diagrams with central themes and stick them in parts of your room. Your look at them when sleeping, leaving the room, whatever. It'll just give you the stuff to trigger your other memory really, but that's sometimes all you need.
 
I try to keep reminding myself about the topic I'm trying to remember. I think your brain stores things in a way that involves how regularly you reference the memory. So I read things through, write things down answer some questions then leave it for a while, maybe a day or two, then try to force the memories to resurface by more questions or just by sitting and thinking through everything to try and actively remember it. Keep repeating this periodically. lol trying to grow more connections between the neurons
 
Nyani said:
Mine's a bit like Maxons :p
So how'd it go?
Click to expand...

Well Law was OK. The questions weren't bad, but just ugly ones. "Explain to the Role of the CPS [14]" and "To what extent are the CPS successful [11]" I think for my first essay. Wording on the second one was a bit different I think. And the other one was Alternative Dispute Resoloution (ADR) which was pretty easy. My best shot at anything was that.

To be clear, in Law we're presented with 6 (a),(b) questions, and have to answer two. They're both worth 25 marks split as [14] and [11] respectively.
 
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