Emerson Park Academy
Study Skills and Revision Support
Year 11 - Examination Preparation
Starting revision early, getting into good habits and maintaining those gives you the best chance of success.
There are 3 core principles to revise effectively:
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Repetition – revise content more than once
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Desirable difficulty – In order to revise effectively you must make your brain work, if revision takes no mental effort, it is not effective (see the table below)
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Spaced practice – test yourself on what you’ve learned after time has elapsed
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Bad Revision Habits |
Good Revision Habits |
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Rereading Notes & Textbooks: Reading the same material repeatedly creates a false sense of knowing (recognition rather than recall) without forcing the brain to retrieve the information.
Highlighting or Underlining: Marking pages requires very little active thought or mental processing, making it easy to do but poor for long-term memory.
Copying Notes Word-for-Word: Transcribing text repeatedly is a mechanical task that bypasses deep understanding or critical engagement with the subject.
Last-Minute Cramming: Studying large amounts of information in a single marathon session overloads working memory and leads to rapid forgetting soon after the exam.
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Self-Testing & Retrieval Practice: Closing the book and forcing yourself to write down or speak everything you can remember about a topic (such as using Cornell Note-Taking reconstruction or mini-whiteboards) builds strong neural pathways.
Spaced Repetition: Reviewing the same material across multiple intervals over days and weeks rather than all at once (following the spacing effect).
Past Paper & Mark Scheme Practice: Answering real exam questions under timed conditions and then checking your work strictly against official mark schemes to spot blind spots.
Interleaving Topics: Mixing up different sub-topics or subjects within a single study session instead of blocking out hours for just one topic.
Peer Elaboration ("Teach Back"): Explaining a complex concept out loud to a study partner or from memory as if teaching it to someone else. |
Considerations:
1. Post it notes – stick them in places you often walk past around your home.
2. Make your notes colourful and neat. This is the same principle as the highlighting - colour makes things stand out and
if the notes are neat they will be much easier to quickly work through.
3. Make quizzes and questions for friends – enlist help from friends and family
4. Take breaks – if you concentrate for too long you switch off and won’t learn anything so only revise for short but intense
periods.
5. Give yourself rewards – you should have something to look forward to, whether it is food or a television programme. This will also give you a time limit for revision so you won’t get too bored.
6. Use all available resources – refer to your subject information document to see what your teachers advise
7. Make a revision timetable – stick to it!