Revision skills
Planning to revise
Make sure that you start your revision early enough.
Successful students revise throughout the course as well
as during the time before an exam. Making a revision
timetable is a good idea to start with, ensuring you give
more time to your weaknesses.
Here are some useful tips:
revise every lessons work on the evening after the lesson
revise thoroughly for topic tests during the course
begin your exam revision at least 2 months before your
exams
plan when you will cover each topic in the syllabus and
stick to your decision
rate yourself on every topic score 1 if you fully
understand, score 2 if you partly understand, score 3 for
real areas of weakness
in your revision plan give more time on topics you have
scored yourself 3
as you revise, problems will come up list your problems
and then get extra help on them from your teacher
leave sufficient time to do plenty of past paper questions
dont fill all your time with revision you need some
social activities in between to refresh you.
It is more effective to revise in several short sessions with
breaks in between than trying to do one long revision
session. For example, revising for two 25-minute sessions
with a 10-minute break will be better than one 50-minute
session. You will learn best at the start of session and just
before your planned break. After a break, quickly recap
on what you have revised already. Revisiting this after a
day and then after a week has been shown to improve
your recall. It will also help to plan to revise two or more
different subjects each day to help to maintain interest and
effectiveness.
Doing your revision
Dont just read through your work and expect to
remember and understand it. It is better to use your time
doing some form of active revision. Here are some ideas.
Make notes. Condense your work into shorter sets of
bullet points of key information.
Use colours to make a visual impact, e.g. underlining
headings. Highlighter pens are very useful.
AS and A Level Chemistry Cambridge University Press
Turn your notes into a set of revision cards. You can carry
these around to do a little revision in spare moments as
well as some last-minute revision before the exam.
Test yourself, and get help from others rather than
working alone. Explaining what you know to other
students will help both you and them.
Make a list of things you are unsure about to ask your
teacher. If you dont understand the chemistry you
wont be able to apply it in exam questions. However,
there are also basic facts that you must know in order to
understand chemistry. For example, in organic chemistry
you need to know the functional groups required in
the syllabus. You also need to know definitions such
as standard enthalpy changes of combustion and
formation, as you are expected to recall these in exams.
When you first revise a topic, get a quick overview
of what you need to know from the syllabus (see the
objectives at the start of each chapter in the book). Then
as you revise build up a mind map which shows how
the different ideas in the topic are linked. A large piece
of paper can be used to make a poster of your mind
map. This provides you with a visual record put it up
somewhere that you walk past regularly. Large writing
and bold colours will help.
Use the internet if possible to visit some revision websites
or use revision CD-ROMs. Some people prefer to work
on-screen rather than from books and most people
benefit from variety in their revision. Animations can
help you see what happens in processes and reactions
more effectively than reading an explanation. This will
help your understanding.
Make sure you practise lots of chemical calculations.
Dont just look at the answers to questions before trying
them yourself even if you already got the question right
in your notes. A good way to practise is to find a worked
example to look through in your notes or book. Make
sure you understand the logical steps between each line
in the calculation. Then cover the answer and try to solve
the problem yourself. If you get an incorrect answer, this
method can show you straight away where you went
wrong. Or if you get stuck, you can reveal the next line,
and then carry on. Finally, try some new questions to test
your understanding.
You will find the answers to the check-up questions at
the back of the book. The answers to the end-of-chapter
questions are on this CD-ROM.
Revision skills guidance 1