Revision and Study Skills:How to excel in exams

In this penultimate section of the four part mini-series “Revision and Study Skills”, Yoseph provides analytical advice on how to pass exams with flying colors.

How should I revise?

Passing exams has never been easy, even for the smartest. "Those dreadful exams!" is what I hear a lot during the exams season. If it is not easy, is it hard? Well, it's up to you to make it easy or make it hard. You revise well, it becomes easy. You revise badly, it becomes terribly hard. If you want to know how to revise well, please keep on reading.
Imagine yourself running a marathon, but without end? You are told there is no finish line, just keep on running! Follow the road! There is no way of measuring the distance, and you don't even know where you are going. Just hopelessly run. Would you even start running? It is the same when you just revise and revise and revise without any plan. Your learning efficiency just keeps on going down and down and down, until a point when you are not learning anything anymore. This is shown in the graph below:
If you see long distance runners, they start with a good speed at the beginning of the race. They have a lot of energy, so they don't want to waste it because they have a long way to go, so they run with a good pace. After running more than half the distance, they start getting tired. But if you notice during the last lap, they start sprinting as if their lives depended on it. Why? Because they know they are approaching the end of the race. It would be over when they cross that line. It is the same with revision. If you set yourself a finishing time, when you approach the end your efficiency goes higher because your brain knows it is ending and you need to finish up fast before time is up.
If you decide at the beginning how long you will work for, with a clock, then as your brain knows the end is coming, the graph rises towards the end.

How can you improve this more?

If you break up a 2-hour session, into 4 shorter sessions, each of about 25-minutes, with a short planned break between them, then it is even better. Compare the next 2 graphs:
For example, suppose you start work at 6 pm. You should decide, looking at your clock or watch, to stop at 6.25 pm --and no later. Then at 6.25 pm have a break for 5-10 minutes. When you start again, look at the clock and decide to work until 7 pm exactly, and then have another break. This way, you are working more efficiently, as shown in the diagram above. Timing yourself when revising can play a big role in helping you revise better, and get a better grade.

Breaks during revision. Important?
"The longer you revise, the higher your grades!"
"I will certainly pass my exams because yesterday I revised for 5 straight hours!"
"My son studies from midnight until 5 a.m. He is not like those street kids who play football every afternoon. He is always working. He doesn't do anything else but read for hours. I am very proud of him!"
I am proud of him too. You know they say it is hard to keep a teenager in one place for long. He has beaten that record! He has given up his entertainment, his fun, what he likes to do most so that he can get good grades. That is great determination! This boy has done everything else but revise well. Now hold on Yoseph, what are you saying here. He hasn't revised well? Yes my friend, he has locked himself for hours, he denied himself fun, but he did not revise well. Why? Because he is human. I am human. You too.
Our brains get tired. It is as simple as that. You can start studying, but 30 minutes later your concentration level drops. Your brain becomes less efficient. If you decide to sit down for 2 straight hours, you work well the first 30 minutes. Later your brain gets tired, you can't concentrate well and your brain would start wondering about. You start wondering what is being cooked for dinner, or the movie you are about to watch, or if you are days away from your exams you would be thinking how hard they would be… These are thoughts you would get every now and then during that hour and a half. You would be reading the same thing over and over and over again because your brain is interrupted. You can even damage the work you had done during the first half hour.
BUT, if you take a break, take you mind away form your books for five minutes and let your brain relax a bit, you can concentrate better when you come back to your work. Also, you wouldn't feel like you are punishing yourself. Give yourself credit for the 25 minutes or half hour you have worked! Reward yourself for the hard work you have just done; buy yourself a soda or sweets. Don't think of your work during your break, just do something different. You could have a short chat with a friend or your mother. Go out and kick a ball for 5 minutes, or read a comic. But please, do yourself a favour and avoid watching the music channel or most TV channels during this break. Your mind has been very active for the previous half hour, and you wouldn't want to shut it down. When you watch TV, your brain becomes idle, you stop thinking and just receive information from a screen, and your eyes get glued to it! This makes your tired, and will not help you at all. Also, chances of you extending those 5 minutes are very high. I have tried this, and many times I end up in front of that TV for an hour. Leaving something interesting is so hard, especially when it's during revision. When you go back to your books, you will have flashbacks of what you have watched, so you still can't concentrate! This is a danger you should avoid.