How to study for exams

Studying for exams? Create your own revision guide!

Hi everyone, I’m Robyn, a postgrad student doing International Business at the University of Liverpool. Here, I’m going to talk about an effective way to study for exams that could be very beneficial for you. They are pretty easy to do and you might have fun and end up being quite creative with it.

This method of studying is one that I have found to be very helpful during university, particularly in my undergrad degree. It is a great way to compile all of the subject resources you have into one document, which is amazing because as students, we may not have the tidiest of rooms and end up losing important files or paperwork. It also means that you won’t have to repetitively go over those twenty monotonous lecture videos again closer to exam time.

Personally, as I was studying for my maths GCSE, I wasn’t able to understand the process of answering questions as portrayed in published revision guides but I didn’t really entertain the idea of creating my own until completing my degree.

Here, I want to take you through the process of creating your own revision guide from the educational resources available to you.

Step 1: Find a good sized notebook.

You don’t need anything particularly fancy for this method, just a notebook that’s got enough pages for everything you want to include inside. Mine are also B5 size so I can easily put them in my bag to revise on-the-go. Make sure your chosen notebook is ideal for you, for example if you want lined, graph or blank paper.

Step 2: Find some coloured pens (optional)

This is not really a necessary step but something to do if you want to make your revision guides creative and colourful. Some students study better when there is a bit more excitement to it (and no, I do not mean the panic of last-minute studying!), and adding colour and even small fun diagrams/pictures in your guides could make the process more positive.

Step 3: Accumulate all available revision resources

This is a key step in creating the guides. Be it online videos, PowerPoint presentations or other books, you can use them to help you in adding to the contents of the revision guide. Another great way to add to your resources if your lessons are now face-to-face again is to ask if you can record lessons, for example with a dictaphone or a mobile phone. For maths revision guides, you could even include the help you receive from your tutoring sessions on the EasyA app!

‍

Step 4: Begin adding to the contents of the revision guide

Now that you have all of your resources and everything needed to get started, you can begin adding to your revision guide. If you choose to write in coloured pens, switch up the colour each time the topic/PowerPoint slide changes. This will help you to differentiate between what is included in each point (which is definitely helpful for written subjects like English). You may find that including any possible exam questions for each topic helpful to add for each chapter of your revision guide. For example, note down on a page a question you find from a past paper and use the mark scheme to help you answer it directly in the guide - this will help you (and your future self) to understand how to do the question and others that might relate to it.

Optional final step: Add markers to show where certain topics begin

You may find that creating a contents page can be difficult as you don’t know how many pages you would need to make one. I would suggest that instead of this, you could use small sticky notes (or post-its) to stick to the top corner of the pages you begin the new topic on and write the name of this new topic on it. If they don’t stick too well to the paper, put some sellotape over it to keep it in place.

Once you have done all of these steps, you are on your way to having your own handy revision guide for your exam preparation. I definitely recommend this method for studying - it helped me get very high scores in my university exams so I hope it helps you do the same. Make sure to tag us on social media with your own revision creations and share this method with your friends. Don’t forget to check out our other blogs and contact us for any more tips!

You can also download the EasyA app for more one-to-one tutoring on specific maths questions.

Good luck!