Study Skills Core Modules

Revision & Exam Practice Tip #5 - How long should you revise for?

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Revision means looking at something again; it does not mean looking at a new topic for the first time just before an exam. Revision means you’ve already been to lessons, read the books, done the homework and now you’re looking at it again.

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Lots of students ask how long they should spend on revision. For instance, is an hour a night too much or too little?

Here's the science bit:

• Don’t spend too long revising. There is a law of diminishing returns. If you just sit down to revise, without a definite finishing time, then your learning efficiency falls lower and lower, like this:

 

• 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 even more?

• Compare the next 2 graphs:

So, how often should you revise?

Look at the graph below.

It shows how much your brain can recall later. It rises for about 10 minutes …and then falls.

 

 

However, if you quickly re-revise after 10 minutes, then it falls more slowly!  This is good.

Analyse the new graph:

 

Even better, if you quickly re-revise again, after 1 day, then it falls even more slowly!  Good!

Analyse the new graph:

 

And even better still, if you quickly re-revise again, after 1 week, then it falls even more slowly! Great!

Analyse the new graph:

So the best intervals for 'topping-up’, by reviewing or briefly re-revising are:

• •   10 minutes
  •   1 day
  •   1 week
  •   …and then 1 month.

 

• Revise – Make notes in your preferred learning style
• Repeat – Go through everything again, concentrating on what you still don’t understand
• Review – Every week, spend some time going through everything you’ve done in the past week

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 Information adapted from Revision and Examination Techniques PowerPoint by www.langley-sec.solihull.sch.uk. If it doesn't make any sense, blame Maths and Science!