GCSEs - Revision Matters

GCSEs; the bane of every teenager’s life. Every year thousands of innocent children are subjected to torture in the form of examination that would be more appropriately at a job interview for a managerial position. These strenuous exams squeeze the life out of fun loving teens that must dedicate 4 weeks, possibly more, of their lives to utter depression and intense anxiety. But there are ways around this pain. Revision. The word strikes fear into many teens eyes but I believe there are two very different techniques that can be adopted to ensure potential is reached in exams.

Many teens have extremely differing revision techniques. Some spend the 4 weeks before the exam period revising for 6 hours a day; others wait until the night before and read their books through once. One would assume that the child who had revised more would achieve better grades, however my personal experience begs to differ. I revised roughly 4 hours a day for 5 days before a school geography test and achieved a reasonable mark. However, I decided to test the theories behind revision and for the next test I read once through my books the evening before and on the bus. I achieved a better mark and therefore I concluded that for me this is the best technique. I am in no way suggesting that this would work for everyone but this tactic seems to work well for me.

The science behind the theories of revision are relatively simple. Memory is built on neurones. These are activated when we read or see something. Tests show that re-reading something over a long period of time allows you to remember that better in the future. However my personal test leads me to another conclusion about neurones. I believe that the memory is strongest the closer in time you are to the event you wish to remember. I also believe that these memories fade quickly. Therefore I can come to two conclusions that theoretically are the best methods of revision: • Tactic 1: you can choose to revise from a long time before the exam and strengthen neurone bonds, therefore allowing you to remember the information when the exam comes around.

• Tactic 2: you can cram in revision the night before; this creates strong memories that, although do not last long, enable you to remember the required information for the exam.

To conclude I believe that these two techniques should achieve similar results, despite common belief. You would think that most teens would go for the last minute option but asking around my school I can report back that there is an equal balance between the two techniques. However in my opinion, despite believing these differing techniques achieve similar results, there is one fundamental difference between them. Revising for a longer period before the exams will actually allow you to learn the information and not just remember it. Learning the information will allow you to have far more confidence with your answers and this will definitely be shown in subjects where you need to understand processes, not just remember them, like Chemistry and Maths. Therefore I believe the best revision technique by far is to revise long before your exam, enabling yourself to learn and understand processes instead of remembering them for a couple of days.