How organised and methodical are you in your revision?
Do you know what topics you’ve already learnt and what topics you need to focus on next?
Are you keeping a record of what you need to test yourself on, and when, so that you retain the information you’ve learnt?
If you’ve answered, ‘no’ to any of these questions, it’s time for an overhaul of your revision strategy, because, unless you’re paying attention to these things, you’ll be much less efficient. And who has time for that?
You already know that you can learn anything, if you divide it up into small enough chunks. You’ll have noticed, too, that you’re most efficient when you set aside frequent, but short chunks of time for study.
After all, you know when you’ve spent too long in any one particular session – you’ll catch your attention drifting off somewhere else! So give yourself frequent breaks, thus dividing your study time into short bursts of time, of say, 20-40 minutes.
There’s also another very good reason to keep tabs on what you’ve covered. It suits the way we’re built – psychologically.
We love making progress! We Human beings are willing to tackle the most demanding and arduous of tasks, as long as we feel we’re making headway.
By keeping a record of what you’ve covered in your revision, not only will it allow you be more efficient, you’ll feel that sense of progress you need to keep going. It’s motivating, so don’t miss this chance to keep yourself encouraged.
You also need to regularly revisit the information you’ve learnt, and best of all, according to the Learning Cycle, in order to keep it in your head. How are you going to do that, unless you keep a record of where you are with each chunk of information learnt?
Being organised will pay dividends. So what are you waiting for? If you haven’t done so already, start keeping a record of the information you’ve learnt. Return to it regularly and test that you still know it.
Look at the index at the beginning of your course manual to get an overview of the task ahead of you, and then continue to work your way through the material, identifying small chunks to learn.
This means that you can tick off each section as you learn it, and it feels good to know you’re making progress.
Try it. You’ll see!