How to Study for Exams | Best Time Table for Studies before an Exam
In this blog, we`re talking about
revision timetables. Isn`t that exciting? Now back in the day when I was in
secondary school, I used to use the standard prospective essay writing experts
online revision timetable method. You know where you plan out your
revision in advance like 6 weeks but for the last six years or so I`ve been
using the patented retrospective revision timetable method and I`ve never
looked back. Anyone else finds that funny no just me never mind this video is
going to be split up into three parts.
- Standard prospective
- Retrospective revision timetable
- How I use Google sheet
Firstly
I`ll talk about what a standard prospective revision timetable looks like for
most people and explain some of the problems that I used to have with this
method when I used it back in my secondary school days. Secondly, I`ll
introduce the idea of the retrospective revision timetable and explain why I
think it solves all of the problems that the prospective revision timetable
does needs in your name. And finally, I`ll show you using Google sheets exactly
how I create my retrospective revision timetable and why I think that makes
you’re studying more efficient by incorporating active recall and spaced
repetition so yeah let`s just get started.
Standard
Prospective
As
prospective means looking forward and retrospective means looking back, and
what most people think of as a revision timetable tends to be prospective so it
tends to look something like this you`ve got your dates down one column and
then you`ve got the subjects that you`re going to study each day. In your kind
of rows and the idea is when you`re making these you`d predict in advance what
kind of topics you want to be doing but this method has some problems and I
used to use this when I was kind of pre GCSE. However, I recognized quite early
that I was being quite inefficient and there are four main problems that I used
to have with this method.
Emphasizes this method requires us to
in a way prophesize look into the future and work out and at six weeks in
advance what sort of topics we`re going to be struggling most, with six weeks
from now and this for me was always tricky because there were always random
days, where something would pop up and I`d be going out with some friends or
you know sitting at home doing a raid on World of Warcraft. Therefore many times I just wouldn`t follow my study timetable
or, if I did follow the cleaning service I`d realize that actually, I`m repeating subjects pointlessly or
you know more often than not I just won`t end up following it at all.
Furthermore, I think a problem with this method is that it encourages us
indirectly to think of revision as something that is a function of time rather
then a function of topics. So we`ve got the time access down on our kind of
main access and therefore every day we think okay it`s a 7th of April I`d I`m
going to consult my revision timetable and I`m going to therefore revise these
three topics and that`s not really how studying should be done. I realized
later that I think is better to think of it in terms of topics rather than in
terms of time, so instead of thinking that each day I need to get three topics
done instead I`ll be thinking in terms of subjects and terms of topics and
thinking by the end of the exam period. I want to know everything about every a topic like academic writing help UAE therefore what do I need to do for
that to take place and this is going to sound a bit abstract. Nevertheless, I
explain it in more detail when we explain the retrospective timetable and
you`ll hopefully see that that method solves this particular problem. Thirdly
with this standard prospective revision timetable, there`s no real way of
seeing how much of each subject you know pondering past papers and apart from
having your separate record. Like if I were to glance down this list and it`s
that say the 10th of April I can see that, okay well I studied physics
electricity on the 4th, then I mean do I know the topic are there any
supplementary topics in physics there`s no easy way of me seeing an overview of
the subject and therefore working out exactly what I need to learn and finally
there`s the whole thing of actually creating one of these timetables in the
first place.
I
always used to view this as an activity in procrastination I`d be like okay I
need to get some work done you know what I`ve not made my revision timetable
for the year yet I`m going to sit down and get all my pretty colors outback in
the day before the iPod pro existed in the Apple pencil wasn`t a thing yeah my
pretty color to highlighters out my felt-tip pens and make this fancy big ass
revision timetable and I would never follow it equally. I had some friends who
would regard the revision timetable as such an insurmountable thing that they
had to do before they started studying that it put them off studying for like
you know weeks two months because they had to sit down and make this timetable
it was just couldn`t get around to you know overcoming the activation energy
required to make one of these so those are just some problems with the
prospective revision timetable these are all just my thoughts maybe it works for
you.
Retrospective
Revision Timetable
It’s important to explain what the
retrospective revision timetable looks like now and hopefully, you might be
able to take something away from that to make your own speech writing help UAE studying a little bit more efficient. Hence a retrospective
revision timetable looks something like this; we`ve got the topics within
physiology the six different topics we`ve got those down the main axis of our spreadsheet.
This is the exact opposite to how it is with the prospective revision timetable
where we had the dates down the front. So let`s say it`s the fourth of April
and I`ve arbitrarily studied the heart and the kidneys using my retrospective
revision timetable I`m going to note the fact that I studied the heart and the
kidneys on the fourth of April then let`s say it`s the fifth of April I look at
my retrospective sheet and I see oh I haven`t revised the lungs yet. Why don`t
I do that, so I do that and then on the sixth and the seventh I do the rest of
the topics because I see that they`re blank and I haven`t done them yet so now
let`s say it`s the 8th of April and I know that I need to revise physiology. I
look down my list and think huh! So it`s been about four days since I`ve done
the heart and the kidneys and I vaguely reckoned that kidneys are a little bit
harder. So I`m going to go for the kidneys and then I revised the kidneys on
the 8th of April but because I`m a good student and I`m using effective study
techniques. I`m not just going to read my notes on the kidneys because that
would be a complete waste of time instead I`m going to be using active recall
and hopefully, when I studied the kidneys on the 4th of April, I wrote down a
long list of questions for myself that I could answer or I got some passed
papers from somewhere. All right found an essay plan with essay questions
there`s sort of stuff either way I`m using active recall I am I`ve got the book
closed and I`m trying to answer all the questions that I previously wrote for
myself about the kidneys and then you know I get some stuff wrong so I look it
up and I`d say overall I judged that I`m reasonably okay at the kidneys but not
perfect. So
I`m going to highlight that in yellow this is the classic traffic light method
of you know color coding now let`s say it`s a 9th of April and I think you know
what why don`t I do the heart because it`s been a while since I`ve done that
it`s in the heart on the 9th of April and then having answered the active
recall questions that I set for myself on the previous time I studied it on the
4th I think you know what I`m actually pretty good at the heart.
So I`m
going to color that in green fantastic and I`m just going to fill in some
random bits so hopefully you can see how I`ve done that here now let`s say it`s
the 13th of April and I`m thinking you know what I should revise some
physiology I look down this list and I see that ok well it`s been a while since
I studied the kidneys but the kidney is yellow and really even though I
studied the lungs on the 10th of April they were red at the time. Therefore you
know what I`m going to arrange the lungs since the question I`m successful to
be asking myself each day is if the exam were tomorrow which topic would I be
least happy about and currently I`m least happy about the lungs which are why
I`m going to revise them on April the 13th and I`m going to color code
those in yellow afterward because I think ok I`m now at a yellow level when it
comes to the lungs so now let`s say it`s April the 14th and I`m thinking great
I don`t have any Reds left on this list so why don`t I revise the kidneys
because it`s been the longest time since I`ve done that this is space -
repetition in action and you know otherwise the kidneys that I`m pretty good at
the kidneys are there then that becomes green and as you can see over time.
We
develop financially
services this
understanding of every single topic within our subject because each day we are
tackling the thing that we find most difficult we`re not doing that thing with
the prospect of revision timetable where we`re studying a topic because we told
ourselves we`d studied that topic 6 weeks ago, we`re studying the topic that we
have decided we are weakest on and therefore every time we have a training
session. We are working on the weakest point and therefore getting the most bang
for our buck in terms of studying efficiently and trying to maximize our marks
in the exam and on knowledge for day-to-day life and the idea is that hopefully
by the end of it as the exam approaches, you look at the physiology and you think
you know what everything is green on this.
I know the physiology you look at the anatomy and think oh I still got a few areas of yellow.
So I`m going to screw physiology for today I don`t care about it I`m going to
focus on anatomy because those are my weak areas this gives you a very easy way
of seeing a whole overview of your subject without having to predict anything
in advance because we are terribly bad at predicting the future and finally one of the great thing about this is that it doesn`t really take any effort to get started
beyond initially scoping the subject and just writing down the list of every
single topic in your spreadsheet and I think that in itself is an incredibly
valuable exercise because a subject can often seem very daunting until you
write down all the topics that are in it and then you think oh wow you know
physiology seems complicated but actually, there`s only really six topics so
great I can do six topics that are like one topic a day I`ve got eight weeks
until my exams I can repeat every single topic eight times that`s pretty
incredible I can learn all of the human geology and that`s a nice attitude to have
rather than kind of being in the dark could be like oh I need to revise some
chemistry but I`m not really sure what to revise because I don`t really know
what`s in it and the specification has 85 different points of it and yeah
whatever so this is the retrospective revision timetable.
Revision
Time Table Using Google Sheets
Now let`s jump into Google sheets and
I will show you how that works in real life by using an example from my third
year of university all right so this here is the retrospective revision
timetable that I used in my third year of university that was the year that I
did by far the best in I won the prize for the best example performance that the year when I was studying psychology and business
plan help UAE which was pretty awesome and I think
the reason that that happened was that I very aggressively used all of the most
efficient study techniques active recall spaced repetition spider diagrams
flashcards. I will also give you information about how I memorize 250 different
essays too you know smash those exams. Anyway, this is the Google sheet, and as
you can see I`ve got it split up into section A, section B, and section C which
corresponds to our three papers within psychology. As you can see I`ve got a
list of all the topics down one end and the dates in the other one so taking a
look at this we can see that on the 20th of April I did these four topics I did
implicitly versus explicit memory recollection versus familiarity semantics
with episodic memory and short-term memory versus long-term memory. and these
are kind of essay-based things. But I`ll talk more about exactly how I studied
these particular topics in that video that I mentioned a little bit earlier
anyway, the point is I`ve done all these on the 20th of April and then I repeated
the top one implicit versus explicit on the 22nd and then I had a bit of a gap
and then on the 12th of May, I repeated it again and then I started color-coding
it because I was like right I`m getting close to the exam now I should start
color coding my stuff and you can see that over time everything has become
green and Saturday was like the Saturday before the exam Tuesday was the
Tuesday before I think the examples on a Wednesday or a Thursday something like
that and yeah over time I`ve repeated this topic so like the top essay one two
three four five six seven I`d repeated it seven times this was all active
recall-based repetition it was me drawing out my spider diagram over and over
again until I could do it from memory until I could basically write out any the essay you gave me on implicit versus explicit memory could cite ten papers in
that essay and all because I used active recall in spaced repetition to repeat
it seven times until the point where it was green before the exam and we can
see I`ve done the same thing for Section B this was all about animal cognition
comparative cognition how the thinking of animals defers to the thinking of
humans, it`s a theory of mind future planning metacognition do animals navigate
using cognitive maps do animals understand causality do animal like what`s the
difference between human and animal language and finally Section C which is my My personal favorite was all the various things about intelligence and IQ and for
example sex differences in IQ very controversial even race differences in IQ
even more controversial very exciting topic and then a little bit of stuff
about personality whether there are any genes that influence personality but
you know who cares that`s all psychology the point is you know 21st of April
2nd of May 12th of May 13th of May the Saturday before the Friday before that
sort of stuff and over time the stuff has become green because it means I know
all of it so this is the retrospective revision timetable created in Google
sheets it`s a very straightforward list of topics down a column and then the the date that you revise the topic ideally color-coded based on how well you knew
it before you looked at your book on along the rows and that`s really all the
rest to it so hopefully this video has explained why I think that the
retrospective revision timetable is a better in my opinion more effective more the efficient way of studying than the potential revision timetable the book
standard revision timetable that we all covertly get taught from a young age.
Bonus
tip
Serial
Procrastinator or Bad at Following Schedule
So if you are a serial procrastinator
or bad at following your exam schedule and you think you can’t take your
schedule seriously then you should go for a daily timetable, which will help
you to stay focus or motivated. You will be using a time management method
called time blocking. You will divide your day in the clock of times. Then
organize your day in detail, make sure to include other activities also, and do
not leave any gaps in your professional resume writing schedule. The more gaps you have in your schedule,
the more likely it that you procrastinate. The right side of your timetable is
for rearranging your schedule in case of any emergency over to the popup. This
is because you don’t feel overwhelmed or demotivated when your day is not going
according to plan.
Additionally,
if you are someone that problem in the long period of focusing on the time I highly
recommend doing the Pomodoro technique.
Pomodoro Technique
It is a technique where you study all work for 25 minutes at a time and intake a five
minutes break in between, Feel free to take social media and YouTube and using
this technique for your exam preparation. However, if you progress your study
session you need to try to practice focusing for a longer period. This is
because usually a lot of exams are longer than 25 minutes and sometimes you are
in the middle of your exams question and trying to figure out concept or
questions and then you have to stop because your 25 minutes are up. So make
sure we as a professional writer recommend the Pomodoro technique only when
you really have trouble focusing or you just don’t feel like studying at the
time. It is important to be specific but realistic when you planning your
schedule. Also, don’t fall into the habit of planning rather than implementing
your work.
In
A Nutshell
Just to
summarize the main reasons why I think it`s good are firstly it means you don`t
have to prophesize into the future because that is impossible secondly it means
that you see an overview of all your topics thirdly it encourages you to think
of your studying in terms of topics rather than in terms of time. After all, it
doesn`t matter how long something takes all that matters is that by the end you
know everything rather than you know I`m going to do my three topics a day for
20 days and it doesn`t matter what happens by the end of it you know focusing
on social
services it
in terms of topics helps understand stuff and fourthly it`s so cool to make one
of these spreadsheets, you don`t have to spend the cognitive effort of thinking
six weeks into the future and trying to visualize yourself at that point and
how many subjects you need to do instead all you have to do is to write down
the topics and you can just get cracking with your revision.
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