Education

How to revise for exams 

Revising for exams is a very complex process, and it differs from one person to another. This is because revising implies learning theory, identifying and filling memory gaps, then relating and putting pieces of information together in order to solve problems. University exams are particularly challenging, due to the amount of theory involved and the complexity of the problems. Although there is no such thing as a perfect learning method that works for everyone, here are a few guidelines you can follow to improve your performances in this field:

Understand the problem

Read the courses very carefully, but don't try to memorize them, try understanding them. If you want to, you can memorize important things by writing them down on a separate sheet of paper (doing so makes photographic memory link to motion memory)

Talking with other students may help you understand different theory elements and problems. To check if you have fully understood a course, try explaining it to another student.

Practice past papers

Look over previous exams, and try to figure out what are your teacher's requirements. Does he/she emphasize on theory or practical problems?

Try determining which pieces of theory can be applied in which type of problems. Build a solving pattern for known types of exercises

Only after doing so, try tackling new problems, for which you don't have a solving algorithm. This is where your skill and creativity come into play, but it also depends on how motivated you are and how much you succeeded in learning the theory logically

Let's take a course for example. Identify the part/parts from which all the rest derive from and try to figure out why are those things true. Then learn the rest simply by referring to those one or two things you have learned. Next, after solving different types of exercises, solve one similar to the first one again, to see if it's clear how it's done. Do the same for the rest, until you are confident on your skills. One thing is generally true: practice makes perfect! This is especially the case with when looking for best ways to revise for exams.