Exam revision

Advice and resources to help you revise for exams throughout the semester.

Essential preparation for revision

To set yourself up for success, first use the information in your subject LMS and/or subject handbooks to find out all about your exams, including

  • How many exams you have and what each is worth as a percentage of that subject’s final grade. This will help you to prioritise and allocate time and effort.
  • What dates your exams fall. Use a calendar or semester planner to work backwards and block out revision time around other essential commitments in your life.
  • What question types will be on each exam (eg multiple choice, short answer or essay questions). This will help you to choose effective revision strategies.
  • The exam format (open or closed book, digital or paper based) and location (on-campus or off-campus). This will help you to practice in exam conditions and feel mentally prepared.
  • Whether there are past papers for your subjects – check your subject LMS or with your tutor to find out.

Getting organised for revision

Consider how you will organise your study space, materials and time to make your revision activities as effective as possible.

Get set up for study

Think about where you work most productively and plan to do your exam revision there.  Remove distractions and temptations to procrastinate such as digital devices and media. Make sure you have all your study notes and learning materials readily accessible and well organised.

Plan out your study time

Plan your study time out in a diary or timetable. Start by blocking out time for essentials like meals, self-care and other non-negotiable commitments, and then allocate time to study.

Keep in mind that frequent, short revision sessions – around 50 minutes – are often more effective for recall than long study blocks.

Tip: Use time management tools
For templates and strategies to help your semester and weekly planning, visit Time management .

Use a revision planner

A revision planner is a tool to help you systematically revise content for an exam

Make a list of the topics to be covered. Then keep track of each topic you have looked at and rate yourself: choose ‘good’, ‘okay’, or ‘needs work’. You can then prioritise which topics to revisit based on your self-rating.

Download a blank Revision planner template and watch the video below for more guidance.

Download Revision planner template (XLSX 40.4B)

  • This video shows you how to make a revision planner for your exam. Using a revision planner will help you to keep track of your learning and feel confident that you have a good understanding of the subject content going into your exam.

    You'll need one revision planner for every exam. Start by filling in the subject and exam details at the top, number or date of the lecture in the first column, and the topics covered in the second column. You can copy and paste these from the course outline. This is so that you cover everything that might come up in the exam.

    Next, make several columns for revision sessions, and one for notes on materials you might use, such as summary notes or problem sets. Revising material repeatedly, spreading the practice over days or weeks, has been shown to result in more flexible and stable learning. You'll remember material for longer and understand it more deeply. Starting early in the semester, you can begin in week one, allocate time to revise topics and lectures and then rate yourself in the first column. For example, good, okay, needs work, difficult, or even get help. Find a rating system that works for you.

    For the second and all other revision sessions, you don't need to work through in order. You might choose a topic that was difficult or needed work last time and do a second revision or review a topic that you haven't looked at in a while. Studying topics out of order can make it easier to apply the facts you've learned to problems in the exam as they're not tied to a sequence.

    Rate yourself each time you revise. If you're not making progress, seek help from your tutors or other support services. Your aim is that by swot vac, you should be feeling reasonably confident about all topics and can now use the break to consolidate your learning, work through problems, and calmly prepare yourself for the challenge of performing at your best in the exam.

    Download your revision planner now.  All the best with your studies!

Revision strategies

Here are a few strategies for managing your revision activities so you get the most benefit out of the time you have.

Active learning

Re-reading your notes is a good first step. However, for really effective learning to take place, you need to  do something more with the information: recall, transform, apply or explain the material. This is called active learning.

Three key active learning strategies that you could use for exam revision are:

  • Retrieval practice: test yourself by covering your study notes and trying to recall the main points or details.
  • Elaboration: transform the material using a different format, medium or perspective. For example, make your written notes into a mind map or flow chart, explain a diagram in writing, or summarise a theory in your own words.
  • Social strategies: teach a study buddy the content you have just revised, create exam-style questions for each other, or give each other feedback on practice tasks.

Tip: Try different active learning techniques
There are lots of different strategies for learning. The trick is to find out which work best for you. To explore some new ones, visit Active learning strategies.

Spaced revision

This strategy involves revising content at strategic points in time.

Spaced revision is proven to maximise your recall, and minimise the time needed to ‘re learn’ something studied a longer time ago.

Watch the video to learn more about the science behind forgetting, and what it tells us about planning your revision over the semester.

  • Spaced revision is a technique based on Hermann Ebbingshaus’ Curve of forgetting, published in 1913.

    Ebbingshaus studied how the amount of information retained decays over time. In other words, how quickly we forget newly-learned information.

    His conclusion: the amount we remember drops most dramatically in the 24 hours to one week immediately after we learn something new.
    A few months down the track, only, say, one fifth of that new content has been retained.

    What does this mean for students?

    Well, if you put away your notes after a lecture, and come back to them just before the exam, you’ll have a big task ahead of you, re-learning content from this lower base.

    More recent research into forgetting and recall shows that by strategically spacing out your revision – for example right after your lecture, again after a day, a week, and so on…

    …you’ll have a better recall of the content at the start of each session, and will therefore be able to build back to 100% with less effort spent in re-learning material, and more efficiency with each repetition.

Here’s how to do spaced revision. At the end of your tutorial or lecture each week, you would:

  1. Go through your notes on the new content thoroughly within twenty-four hours of your class
  2. Review again a day later (but in a shorter study session this time)
  3. Repeat the week later (even shorter)
  4. Further revision sessions every 2-3 weeks until the exam.

Blocking and interleaving

To make the most of your revision time, consider which technique to use in each study session. Two popular approaches are blocking and interleaving.

What are blocking and interleaving?

Blocking is when you dedicate a longer block of time to studying a narrow topic, or to repeated practice of a specific skill or problem type. Blocking can help build knowledge quickly, boosting confidence and improving performance in the short term.

Interleaving involves switching between multiple task types or topic areas in a single study session. Interleaving can feel challenging, as switching tasks and topics involves higher cognitive load. However, it can result in better retention of information and more flexible thinking in the long term.

One common approach is to use blocking earlier on for new or less familiar topics or skills, then, in later study sessions, switch to interleaving to improve recall, and deepen connections. Blocking can also be used for a final study session to brush up on a particular area just before the exam .

Practise exam taking techniques

Besides improving your knowledge, you should also develop your ability to demonstrate and apply what you’ve learned in the context of a timed exam.

Applying your knowledge

It’s a good idea to revise by practicing the same question types that will be on the exam (eg multiple choice, short answer, essay style).

Some subjects may have past papers or practice exams available.

If not, you can try creating your own questions for revision, either alone or with others (this is a particularly good activity for study groups).

Simulating exam conditions

Exams don’t just test your ability to apply knowledge to solve problems. They test your ability to cope with time pressure and perform in a potentially unfamiliar environment. Familiarising yourself with your exam conditions can help to reduce nerves and increase confidence.   The strategies below can help to simulate exam conditions.

  • Practise  exam-style questions to a set time limit
  • Practise with only  the materials you will have during the real exam
  • Practise in a similar location to that of the real exam: for on-campus exams, you could set up in a library or other public study space to simulate the feeling of an exam hall
  • Practise at a similar time of day that the exam is scheduled. If you only ever study late at night, an exam scheduled for first thing in the morning might create unnecessary additional challenges.

Final tip

Try to build on the exam revision skills you already have. Reflect on what’s worked well for you in the past and how you might need to adapt your strategies to suit your current studies.

Related resources

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