How Not To Revise

Now you’ve identified your areas for improvement, it’s time to start revision. There is a range of ways you can revise. Some are better than others though. Before you choose your revision strategy though, have a look at the revision don’ts below. It’ll save you a lot of wasted revision time!

Don’t Copy!
Many of us have spent time copying information from revision and textbooks, producing reams and reams of handwritten pages. All those copied pages make us feel good as we’ve been really productive. However, when it comes to learning, this technique has very little impact. Just don’t do it, you’re wasting your time.

Don’t highlight!
Who doesn’t love a good highlighter? Highlighting makes you feel like you’ve been really productive. However, you may be disappointed to discover, highlighting does little to boost performance, and can even hurt performance in some cases. Time to put those beautiful colour sticks in the draw!

Don’t re-read
Re-reading is a popular revision technique. However, re-reading notes or textbooks is rated very poorly as an effective revision strategy compared to other strategies you could be using. A wealth of research has shown that passive repetitive reading produces little or no benefit for learning!

If you’ve just discovered your approach to revision isn’t particularly effective, don’t feel bad! The good news is that there are other strategies out there that are more effective, more interesting and less time-consuming. Before we explore these revision techniques, you may be interested in finding out about key concepts that support your learning.