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Study Skills
1.
When are your exams? _________________
Check dates.
2.
How many days until the first exam?
3.
How will you revise? This is the key to success.
4.
When will you revise?
5.
How much time is available?
6.
Why will you revise?
7.
Where will you revise?
8.
Who can help you?
9.
What can help you?
10. How many subjects are you studying
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Do not leave your revision until the night before the test!
1.
You need a quiet place to study and plan breaks for
2.
Use revision lists from teachers so you know what you have to learn
3.
Make out a revision timetable for the days before your examination.
(See Form Teacher for useful example)
4.
Read through your text books and exercise books
5.
Make notes
6.
Really learn the important information, dates, times, facts, spellings,
etc.
7.
Set yourself questions on work you have learnt
8.
Look at exam timetable and make sure you understand it
9.
Be prepared with pens, pencils, rulers, rubbers, colouring pencils and
calculators if necessary
10.
Check examination rules on your exam timetable when you receive it.
Do your best!
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yourself
Goal setting for your exams
You must really want to succeed
Your results are very predictable.
This is the whole key.
You may need to change some habits
(Too much TV/Music while you study?)
You may need to change some of your attitudes (to school, parents,
teachers, certain subjects)
How you feel about yourself is vital to how you perform at school or
indeed at anything.
If you wish to be successful, you must begin by setting yourself specific
goals.
Goal
I will improve my ___________ mark by 8% by the next examination.
Write your goals down.
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Your first improvement (goal) may be small, but it forms the basis for the
next improvement.
Keep a copy of your goals in the back of your homework diary and tick
off when achieved.
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REVISION TIMETABLE
DAY/DATE
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
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SUBJECT 1
SUBJECT 2
SUBJECT 3
Study Time
In order to achieve, you must be prepared to spend time studying as well
as doing homework. We do not all study in the way. How we study and
how we learn is crucial.
Your Study Timetable
¾ Each pupil’s timetable will be different.
¾ Make a grid with sessions of 20minutes (leave a 10 minute break
between each session).
¾ Take out all time not available for study (sports, TV, meal times, jobs
you do at home).
¾ Put in homework sessions. Don’t always do your homework first and
then study. Mix it around.
¾ Don’t forget to set aside time at the weekend.
¾ Take out time each day for ‘review’ (10-15 minutes).
¾ Now weight your subjects in order of difficulty and need.
¾ Do a number of study sessions for each subject.
¾ Now fill in the blank ‘study’ spaces with your subjects.
¾ Have you got a variety each night? – don’t leave the difficult subjects
for late at night, keep similar subjects apart.
¾ Show your timetable to your parents and seek their help.
Note Taking to help Revision & Studying
¾ Always
o
o
o
o
o
take notes when studying,
Your notes must be neat
Your notes must be short
They must have a working margin
Use some colour/highlighting
Take notes quickly
The working margin is for:
o Additional points on this topic, that you come across later on
o Page numbers, so you can look it up if you need to
o Questions you should ask the teacher
o Page references for maps, diagrams\examples
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Note Taking Examples
a)
OUTLINE METHOD
Page Numbers
Ref. to diagrams, etc.
“TOPIC”
‘WORKING
MARGIN’
A. MAIN IDEA
1. FACT
‘SOURCE’
DATE:______
(i) DETAIL
(ii) DETAIL
2. FACT
(i) DETAIL
(ii) DETAIL
(iii) DETAIL
B. MAIN IDEA
1. FACT
b)
DIAGRAM METHOD:
Idea/fact
Main idea
Detail
Main Idea
Idea/fact
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TOPIC
Idea/fact
STUDY METHOD
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
PREVIEW
“What do I know already?” ‘word dump’
3 mins
SKIM
Sub headings; graphs; maps; diagrams.
1 min
SET TARGET
Set a realistic target for the session;
Mark the page.
30 secs
QUESTION
Read questions in text or (examine
Past papers)
2 mins
TAKE NOTES
Rapid Read first (very quickly), then go back and take notes.
If learning diagrams: close book, make an attempt, correct
mistakes. Note page number in “working margin”.
REVIEW
“What do I know now?” ‘word dump’
2 mins
RECORD MISTAKES
Put a neat circle on your page of good notes (with a coloured
pen), around each item you forgot, or got wrong (when you did
your final word dump). You may now throw away the word
dumps and file your good notes.
Next, enter the topic studied into your REVIEW DIARY for the next
day; this day week; this day next month; in six months time.
Set aside about 10-15 minutes each night to review. Reviewing is the key
to retaining information. If you don’t review regularly you will forget the
information learnt very rapidly.
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A REVIEW SESSION
1.. WORD DUMP
“What do I remember” (2 mins. approx.)
2. CHECK NOTES
(Your original notes)
3. CIRCLE all the items you got wrong with a different
By recording your mistakes you lock information into your long term
memory.
Be careful not to rely solely on this method of quick reviewing. This
method will help you to be able to recall factual information. You must
also practise writing complete answers to questions (often practised as
homework – see if you do the homework with the book and notes closed,
allowing yourself the same time as you will get in the exam!)
OVERVIEW
Timetable
Plan a timetable of work
Organise
Get yourself sorted out.
Plan work and relaxation
Work
Work hard but in concentrated short periods with
breaks.
Notes
Key words.
Note cards.
Bubble and spider diagrams
Highlighter pens.
Tapes.
Diagrams.
Review
Regular review helps memory retention.
Answer
Try past questions. Can you answer them?
Test
Test yourself and get others to test you.
Success
Do all this and you will be successful.
GOOD LUCK!
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REVISION KIT
”
Pens, coloured pencils, highlighter
pens
”
Paper
”
Homework Diary
”
Text Books
”
Exercise Books
”
List of Revision Topics from
Teachers
Take twenty minutes every day
review everything you’ve learned!
FINAL TIP
1.
Look
2. Cover
3. Write
4. Check
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to