How do you revise?

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I am revising for my GCSE mocks (next week) and then my actual exams in 9 and 10 weeks. but i don't know how to revise. I have written down the key topics i need to revise for some of my subjects.

But the thing is, i have no idea where to go from there! All the websites say summarize your notes and stuff life that, but i don't know how to do that. I have a book for science and English but they are really long so i can't possibly memorize all that!

I have tried using information sites in the internet, but i have to do all my work (apart from English) through fluent Welsh so alot of the terms and stuff i need to learn aren't there!

So i was wondering how you all revise, maybe we can help each other...or not...
Post what techniques you use and how they work for you and all stuff like that.

Some good ways of revising are:

1. Find questions on the topic you are studying. Fold a sheet of A4 in half, one side under the other. Write the questions on one side and the answers on another. See how you do. Might be worth getting someone else to write the questions.

2. Create mind maps of your topics, adding more detail as you go.

3. If you need to get up and about, put post it notes of different facts around your bedroom so you have to walk around to revise them. See if you can remember them the next time.

4. Make a podcast of your revision notes, then listen to it as you do other things.

5. Create a factsheet or PowerPoint which explains your topic. The best way to remember something is to teach it to someone else. (You don't actually have to teach it, just making the resource helps).

Hope it goes well. Summarizing can be difficult if you have problems with executive function so maybe the above will help better.

When I did GCSEs the best thing for me was constantly doing old exam papers. I soaked up a bit from reading the books but the papers seemed to be a lot better, just sort of slowly soaked in the kind of questions they tended to ask.

Depends on your subjects I guess, I stuck to the subjects with definite right/wrong answers where I could, so not the stuff like "How do you think blahdedblah did blahdeblah" sort of questions you tend to get with history and RE and the like.

More tips on reading up:

1: Do not mark text passages in the book but write them down seperately

2: The last day before the exams, make sure to get as much rest as possible and the night before, go early to bed. Good amounts of sleep help a lot in memorizing new info.

3: Make sure to get a solid breakfast on exam day, and if you can, take something with good amounts of sugar with you (eg. 1-2 candybars) or glucose/dextrose candies (mostly sold under the name dextro energy over here). The brain runs on sugars and only sugars, so it's important to keep it well-fed before and under the exams . Bananas and nuts are extremely good to keep the brain fed also.

4: this is an extension on Bonafan's 4th tip; Make a podcast and listen to it while you sleep. While you don't learn while sleeping, it does make it easier to memorize what you listened to the next day (lots on science papers on this out there)

5: If you know how you learn the best, take advantage of it. Some need to move their body, others need flash cards, others again make powerpoints. It all depends on whether you're best at practical learning (learning by doing) or theoretical learning (reading books).

6: Dunno if GCSE's are multiple choice, but multiple choice exams employ primarily one technique to confuse students (well, cheaters anyway) in that many successive questions can have the same letter for an answer (eg. c,c,c,c etc), however, the answers are still correct, Don't get worried about it, now you know.

7: While the internet is an invaluable tool for seeking information, it's a large jungle out there. If you need to study for Welsh, search in Welsh... Google Translate can also help you translate words to and from Welsh and can help you on the way on finding the right terms. Armed with GT and a seperate dictionary can make pretty much anybody into a master of language. I often use GT to refresh some less commonly used English terms that I sometimes forget, the same with my native language (I mostly think in English even though my native language is Danish).

8: Do some revision in the morning while eating breakfast, the brain is better at memorizing facts at this time

9: Turn off your cellphone if you have one, one distraction less and no messages or calls to think about. To any kid out there: your friends can wait, your exam cannot and that exam opens doors if you use time on it.

10: Use mnemonics (actually short for Make Names Easily Memorable by Organising Nominated Initial Characters), they make things from tuning a guitar to building rockets a hell of a lot easier to remember, many of the first programming languages in fact used the same method for easier learning (like MUL (multiply), DIV (divide) and MOV (move data)), and can be used together with mindmaps to help express a long string of thoughts as well.

11: Get some friends over for a revision session and test eachother

12: Treat yourself when you're done, it's quite simple really... Your brain releases "reward hormones" if you do so (making you feel good), and kind of "forces" it into liking to store information. Remember, you have done a good day's hard work and it's a good way to motivate yourself to keep going.

13: A good rule against the anxiety is the philosophy: "If you believe you can pass or you believe you cannot pass, you're right." In essence this means that the examiner is not your enemy, he's not out to get you.

14: Try to explain your answers to someone else, It's good for oral exams, but also for written exams as it helps the information "stick", it also helps you in finding the logic in areas you have difficulty with.

and number 15 before I forget: for God's sake bring something to drink, keeping hydrated is key under any situation where brainpower is needed, so having a bottle or two of water with you is an extremely good idea.

In any case, I hope you can use some of the additional tips I gave you, it's not only for revision but a few of them are good to know on exam day as well. Number 6, however is a bit of a "behind the curtain" look though, as very few students know this....

All these tips helped alot. Thanks.

It is bloody difficult for me to revise, even when I take my ADHD meds.
I just can't understand the sense of what I am reading.

the thing that works best for me is doing mock tests for myself, the questions that i score lowest on i study deeper during that day; and do another mock thest the next day (or the day after; depending on how much tests you got), this allows me to get my knowledge and questionscore about equal over the entire subject.

you could ask your teacher to supply you with these tests; he should have many exams from previous years (except if he keeps reusing them, but he shouldn't be). if you ask him for old exams to help you study, there's a good chance he will give you some