Exams and revision - tips and tricks

The exam period is always a daunting time throughout University. We are about to reach the end of the first week of exams at the University of Southampton, so some lucky people might already have finished theirs - I have still got another week until it's my turn.

One would think that, as I enter my fifth exam period as a student here, I would be a pro at this whole 'revision techniques, de-stress before exams' thing... but I'm not. Mostly because I generally do worse in exams than coursework, and I always end up with exams in my most challenging modules.

Putting that aside, I was revising earlier and thinking about the things that help me the most during exam periods. Here are my 4 strategies that may help you too:

1. Organisation and planning

How annoying is this point and how many people have told you about it before? I'm sure you've heard this loads of times and, as students, we sometimes just can't be bothered to do it. That's fine most of the year (not really), but during exams I have found it INCREDIBLY (underline that again) helpful to plan ahead. It does not take up more than 5-10 minutes and really pays off in the long-run.

I've basically written down in my diary what subjects to read on every day, and such a small effort has helped me stay on track with my revision. Further, I've got my building, room, time etc. for my exam written down to avoid any last minute confusions, and I always spend the first 10 minutes of an exam reading all the questions carefully and planning how to answer them.

2. Don't go straight to past papers

This is very tempting when you first start revising, and of all the possible revision methods, past exam papers are the best. However, they are quite useless if you don't have enough information to answer the questions. 

Make all your notes, go through the lecture slides, notes, important reading etc., before you start doing the past papers. This brings me back to point number 1: plan ahead so you have got a good structure of what you need to read and by when, in order to have sufficient time to do past papers.

3. Take breaks, think about summer, travelling, cats - whatever helps you relax

Self-explanatory really, but breaks are the alpha-omega of good work. Sometimes we forget about them and sometimes we take them for too long. I know I am, because I'm cat-sitting this beauty for the next two weeks!

4. Get enough sleep

This is the first exam period where I have actually made an effort to get enough sleep, and it has been life-changing. I'm a lot more productive, but also less stressed and anxious, which I usually am in times like these.

I appreciate people who stay up until 5am revising if it works for you (thank you 24 hour Hartley Library), but do remember to get into some sort of sleeping pattern a couple of days before your exam.

Hopefully this is of some help to people, or just a friendly reminder of things you already knew.

Regardless of how your exam goes, at least we are approaching warmer and longer days.

Best of luck to everyone in their exams!

Alexandra