Having done two real university exams so far, I thought it may be helpful to share my current and previous study/revision methods.
After two terms at the RVC, I still haven't perfected my university study methods, as expected. When I first came to university, I found that the previous ways I made and revised notes in my A level years couldn't be adapted to work with the huge increase in content that came with a veterinary degree.
All these tips are based on my own experience, it might be different from your experiences and not all of my advice will work for you!
Techniques I used in School
For my GCSEs and A levels, I wrote out my class notes and rewrote them as my revision. I kept my class notes in a folder and my neat revision notes in an A4 notebook.
I used coloured pens, highlighters, sticky notes and every drawing or writing utensil possible to make my revision notes the most aesthetic and pinterest-worthy source of information.
The first thing people think about spending so much time re-writing notes is how much of a timewaster and useless experience it is.
However, there are some advantages to making such pretty notes:
· It makes you want to read them.
· It motivates you to do your work because it's visually enjoyable.
In the dark days of revision, it feels good to look over my notes and feel proud over what you've created. Not only did it increase my willingness to read them, but it also served as a creative outlet which was hugely beneficially for relieving stress.
As well as using my notes to revise, I also used online external notes such as from Snap Revise, Physics and Maths Tutor and the CGP textbooks. (Key tip: For A level science, don't use the CGP revision guides, use the CGP textbooks instead. They have a lot more information in and are helpful to use in your lessons).
Online notes are great, but I recommend using them in addition to class and textbook notes as opposed to on their own. This is just to ensure you get the most comprehensive understanding of the content.
Remember!!
Your class notes and course-specific textbooks are the Holy Grail. Online notes are often combinations of lots of sources to make them applicable for all courses (AQA, OCR etc). Your teacher and textbook have information carefully designed to be specific for you so my advice is to use those as your main guide.
Questions and past papers are the best things to prepare yourself for the exam in my opinion. Reading and writing the notes is great for learning the information but it didn't help me in application to an exam question.
I wrote my notes during the term time so by the time the revision period began I had lots of time to do past paper questions and work on my exam technique. There are so many questions in textbooks and online, try to do all of them before moving onto doing past paper under exam conditions. (I didn't even get through all the textbook questions before I started my exams, that's how many there are!)
Techniques I use in University
One of the main differences between university and school is how the ways of teaching are so different. I thought this is best illustrated in a little table:
As you can see there is a big difference in learning in school and at university. It means that there needed to be a big difference in the way I revised in school and university.
First Term:
From speaking to friends and family I decided that typing is the best way to make notes in lectures. I would download the PowerPoint slides before the lecture, paste them into OneNote and then type during the lecture itself. Afterwards, I would read them, spell check them and usually never look at them again until my exam revision period.
Then, I started prepping for my lectures, by typing out the text from the slides into OneNote and actually reading them before the lecture. It helped me to avoid repetition as I already knew what was in the slides having read them before.
By the Christmas exams, we had already done 8 topics so a lot of content to summarise. I started making flashcards to try and summarise the different topics but it took so long for me to write everything out.
Second Term:
This term I got my dyslexic software so my way of writing my notes completely changed. I still prepped my lectures using my software and, in addition to typing in the lecture, the software recorded the lecture so I could immediately go back and listen to what the lecturer said for each slide. Although RVC, like many other universities, uploads the lectures online, there is a slight time lag. Using this software, I was able to review and relisten to the lecture straight after. Some apps do this, such as Notability, or you could record the lecture on your phone. It is really helpful as the lecture is fresh in my mind when I revisit it so I have a better understanding.
The software converts all the notes onto a word document. While I didn't like having half my notes on OneNote and the other half on Word, the word layout was much easier to read and revise.
I had continued doing my flashcards, but the sheer amount of content meant it was impossible to write all the information up. So, I abandoned that method and thought of other ways to condense my notes. I think the best way is to summarise each lecture using its learning objectives onto one or two pages. One of my flatmates uses mind maps to crush each lecture onto one A4 page. This makes it a lot easier to revise and makes looking over lectures a much less daunting experience.
I'm still finding a good way to make and revise my notes from lectures. Naturally, I haven't figured it out yet and I have found other ways to revise which have proven effective. The current way that I am revising for my exams is by using a huge whiteboard. I summarise each lecture onto my giant board and make sure I understand each concept before I erase it. It's very useful as I am physically writing out the information but can easily erase it and I don't get hung up on how neat it is.
I hope this has been useful in helping with revising and making notes.
These videos are also really helpfull:
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