It is no easy thing to be able to recall and apply two years’ worth of study in an unseen exam under pressure, and to do well in these exams requires commitment and meticulous preparation. The strategies we have recommended in the document below are to formulate a detailed revision plan between now and the exams. The revision plan should also include several steps for consolidation of each topic. These steps are:

Consolidation – Going back through the textbook and notes on the topic, checking that everything is understood, and creating condensed notes that can be used to revise just before the exam.

Factual Recall – Creating and using flashcards or the digital equivalent to self-test on factual recall of key elements, to ensure that detailed knowledge is secured in the memory and ready to recall and deploy to approach or evidence exam responses.

Exam practice – Practising with actual past paper questions and full past papers, both to test whether knowledge, understanding and exam skills are secure, but also to practice producing answers in the correct amount of time. Ideally these should be ‘unseen’ (i.e. not prepared for in advance of starting the timer) and without access to notes.

The easiest way for pupils to structure their revision is to simply use their school timetable. This gives them five hours of revision a day, with breaks built in and time to do more ‘fun’ activities in the afternoon.