How to revise: One month before exams

The revision period is well underway! But fear not, there is still a lot that students can be doing a month away from their exams to get ready for end of year exams. The Tassomai team is going to be breaking down our top tips for revision over the next few weeks, including what to do a month, a week and the day before each exam…

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Where to start your revision

Hopefully by now students shouldn’t be starting revision from scratch but with so many exams to juggle it can be hard to know where to begin a revision session, particularly if you don’t have much time. 

Although it can feel more rewarding to cover topics you feel confident in already, now is the time to really target the areas that might cause you to slip up in the exam. 

Self quizzing 

You’ve been answering questions on Tassomai all year - now’s not the time to stop! Keeping up your background knowledge of a range of topics and subjects is a great way to ensure knowledge retention. It’s also an easy way to kick off a revision session: start with a quick 15 minutes on Tassomai and then you’ll be ready to look at longer form questions and past papers. 

Use the Tree

Our best advice is to go through your Tassomai Tree to identify areas where you are struggling on your quizzes. If you’ve been working on your Tassomai quizzes throughout the year, this data will have built up to give a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses in each subject. 

The Tree is a visual representation of a learner’s knowledge and understanding based on their Tassomai usage and the questions they’ve answered. Every learner has a separate tree for each subject they’re studying on Tassomai. Each leaf on the Tree represents a Tassomai question you have attempted, and the colour indicates whether you’re answering that question correctly or not. 

The greener the leaf, the better you’re doing. Clicking on a leaf displays a quiz question; click on the red or orange leaves to see the Tassomai questions you’re struggling with and start your revision for that topic based on these questions. 

Explain yourself

Once you’ve had a focused revision session on one of your weaker topics, explain what you’ve learnt to a friend, parent or sibling. Teaching others is one of the best ways to reaffirm your knowledge and cement what you’ve just learnt. 

Try not to burn out

The revision period is intense and it can be easy to work for hours and hours on certain subjects and then let others slip off your radar. Did you know? Frequently switching between topics, or "interleaving", is proven to be a highly effective way to learn. It's one of the principles Tassomai is built upon. 

The trick is to work smarter, not harder. Work out a schedule and try to stick to it as best as you can, that way you’ll be able to carve out time to relax, while still feeling prepared for your exams. This is often easier said than done, but make a plan with a parent or friend and allow them to hold you accountable to it so work and stress don’t pile up.

If you are worried about feeling overwhelmed, have a look at some of our mental health tips here, or read our guest article from Ben West, an inspiring mental health campaigner.