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Summary: If you are about to start a particular topic, subject, or revision for A level sociology exam, quickly visualize in your mind or write down all the major headings you will encounter. Getting a sense of the bigger picture will help you no end when planning and timetabling your work.
Exams are around the corner, and everyone is rushing from pillar to post to complete studies followed by revision. Unfortunately, many students rush only at the last minute to prepare for their exams, which is usually the time to relax and revise. Revision is a process of keeping the critical points of a concept in the forefront of our brain to retrieve them easily during the exam.
We are all aware that every person learns differently. Learning styles can be divided into four groups – visual, auditory, active, and combined. Since not all tips suit every learning style, it is essential to come up with tips and suggestions that can help students in each group. Here are some last-minute revision tips to help you prepare for the upcoming exams.
Experienced learners
A level sociology revision resources can understand and imprint information by looking at them. Anything visually appealing will help them learn better. So, here are revision tips for visual learners.
- Prepare notes while studying. It would be helpful if your points are noted in a spray pattern, wherein you center the central point/theme of the chapter and follow it with the other essential points.
- Posters around your room/house about the critical points and chapters. This way, you will see them as often as possible, and the more you see them, the better the information will be imprinted.
- Use colors to highlight critical points. These will help you remember the points nicely.
- Auditory learners – students who prefer listening and understanding rather than seeing or exploring alone are considered auditory learners. They do best when they listen to a particular action rather than relying on their vision. Here are some tips for such learners.
- Read aloud while studying. Since auditory learners prefer to use their listening skills to understand better, reading aloud helps.
- Tape the critical points if possible so you can listen to them later and revise.
- Group study can help you learn better.
- Active learners – active learners prefer to move around a lot while learning. It would therefore be apt if they study by moving around or while doing some other physical activity. Here are some tips to help them revise well.
- A study by moving around the house.
- Review the topics studied while performing other activities such as swimming, walking, etc.
- Combined learners – some people prefer to remember by reading and writing. They are known as combined learners. Here are some tips which can help students to study better.
- Read and make notes.
- Revise using notes and if needed, rewrite the points from your memory.
- Suggestions catering to individual learning styles can help you succeed in your studies and exams.
Traits of the best learner
A level sociology education notes will aid you but note they frequently cross over with the audio and visual techniques. For my in-depth personal tips, read the prose below this paragraph:
- Think about the day ahead. Allocate a goal for the day, e.g., today I will have revised X number of chapters, or if revising from notes, place a bookmark on the page you want to reach.
- Do not have a messy workspace. Kinaesthetic learners love to get distracted. Have your desk, pen, laptop, study materials, and drink. I will teach you healthy ways of distracting yourself.
- If you can face it, use a pen, not a keyboard. It works wonders for kinaesthetic learners (and visual learners)
- Use highlighter pens to mark either keywords, phrases, or titles.
- Use color coding. (More about that below)
- Try to work in slots of 30 minutes with 15-minute breaks at first. Try to increase this as exams loom to 45 minutes with 10-minute breaks.
- Don’t just stop because your timer goes off. If you’re on a roll, keep going.
Make good use of your breaks.
Find something to do that will not require the use of your memory and will steal your focus completely. Watching TV and surfing the internet are good enough for most. Still, learners may prefer a more hands-on approach, e.g., cooking, cleaning, exercising, fixing, building, weight lifting, gaming, etc. If you can do something beneficial in this time, it will give you the distraction you need and will subconsciously take a weight off your mind of tasks to do later!
Play music in a familiar background, e.g., the music you have heard before that you won’t rush to replay at the end. Classical music has featured recently in multiple studies purporting to be beneficial!
Vary study locations
More about this is below. In short, find different places to study and use them well. Exercising in your breaks is excellent as long as you give yourself a minute to relax again before picking up the books. Also, ensuring you maintain your blood sugar levels is highly recommended.
Exercising while studying – try it
Visual learners may struggle with learning on treadmills, for example, as you will struggle to read. In contrast, a learner can listen to a podcast/ recorded lecture, etc. Keeping the heart rate up is fine so long as your energy levels remain high. Tiring yourself out will force you to lose your concentration.
Shower in the morning, eat a proper breakfast, and drink a ‘moderately caffeinated drink.’ Avoid drinks high in sugar or caffeine wherever possible, especially in the mornings! (This may require discipline and weaning off high tolerance levels of caffeine for some)
If something pressing on your mind needs to be done, do it. If it’s stealing your attention, it will continue to do so. Sort it.
Ensure your phone is on silent
Completely silent. Don’t even let the screen light up. Alternatively, could you leave it in another room or off? Check it in every break, though.
