Making a personalised revision plan (2 min read)
So.
It’s a pleasant Sunday morning.
You decided to commit yourself to an exam
The syllabus is in front of you.
Now what do you do?
If you are working full time/have other commitments, it can be difficult to figure out how to prepare for the exam.
As someone who has sat many postgraduate exams and gets asked this question A LOT,
you need a strategy if you are going to succeed.
Remember that you are an individual, and therefore there is NO “one size fits all” plan.
There are however important questions you need to ask yourself when making your own personalised revision plan.
Let’s dive in!
Do you know your timeline?
It’s so easy to mix up deadlines and we have all done it before. Mixing up exam deadlines is a sure fire way to give yourself UNNECESSARY stress.
Make your life easy.
When is the exam happening?
Is there a deadline to register? When is it?
WRITE IT DOWN and use it as a checkpoint (covered later in this post)
What do you need to learn? Scope your subject
Scoping the subject should be your PRIORITY.
Without this step you will find it harder to decide on how long to spend on certain areas.
What is the breadth of the curriculum that is being assessed?
Do you have any strengths/things you don’t need to cover in as much detail?
What is new knowledge to you?
Make sure you know precisely what the exam will be assessing - different exams need different kinds of practice!
How will you integrate learning into your practice?
This is crucial to making sure your learning sticks.
Why waste precious moments studying flow if you will only forget it tomorrow!
Remember that reading and note making is passive - make learning active
e.g go into work and talk about the things you have learnt - teach medical students/junior trainees/consultants (!)
stay excited about learning
more curious you are, the more it sticks (and science agrees (!))
The more you integrate learning, the more you will retain.
How will you stay motivated?
Revision can be life-consuming. As with any goal in life, you need to have something to keep you going, because there will be dark times!
Treat yourself
plan fun activities when you reach your checkpoints
If you are being realistic with your plan (see next point), then you should also make sure you reward yourself so you can stay on track.
Are you being realistic?
Plans are, after all, just plans.
Have buffer time so that you can safely reach your goal without having to do the 100m sprint finish.
Keep yourself “in check”
Have checkpoints so you can check your progress
tick off topics on your syllabus
mark a calendar with important dates
get a revision buddy/partner to hold you accountable
When do you want to be learning vs applying knowledge?
When do you want to stop learning new concepts?
Do you realistically think you can retain new material the day before the exam?
