Revision Tips for English Students

People often ask me how they can revise for English so here are some tips that have got me through my GCSEs, A Levels and degree.

I publish these tips on Instagram and Facebook weekly so will update this resource as I post new tips.

1.Keep Track

Break your revision into manageable chunks (e.g. key themes and characters from your texts)

Make a table on which you list what you need to revise with about 5 empty columns. Tick every time you revise a topic so that you keep track of your revision for this unit. (You can find tables like this on my website; look for the Revision Checklists)

 

2. Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Read and reread your set texts. If this is a chore for you, you could try listening to the audiobook or listening to it on YouTube (you can speed up the pace if it feels a bit slow). If it is an open book exam, try to follow along with the text as you listen as you need to know your way around the actual book in the exam.

Watch performances of your texts, if they are available.

3. Identify the Big Events

Identify what the main events are and know where to find them in the text if your exam is open book. These ‘big events’ are likely to be useful evidence for a range of questions. Try to learn by heart where these significant events happen (e.g. In The Handmaid’s Tale, know the chapters where the Ceremony and the Particicution takes place and in which chapter they go to Jezebels or in Macbeth, know in which scene the murder of Duncan takes place and when the Ghost of Banquo appears).

4. Check your notes

Check that you have good notes and annotations on every poem in your anthology. Your teacher may have asked other students to prepare presentations on certain poems so some of your notes may not be as detailed or helpful as others. You don’t want to realise this the night before the exam!

5. The ‘Friends’ Method

As you read, try to reduce each chapter or scene to a very brief summary or caption (think about the way Friends episodes are named: The One where…). Put these summaries on revision cards with the chapter/scene number on the back and keep testing yourself. Spread them out on the floor and try to put them in order.

6. Key Parts

Learn where key scenes are (important speeches, confrontations, deaths etc.)

These are likely to be useful for a range of exam questions and will also help you navigate your way around the play/novel.

If your question asks you to link to the rest of text, it’s helpful to know the sequence of events so that you can say whether the event happens earlier or later in the text.

7. Character Mind Maps

For each of the main characters in each text, make a mind map. You should include:

• Key characteristics with a quotation for each one
• Important relationships
• Significant moments in the text, including important speeches

Look at this regularly; cover bits of it up and try to remember them; recreate the mind map from memory.

8. Terminology

If you can, try to use the correct terminology in your English exams.

Try writing key words on notes and sticking them in places where you will see them often (the places that worked for me were my dressing table mirror, the biscuit tin and the back of the bathroom door!)

9. Use colour

When making revision materials, use different coloured paper or pens for different themes or characters. Associating a particular topic with a specific colour can act as a memory jogger – as well as just making it more engaging to look at!

10. Revisit

Hopefully, you have produced a range of revision resources by now. Don’t just file them away, try these things to keep them fresh in your mind:

• read them regularly
• try to reproduce them from memory
• add quotations to them
• reduce them to fewer words.

 

11. Plan exam answers (particularly important for A Level Literature)

Plan essays for all of the main characters and themes in your texts.

For each one:

• think of what your thesis would be
• find evidence from the text that would help you argue this
• plan the analytical points you would make about this evidence
• think about any relevant links to context (and which critics you could refer to, if this is required).

Going through the planning process thoroughly as part of your revision should save you from having to think an idea through from scratch in the exam.

12. Get out of your bedroom

Do some active revision – you don’t need to be shut in your room for months leading up to the exams! Go for a walk or a coffee with a friend in your class and talk through how you would answer questions on certain characters or themes from your Literature texts.

Not only will you benefit from another person’s perspective on this, but being able to argue your ideas will really help to boost how confident you feel about your knowledge of the text.

13. Timed Essays

Make sure you know how long your exams last and how long you will have for each answer; you need to be able to write for this amount of time. Think of this like training for a marathon – you wouldn’t do that without training, so make sure your hand can keep going for the whole exam and that you can get your essays written in that time.

If you will be handwriting in the exam, you need to do your essay practice by hand too.

14. Get feedback

Following on from Tip 13, get your practice timed essays marked and pay close attention to the feedback; be willing to do them again until you are happy with your mark. Your teacher should be willing to mark extra timed essays but, if not, try my proofreading service.

15. Theme Posters

Make sure you know the main themes in each text. For each one, make a poster on which you

• note all the places where it appears in the text
• pick out quotations relating to the theme to explode/analyse
• consider how it links to the context or the writer’s purpose (i.e. what are they trying to show/say?)

There are lists of themes for many popular GCSE texts on my website. Search for Revision Checklists in my Resource area.

16. Learn quotations

Learn key quotations which reflect the main themes or typify a character. Even if your exam is an open book exam, it can save you time trying to find them when you’re under pressure.

Try the ‘look, cover, write, check’ method you used for learning spellings at primary school. Keep testing yourself so that you don’t forget them.

Don’t put off doing this – the earlier your start, the more you can learn.

17. Sequencing scenes

Write the opening and closing lines of each scene on cards with the act and scene number on the back. You can test yourself on both sides on these cards.

Try spreading them out on the floor with the quotation side up and trying to sequence them.

This will help you secure the plot and focus on the dramatic significance of the way scenes are started and finished.