By: Rajashree Sengupta

Exams have been a big part of our lives. And with exams, we have the crippling stress that accompanies each exam season. IGCSE is one of the most stressful exams of a student’s life. We have always been told important these exams are in shaping our future.

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The tremendous burden of doing well in these exams often leaves us confused and overwhelmed. This can stop us from effectively revising for the exams. Revision is a very important part of your preparation for facing any exam, and of the most importance for your IGCSEs.

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How do we go about it then? It is natural that we would face trouble in concentrating, but a little guidance, and useful tips would let you revise in the most efficient way.

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The following few tips are just the recipe for your essential revision:
 

1. Honest to Self:

Being honest to yourself is the most important step in starting the revision. It is important that you are completely honest with what topics of your entire syllabus you know, do not know, are less familiar with, or not thorough with. Lying to yourself about this would only stop you from revising in a proper way and would lead you skip some topics which are crucial for your exams.
 

2. Strategic Planning:

Now that you are aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are in each subject, you would need plan out the entire process of revision strategically. It is important for you to be thorough with topics you are less familiar with, and the topics you feel would be your weakness. This would require you to devote some extra effort into them. Thus, you would have to plan the revision such that you are done with these topics first.

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It is important that you mix in some topics you are confident with, along with the weaker ones in a day’s revision planning. This would ensure that you strengths continue to be your strengths and are not forgotten because of the burden of the weaker topics.
 

3. Execution of the Plan:

As a procrastinator myself, I am aware that even after planning out your entire timetable, we are mostly unable to follow it accordingly.

To avoid yourself from hindering your progress in revision you would need to execute the whole plan very strictly. How? The answer in lies in self rewards, and the inclusion of others into your planning.

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For example, you could make small deals with yourself, like “once I am done with this topic, I would treat myself with half an hour playing my favourite video game”. You could also plan your revision with a friend, and revise the same topic together, creating a sense of competition and adding in a spirit of enthusiasm in the process of revision.
 

4. Dealing with Questions and Doubts:

Once you are done revising a topic in a fairly thorough manner, you would find yourself with loads of questions and doubts forming in your head.

It is very vital that you deal with these questions and doubts right away, so that they would stay put in your brain. You should always refer many sources while looking for the answer to a question and form your own opinions regarding the answer. This would lead you to solve most of your doubts and would also give an edge to your answers during the exams.

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Your concept should be completely clear once you are revising a particular topic, such that you won’t have refer back to it again and again, and you can move on knowing that the topic is thorough for you.

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5. Testing Yourself on Each Topic:

After being thorough with a topic, you must test yourself on it. This would reveal to you on what parts you still need to work on. Please remember that it is almost impossible to get all answer perfectly correct in first try, and it is okay to make mistakes. These mistakes would give you the scope to improve upon.

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Testing yourself in this manner, you would be able to be more well revised in those topics, making it easier for you to let go of the apprehensions you have regarding them.

Once you have completed doing so for all topics, the next step is the overall testing and practice.
 

6. Overall Practice and Testing:

Overall revision would require you to download practice question papers for each subject. When you have downloaded a few practice question papers, and question papers of previous year, it is time for you to test yourself in an exam-like way.

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You would need to appear for these practice question papers being time bound. Allow yourself to feel like you are actually appearing for the exam and try answering in the best way possible like you’d do in the exam. This would let you get over the examination anxiety which strikes us each time we appear for an important exam.

I am certain that with these six tips, you would be exam ready, and would be thoroughly revised and prepared for your IGCSEs. Now, get going, and start right away starting with being honest to yourself. All the very best!

(859 words)