school-tips-by-the-real-chaos

[school-tips-by-the-real-chaos]

Planning your revision (ft. a uni student)

A relatively easy strategy by my eldest sister that even I, an undiagnosed ADHD, could use. I don’t entirely know the American exam norms so you guys may have to tweak it yourselves, sorry.

Compile the dates of all your exams in whatever works best for you (based on what kind of learner you are): a calendar, a table, just a list maybe.

List all your subjects along with the things you need to rmb most out of the info: the countdown before it, duration of the exam, topics tested, weightage, sections, regular questions, your grade for the last test, etc.

Rank them in difficulty by the factors of higher priority (I use the countdown and the topics tested) and then colour them by subject types. (There are two types of subjects: application and content. Application subjects are basically the ones that have real-world context questions, answers that can’t come straight from a textbook (eg. Bio, A-Math, Social Studies, Literature (maybe; this list is my own personal opinion)). Content subjects are ofc the opposite and these are where the answers can be regurgitated easily or they are a bit more straight-forward (eg. English, mother tongue, History, Chemistry, Physics). The list should be based on your personal opinion btw.)

Group subjects of opposite types and rankings together (eg. an application subj. (1) grouped with a content subj. (6)) and colour code them. You can group as many subjects together as you want, but I suggest sticking to a standard of 2-3 subj/group.

On the side, have ready the amount of free time you have for studying each day and also an average amount of time to spend on each group.

On a calendar (or anything you want to use), spread out the groups into your time. Be sure to prioritise the group(s) with harder subjects. Arrange them in a pattern that works for you and try to keep the no. do days for every group as close as possible.

Study however you wish for the day and gl :)

PS. for students with ADHD or just procrastinate a lot (I am both :D), check my other post to plan your revision of the day

[school-tips-by-the-real-chaos]

time blocking revision (for ppl with ADHD)

using a structured timetable may not be the best strategy for us but I know from personal experiences that leaving studying up to “the feels” so to speak is a lot worse so let’s compromise.

I think you can choose your own time-blocking technique; this strategy (I think) can work with any if you tweak sufficiently: first, block out a no. of days of your choice to study one subject a day until you have two days down for each subject. I strongly suggest sticking with the subject you’re fixating on for the day or something close enough to it. (If you haven’t or can’t fixate on some subjects within that time, do wtv you can that will pique your interest in it. If not, I’m sorry but sit your butt down and get to studying; this exam won’t wait for us, unfortunately.)

Each time, stopwatch how long you can stay in your seat each time in the day and average it out. Note these times down and start time-blocking. The method is entirely up to you: timers, schedules, anything that works for you. But, you should have breaks of the same time to avoid fixating on something else accidentally. (I keep my breaks between 20-25 min.)

Disclaimer that this strategy is still in it’s ‘beta’ stage and even I haven’t properly tested it out haha. So I don’t actually know if it’ll work for our brains or not.