Question Time:
An alternative way to revise
Sometimes it doesn't help to just list out all of the points on a record card and read it over and over.
What you need is a little interactivity, the Buster Tests way! So why not give another technique a go? It's very simple, and all you need are postcards/record cards.
The Question & Answer Method
Firstly, you're going to have to go though the material (whatever that is) and have a good list of what you need to learn. You'll need the actual facts, and not just the general ideas.
You're going to turn this list into questions and answers. I'll use the example of GCSE chemistry to demonstrate how easy and effective it can be.
Take this dull bunch of facts about “metals from the ground”, written in note form.
- Extracting a metal from an oxide requires a reaction.
- Metals higher than carbon in the reactivity series have to be extracted using electrolysis.
- Metals lower can be extracted using carbon, because the carbon can take the oxygen away from metals which are less reactive.
- Order: K, Na, Ca, Mg, Al, C, Zn, Fe, Sn, Pb
Questions
On the front side of you card, you write out the questions that have these facts as the answer. Write them in a numbered form.
In this case, our questions are:
- What needs to happen to extract metals from oxides?
- What is used to extract metals higher in the R-series than carbon?
- What is used to extract metals lower than carbon?
- What is the order of the reactivity series?
These questions get your brain retrieving facts and figures, which is what you'll need to be good at if you want to do well in the exam.
When it comes to doing diagrams, such as the nitrogen cycle, draw the diagram out on the question side without the words or numbers that you'll need to remember. Label the spaces where they are meant to be A, B, C, etc. On the back of the card, draw the diagram out again with the answers, and next to those answers write the corresponding letter A, B, C, etc.
Answers
On the other side of the card, you write out the answers to the questions you've just written. It's best to put them in the same numbered list form, and as sentences with the actual answer first:
- A REACTION is needed to extract metals from their oxides.
- ELECTROLYSIS is used to extract metals higher than carbon in the reactivity series.
- CARBON is used to extract metals lower than carbon, because it can take the oxygen away.
- K, Na, Ca, Mg, Al, C, Zn, Fe, Sn, Pb
The Amazing Technique
Now you've made a card which you can look at and quickly answer in your head. Look at the back after each question and see if you got it right. If you didn't you can do the rest of the card and come back to that one, or just go and read up about the subject a little.
This is a fantastic way of learning facts in a short period of time, and can really help you in biology, chemistry and history, and probably lots of other subjects, too. It also works very nicely at AS level.
You can even ask your friends and family to test you without stressing them out (the answers are right there for them, so they can't complain), and you can test yourself on your knowledge the morning before the exam just to rev-up your GCSE exam-taking engine.
Now do you see the incredible ingenuity of the Question Time system?
Try it out now!
Go and apply this method to the foulest bunch of facts that you have to learn for your GCSEs that you can't quite seem to remember. Fancy a spot of the electromagnetic spectrum, anyone?