(no subject)

[sebastienne]

Ladies, Gentlemen, everyone else, I am soon to produce a revision timetable in the style of Arnold Rimmer. Now, therefore, would be a good time for you to impart to me your revision tricks and tips, dos and don'ts, mistakes and triumphs.

10 weeks. 6 modules. 3 philosophy, 3 psychology.

Maybe if I throw myself into this hard enough, the filthy way the world is currently treating you all will start to matter to me less.

Somehow, however, I doubt it. It makes me so angry to see what this institution is doing to all you magical beautiful people. It's possible, finally, that I'm understanding Howl and my god it's fucking tearing me apart. You deserve so much better than this that in my work-frazzled brain I can't even call forth the right words to tell you. THIS IS NOT HYPERBOLE. YOU ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL IN THE PUREST AND MOST INTENSE POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION OF THE WORD. YOU MAKE ME WANT TO BE A BEAT POET AND SHOUT AND SING AND SCREAM UNTIL THE WORLD REPAYS TO YOU THE BEAUTY AND GOODNESS YOU HAVE GIVEN IT..

I'm with you in Oxford.

Comments

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

* DO start slowly (a few hours a day) then build on that.
* DON'T revise the most fun bits / bits you enjoy most first.
* DO treat yourself to pretty things which make you feel good - revision notes can be just a good when written in gold on purple paper as in blue ink on lined A4.
* DON'T give up on a topic/module if you find you are having problems with a
section.
* DO vary what you are doing, both from day to day and hour to hour, for instance reading notes / writting notes / exam questions.
* DON'T give up on socialising.
* DO get out of your revision space (room, etc) regulaly - when you are done for the day go and chill with friends or something so that the revision isn't constantly there, waiting, assulting you.

Helpful - yes, no?

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

I find timetabling rest and relaxation time into my days very important -- not only do breaks help me to work as well as possible, but it's very useful to me to have times when I'm not feeling guilty about not working, because staring into space or chatting with friends is What I Should Be Doing Right Now.

Good luck!

(Also? *hugs* You're rather wonderful, y'know.)

[aliche.livejournal.com]

Narayani and I did it with olives

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

I don't care what you're actually talking about in this comment.

The mental image you've inadvertantly given me is far, far nicer.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Make that timetable reasonable and fair and balanced with plenty of scheduled time to play.

Then be somewhat anal about sticking to it.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

How many hours a day did you timetable, again? :-)

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Since the answer is somewhat relevant...

3rd year - I made no revision timetable, ambled along doing 3-4 hours work a day until 4 weeks before exams, when I did some sums about the amount I had left to learn and then started doing 12 hours work every day.

4th year - I made the revision timetable at the end of Hilary, and did probably 7 hours work a day consistently.

I got similar results both years, but the second time I didn't go comepletely hatstand.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I'd remembered the 12 hours a day hatstand stage (and to this day, I have no idea how you physically did it. Hell, I don't know how you did 7 hours a day in your fourth year), but I'd forgotten the rest. That explains your original comment :-)

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I've never bothered with revision timetables, on the grounds that they're just another displacement activity - worse yet, one that feels like working.

Your biggest enemy (and I've lost count of how many people I've told this to) is Finals Stress. Mere lack of knowledge will, at worst, make you drop a class: Finals Stress can prevent you from thinking, which is the most important bit. Provided you can think with some semblance of clarity, lack of knowledge can be overcome. Therefore

DO NOT stress that you aren't working enough. Neither's anyone else.
DO NOT try to "throw yourself into this hard enough" - that way lies madness. Retain perspective and sanity.
DO NOT give up socialising.
DO have something to give structure and external timetabling to your life - a play, a sport, whatever, something that gets you out of the house/library and into the fresh air at specified times.
DO NOT develop an insidious addiction to some Internet game or other. You are almost certain to do this, however. DO NOT stress about it, it'll only make it worse.
DO NOT break up with your significant other with just over a month to go. Not that you're planning to, I'm sure, but I thought I'd mention it. Bitter? Moi?
DO NOT lie in bed looking at Escher drawings for two days in an attempt to gain an intuitive understanding of hyperbolic geometry. It doesn't work.
DO NOT go to see the Japanese version of The Ring shortly before your exams if you have trouble with horror movies. Sleep is your friend.
DO have a night out if you have a particularly bad exam (especially if you don't have one the next day). It's a great way of drawing a line under it.

Caveat: I test well, so YMMV. It's also worth mentioning that I did noticeably better in my third year, when I had no structure, was stressed to buggery, and had the aforementioned breakup, than I did in my fourth year, when I was comparatively sorted, I worked in a more directed and sane manner, I was in a play, and when the lovely r_e_mercia very decently and at great personal cost waited until after my exams were over before chucking me :-)

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

In view of the last paragraph, you may be wondering why I'm still proffering the above advice. Basically, my fourth year went Wrong for all sorts of reasons, and the work was in any event rather harder than the second-and-third-year stuff. So, even though I was and am deeply annoyed that I didn't do better, it was probably a not-too-unfair assessment of my performance that year.

[sashagoblin.livejournal.com]

Um. I took two hours off to swim every day and otherwise worked right through from 7 till 8, when Andy would come over and make me stop. Nowe that was insane AND FAR TOO MUCH WORK. So less than that would be optimal.

And oh, Emma, I SECOND EVERYTHING YOU SAY ABOUT OXFORD!! You're wonderful. Some days it feels like only I feel like that...

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

How I did revision for my finals:

DON'T do anything useful until two weeks before they begin
DO cheat the system- look up past papers, see the questions which keep re-occuring, choose which ones you'll do + one extra for luck
DON'T revise any more than the bare minimum needed
DO decided to spend a day in the week before your exams reading the backlogs of every single webcomic you can find
DO take a day off in the middle of your finals to watch all three Matrix films, and the Animatrix
DO take several days off in the middle of your finals to get drunk with people who have just finished their finals.
DO write up an LJ entry after each exam
DO do most of your revision the night the exam

Yeah. I'm not really a model student. Almost every decision I made was a mistake. Still, I got my 2:1.
58.5% overall (when most people believe you need 60% for a 2:1), but with a 2:1 in over half my individual modules so it counted as a 2:1 in total.
Abusing the system is fun, kids.

Of course, it came back to bite me when I wanted to get funding for my MA and they said "2:1s cover a broad spread, from those that are practically a first and are very impressive to those that are not..."
They had a fair point.

Probably best to listen to everyone else's advice instead of mine.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

2) is a good point. After I did my Mods, I compared my algebra and analysis papers to the ones my Dad had sat in 1964. They corresponded almost exactly question-for-question: not the same questions, obviously, but on the same basic topics.

Question-spotting is evil, and can come back to bite you (my ex tried that in her History finals, and was bitten by (for instance) an "art and architecture in early Renaissance Italy" paper that didn't have a single question on art), but done in moderation it can be useful.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

- Leave time in your timetable for catching up on things you didn't manage to do earlier in your timetable....
- I am a firm believer in Productive Procrastination. Pick a Useful Activity which is going to be the only thing that you allow yourself as procrastination. (I wrote OULES scripts and songs). Then, you have guilt free procrastination which gets you a positive outcome.

[gin-gerkitten.livejournal.com]

My new obsession is getting up early to get more done, and I have a wondrous system, in the shape of wonderful Peter, who lives in Wadham Front Quad, also has Finals, and has allowed me to make his room my base. Starting tomorrow, we have early coffee-dates - (8:40) - in order to get both of us Out Of Bed and me Into Town, and we both have the incentive of not standing the other one up, and chat before hitting the Bod. If you'd like to join, you'd be very very welcome.

Otherwise - big colour-coded charts are nice. Tick-off lists you carry in your pocket are also nice. Days off are ESSENTIAL. Good food ditto.

Treats that you can promise yourself in the evening are cool, even if it's just a good book or a DVD or something easy on the brain to do before bed.

Ignore everyone who says they're doing 14 hours a day, and everyone who says they haven't started working yet.

And DON'T PANIC, because in balanced outside-the-Bubble perspective, Finals is NOT the Big Bad it looks like from here. Ultimately, there is more to life.

*Big hugs*