Lively Words

Tag: books

  • GCSE revision: the ultimate method

    It is hard to know how to revise for exams. Even for seasoned uni students who have been taking exams for years, it can be hard to know where to begin. It stands to reason that the first time you do this, probably for your GCSE exams, it will be all the harder. As such, I hope that this guide will help you find a study method that works for you.

    For time-management tips, see my previous post!

    The method

    I divide learning up into 4 parts:

    1. Understand
    2. Apply
    3. Memorise
    4. Practice

    By going through each of these stages, you will gain confidence in your subjects, getting you closer and closer to the grades you want.

    But first, how do you know what to study?

    Very simply, you should study the things you find most difficult. This is how you will gain the most marks through your hard work.

    For each subject, start by going through the lists of topics and identifying the 3 topics you find hardest. Create a list of these that you can easily access and keep track of.

    For me this list could have looked like this:

    Chemistry: balancing symbol equations, moles, electrolysis

    French: irregular present tense verbs, prepositions, the conditional

    Now we get to work.

    Select 1 of the topics from above and decide how long you are going to revise for. If you have low energy, I’d recommend choosing a short amount of time – perhaps 20 minutes to start with. If you have more energy, you might choose 45 minutes. If, at the end of this period, you still have energy or motivation to continue, you can always add another 20 minutes and see how you go.

    1. Understand

    The first step in our revision process is making sure that you understand the basics of the topic. To test this, you should take out your notes or your textbook, and try to explain the content to someone who doesn’t know it. For example, a sibling, parent, pet or childhood toy. If you find that you cannot explain the content to someone else, you probably don’t understand it too well.

    If you do manage to explain it to someone else, scan throught he textbook page to ensure you explained correctly and got the important details. If so, move on to the next step.

    If you cannot explain the topic to someone else or if you feel confused/ overwhelmed about the topic, we will start our revision by improving our understanding of the topic.

    Method:

    Here we are trying to understand the topic, not memorise it or do questions. As such, focus on making it make sense to you above anything else at this stage.

    There are many ways you can improve your understanding by using textbooks, online resources, and by asking for support from teachers and tutors. What is crucial is for you to create notes on the topic that make sense to your brain. As such, you shouldn’t spend hours making them pretty, but you should use the design and colours if you want to aid your understanding.

    For instance, I created a poster explaining the water cycle in Biology. I didn’t understand the textbook explanation but BBC bitesize and youtube science teachers explained it much better. Making these notes took about 20 minutes. I drew the cycle out rather than writing it using words, then labelled my diagram. This process helped me to understand what I was doing and by the end I could explain the topic to someone else confidently.

    Hint: DO NOT simply read through the textbook in your head and assume you understand it. If you can’t explain it out-loud, or write a quick explanation out, it’s likely that you don’t actually understand. Likewise, watching revision content without taking notes to help you understand will likely result in you forgetting the material as soon as you turn the video off. Speaking and writing help you to remember the information you’re learning!

    Hint: For subjects such as maths, you may choose to include some example questions that a revision guide takes you through in your notes. Make sure you understand how the person who did the example questions got to the answer.

    2. Apply

    Now that you understand the topic, we need to apply it to exam-style questions.

    Find an exam question on the topic. I used to use past papers, revision workbooks (especially by CGP or Pearson), and BBC bitesize.

    With your notes beside you, answer the question as best you can. If it is a long question (e.g. a 6-marker) you may only do one question. If it’s a short question, (e.g. 1-2 marks) you should do several. We haven’t memorised the content yet, so you don’t need to do questions from memory.

    When you’re done with the questions, find the mark scheme.

    Mark your answers harshly, being sure that you’ve used all required keywords and methods. Use another colour pen to write in corrections.

    If you got the question mainly correct, congratulations!

    If you got the question partly right but left out some information or got something wrong, re-write the answer correctly.

    You should also rewrite your answer correctly if you got it completely wrong.

    Hint: Create a document or choose a notebook. In this document or notebook you should write the correct answers to exam-style questions you get wrong over the course of your revision. Have a section for each subject. This document will be great on the morning of your exam, when you’ll be able to look at the correct answers for many questions you’ve found difficult in the past.

    If you got 80% of the marks available, congratulations, you’re ready for the next stage.

    If you got 60-80%, have another go at some more questions.

    If you got less than 60% marks, go back to the understand stage and make sure you understand all the details well. Feel free to ask your teacher for help if you need it.

    3. Memorise

    Now that we understand the content and can use it in exam situations, we need to memorise it!

    There are many ways of memorising it, but they all centre on the fact that your brain needs to be pushed and tested in order to remember things. After all, how does your brain know that something’s important if it is never asked to recall it?

    Methods that you can try:

    • Quizlet flashcards
    • Anki flashcards
    • the Blurt method
    • paper flashcards
    • having a family member/ friend test you
    • many other methods

    Hint: Be sceptical if you choose to have AI help you with this. AI can ‘hallucinate’ information. This means that AI can competely make up ideas and present them as true. As such, AI cannot be trusted to tell you if a fact is true or false, or if it’s on the exam syllabus. By using AI for revision, you therefore risk learning false information.

    I personally have flashcards for all the important facts in each module. For example, equations I may need in Physics, symbol equations in chemistry, key dates in History. I do 5 minutes of these flashcards at the beginning of every revision session for that subject, before beginning my work on the module I’m working on that day.

    4. Practice

    Congratulations, you’ve nearly mastered your topic! The last step is to practice using the information you’ve learnt. This process is ongoing as you do past papers over the course of revision season.

    • You can do more practice questions with your notes and without a timer.
    • You can do more practice questions with your notes and with a timer.
    • You can do practice questions without your notes and without a timer.
    • You can do practice questions without your notes and with a timer.

    You should also keep going with the ‘memorise’ step for all your topics to make sure your brain remembers the key information.

    This should be all the information you need in order to plan your revision for ost subjects. Many apps and videos and textbooks are there to support you. However, it is how you use them that matters. I’m going to finish up with a list of revision techniques that are not time or energy efficient, and that are unlikely to get you the result you want:

    • Reading the textbook like a novel
    • Watching revision videos passively
    • Only working on topics you’re already confident in.
    • assuming that you know information without testing whether you do.

    Lastly, for skill-based subjects like languages it may be helpful to have a more subject-specific guide. I will write this in the future.

    Good luck!

  • Feminine Rebellion in the World of Jane Austen

    It is a truth widely acknowledged that any woman found in possession of too much knowledge must be scorned, reprimanded or put down. “You’d be better off staying home” is the adage that follows us to this day. Yet, throughout history, women have found ways to rebel. Jane Austen was no exception.

    When I was in year 10, Pride and Prejudice was the ‘it’ book. Based on nothing but its title, progressive teens flocked to find copies, convinced it must contain discussions of Pride as we know it in the modern world. Just as quickly, it was cast aside. It was labelled ‘stuffy’ or ‘dead’ for its emphasis of heterosexual ideologies and the status-quo. But were they right to do so?

    In her book ‘Jane Austen at Home’, Lucy Worsley continually highlights Jane’s propensity to write in two voices simultaneously: an uncontroversial first voice that discusses the world as Georgian society saw it, and a subversive, critical second voice. This is a voice that can only be accessed by those who understand the author well enough to glimpse her sarcasm through layers of propriety.

    Money money money

    Let’s take my favourite quote as a starting point. At this point in Chapter 2, Mr John Dashwood is considering how much money he should give to his half sisters and stepmother once he and his wife take the women’s place in the family home. His wife, wishing to keep the family fortune to herself, argues they need give very little as

    ‘They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expences of any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be!’

    On first glance, this sentiment is easily recognisable as that of the privileged in the modern day; with more land and more responsibility come more costs and bills and expenses. This exchange could easily be read as supporting the rich who withhold their wealth from others. Given that Mr and Mrs Dashwood inherit because of the laws of Primogeniture and inheritance, which prioritise sons above daughters when it comes to fortunes and estates, it also appears that Jane supports the traditional ways in which wealth was divvied out. But to believe this of her would be to ignore Jane’s second voice.

    As Worsley reminds us, Jane Austen herself was the victim of laws and expectations that governed who inherited family wealth. Although her father could never have passed down an estate like Norland, the women in Jane’s family were of course far too genteel to work paid jobs*. This, of course, meant they were always bequest to male family members for their security. And once these men died, it put the women into a difficult position. Jane, therefore, understood intimately the difficulties facing Elinor, Marianne and their family in Sense and Sensibility. Mrs John Dashwood’s meanness does not reflect the author’s support for the establishment, but rather her understanding of the irony that meant that the wealthy remained wealthy, and the poor and dependent were expected to simply do without. Notice the juxtaposition between the repetition of ‘no’ – ‘no carriage, no horses’ and the idea of being ‘comfortable’. The idea of having ‘no expences’, too, is fundamentally ridiculous; the expences paid by a family of poorer women such as the Dashwoods may seem irrelevent to their sister-in-law, but to the family they would be significant. Indeed, as the story progresses, we see Elinor advocating to reduce the family’s expenditure by choosing cheap accomodation, reducing the size of the household by keeping fewer servants*, and eating more cheaply.

    By choosing the critique the way wealth is divided in Georgian society, Jane brings a female perspective into the traditionally male world of finances. She demontrates the vulnerability of her heroines who rely on relatives, some kind, like Mrs Dashwood’s cousin, to unkind, like Mr and Mrs John Dashwood. Rather than simply accepting the decisions of those in power, Jane laughs at their hypocrisy. Is this any wonder when we look at her own life? After all, rather than simply accepting her female financial powerlessness, she sold her novels. Unclassy for the time, perhaps, but what a powerful display of feminine proactivity.

    It’s a rich-man’s world

    Another common criticism of Jane Austen’s books is their focus on traditional, heterosexual relationships. To an extent, this can’t be denied. However, they are not limited to these relationships, nor the stereotypes associated with them.

    Persuasion

    Published posthumously, Persuasion follows a character a little older than many of Jane’s heroines. Having initially broken up with her Captain Wentworth because of her family’s criticisms, she has regretted the decision ever since. Whilst the modern reader may scorn Anne’s inability to get over a man, even after many years, this same desire was new to Regency England.

    Pride and Prejudice

    In Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Lucas famously marries Mr Collins, who originally proposed to Elizabeth Bennett, for the security a good marriage would bring her. Outside the text, Jane Austen was similarly tempted to marry rich Harris Bigg-Wither. The benefits offered by such a match would have given her mother and sister security as they aged. Yet she did not. Like Elizabeth Bennett, Jane did not want marriage for the sake of marriage, or even for the sake of an easier life. She allowed her heroines to defy convention and reject proposals in order to follow their hearts. But she did not require them to do so.

    Through Jane’s works, we see example after example of women finding happiness; happy endings, after all, are a hallmark of a Jane-Austen book. We meet women who know what is important to them, whether that is love, security, sense or sensibility. Some choose to fall directly into love, some initially accept isolation and disappointment out of love for their families, some choose security above and beyond anything else. But with each decision comes a justification, and the idea that the women have chosen this path for themselves*.

    Conclusion

    Jane Austen’s work seems, at face value, to celebrate the world as it is. Filled with happy endings and weddings, heteronormative womanhood seems rife. It is only when you look under the surface and understand Georgian expectations a little more, that the significance of her literary choices comes to the fore.

    Critiquing and even finding a way around the financial restrictions on contemporary women, Jane Austen rejects the idea that she should simply accept the decisions of those more wealthy than herself. Similarly, by allowing her heroines diverse perspectives on marriage, she showcases the breadths of femininity within a society where marriage was an assumption, rather than just a possibility. Far from being stagnant or celebrating traditional heteronormativity, as we now understand it, Jane Austen rebels powerfully, in the only way the world would listen.

    _________________________________________

    *Although Jane became and published, paid author, her books were initially anonymous so as to avoid seeming too pushy or self-important compared to Georgian standards for women.

    *Both modern and working-class standards make keeping any servants a luxury. However, the story must be considered in the light of the expectations of Genteel Georgian society, which considered servants a fundamental part of a household.

    *Marianne in Sense and Sensibility is a common point of division when it comes to the question of choice, and I will tackle this next week.

    Bibliography

    Austen, J. (1813). Pride and Prejudice. United Kingdom: T. Egerton, Whitehall.

    Austen, J. (2008). Persuasion. Harlow: Pearson Education.

    Austen, J. (2016). Sense and sensibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Cop.

    Worsley, L. (2018). Jane Austen at home. London: Hodder.