Year after year, teachers conduct assemblies, workshops, and share resources on effective revision. Despite all that effort, students continue to fall for the all-too-common seven deadly sins of exam revision. 

So, what are these ever-present sins that beset so many students? 

  1.  Procrastination and cramming. Perhaps the most famous sin of all is procrastination. Leaving revision to little more than the night before. Cramming can have small gains, but only if you have already put in lots of work. There is no real solution that doesn’t require sustained effort, spaced over time. Working smarter, not just harder. Procrastination is all-too-human, so you need lots of prompts and you need to organise your environment to minimise distractions and fight off the urge to put revision off. 

[Instead: Put away your phone; set daily goals; reflect on your revision approaches] 

  1. Passive revision approaches. Some revision strategies are passive and so give the illusion of learning but little more. Approaches such as re-reading and highlighting can keep you busy, but they can be done with very little actual thinking. Merely copying out notes from one source to another can require little active reorganisation or thinking. Will watching those catchy short videos on TikTok make all the difference to exam success? It is highly unlikely!  

[Instead: self-test; use flashcards; teach a friend; reorganise your notes]

  1. Skimping on sleep. Teenagers have different sleep rhythms. They want to sleep in and stay up late. But on a school day, they are up early, so they need to get to bed at a reasonable time too. Some students think staying up late at night is worth the pain and tiredness, but the extra hour or two in the evening may negatively damage your precious sleep and your learning. It is sleep which helps provides that precious time for your brain to process, organise, and store your memories. 

[Instead: some learning before sleep may be helpful; secure a minimum of 7 hours sleep; limit tech is the evening]

  1. Poor time-management. We can all assume doing big blocks of study can be effective, but ‘massed practice’ can often give an illusion of learned material and successful revision. Ironically, students may be able to revise more effectively in less time. As we know, cramming is poor time management but so is studying for a given topic and then testing yourself straight away. It gives the illusion of remembering and so proves to be time poorly organised. Students need to self-monitor and take breaks to maximise the impact of their revision, so they are fresh enough to think hard and experience a little struggle. 

[Instead: space out revision; take breaks; use the Pomodoro technique; mix up your topics carefully]

  1.  Overconfidence in what has been learned. Confidence is a good thing, right? Well, well it comes to revision, overconfidence is typically a problem. Just re-reading our notes can make us feel familiar and fool ourselves we know the answers (a ‘feeling of knowing’). Even university students drop flashcards too early assuming they know the content with confidence. We need to puncture overconfidence and pursue a Goldilocks approach – not too much, not too little, but just right.

[Instead: Get them to explain what they know to others; use confidence tests & exam wrappers] 

  1.  Accepting weapons of mass distraction. Phones, laptops, music and friends – all the good stuff every teenager likes. Well, when it comes to revision, what you like invariably pushes out what you need to think and do! The presence of laptops and phones can prove a distraction, rather than a productive tool. Certain music can help live the mood of some students but interferes for others. We need to take care and reduce distraction wherever possible. No matter what students believe, you don't need your phone to revise!

[Instead: Use tech ‘focus’ apps; stick to pen & paper; treat yourself with music on a break] 

  1. Fail to plan, prepare to fail. Most students are given ample guidance on planning but then fail to enact it successfully. Scheduling, planning, and goal setting simply don’t come easy to the average teenager. Time is wasted careering from one task to another. With poor planning, procrastination, cramming, tech distraction, and weak time management are all more likely.

[Instead: schedule revision & retrieval; try a retrospective timetable; teach different types of goals; check your study skills/revision curriculum works]

There is no easy way to make revision sinners into saints, but if we understand the issues and the barriers - the 7 sins - we can make small improves that can potentially make a big difference for students.