A-Level Biology Week 3 Exam Preparation Tips

We’re getting closer to exams, you’ve made it this far, just a little more to go! You can do it!

I don’t know what it’s been like where you are, but the weather here has been AMAZING, and I have been fighting off the urge to just stay outside and play footy all day. (Champions league you have NOT been helping)

While we can’t spend all of our time outside playing our favourite spot or scrolling mindlessly through Tik Tok, remembering to do the things you find fun during exam season is actually very important, for me it’s football and for you it may be knitting (no joke my housemate knitted me a scarf during lockdown) – whatever floats your boat really. It’s a delicate balance between exam revision and doing the things we actually enjoy. This balance is something we need to strive to achieve. Let’s not find ourselves in the situation below…

It's important we master our time management in the weeks leading up to the exam so we do enough work, so we do efficient work and so we don’t burn out! .

Pre-exam

Most students aspire to complete 5 hours of constant studying with minimal breaks. However, those that try this usually aren’t achieving as much as they’d like (or as they think) from these long revision sessions, as humans simply cannot pay attention for that long.

Sitting there for hours and hours is 1) incredibly boring and 2) ineffective. This leads to people feeling like they’ve done loads of work but got nothing done, which KILLS motivation.

So, what can we do to fix this? Delete insta? NEVER! Instead we –

Create a plan

Most people prefer to study the easier topics first because we know them well and getting everything right makes us feel like mini Einstein’s. However, this is hugely ineffective. If you’re getting 95% on Topic X and spend 3 hours revising it, the most we’re going to improve by is 5%. However, if you take that 3 hours and you spend it on Topic Y, for which you are currently getting 20% in – we can potentially gain 80% more marks! Thus, we want to start on the areas we are weakest at, as this is where we have the most potential to improve and claw marks back.

This is what worked best for me: let’s you have 5 topics to revise for which may vary in difficulty. Rank these in order of difficulty, having the hardest on top. Maybe make yourself a plan like the one below:

Of course, alter to this whatever you want, but this shows how I have organised my topics in terms of what I find difficult. So, it helps me identify my weak areas, instead of generalising it. This is just an efficient way to organise your revision to make you get the most out of it.

Not only will you feel great about overcoming the difficult topics, but you will also find that you are studying a lot more efficiently by planning your time. Click here to read about an effective way to boost your productivity. This is a really simple blog with an amazing analogy to get you going for your revision sessions.

Plan your time

So, those dreaded 5 hour study blocks, my friend, need to be broken down:

1. 30 minutes of revision (with no distractions- phones away!)

2. 3-5 minutes of a break (give your eyes a rest, get up and move, pet your dog or cat.)

3. Get back into revising for another 30 minutes

4. Take a longer break, maybe 10-15 minutes this time (if you go on you phone here set a timer and stick to it!)

5. Rinse and repeat!

Carry this cycle out once more and then take a well-deserved, hour-long break doing anything you like.

Split these cycles in your day too:

1. 9:00am-11:30am (2 cycles)

2. 11:30am-12:30pm (break or lunch)

3. 1:30pm-3:00pm (2 cycles)

4. 3:00pm-4:00pm (break)

5. 4:00pm-6:30pm (2 cycles)

6. If you feel you have revised enough, then give yourself the night off, do whatever you like!

7. If you want to study more, just add in 2 or 3 more cycles with breaks

This is just an example, and the timings can of course be modified to your liking! We can squeeze out around 5-7 hours of studying using this method, which is A LOT. Plus, this way of studying is efficient compared to the hours on end we spend in one sitting.

Maybe try doing a different subject per revision cycle, to make sure you spice up the day with your other subjects. This is so that we aren’t stuck doing Glycolysis and Krebs cycle all day. I wish it were as simple as this:

Do the fun stuff too!

Biology is an intense subject, focusing on complex information is naturally going to tire our brains out.

Many students forget to keep up all the fun things to do on the side, but it’s crucial to keep up with your hobbies. If we are all work and no play, we will burn out.

Remember the breaks we gave ourselves in the cycles? Well, maybe schedule in the fun things you like to do in those breaks. Treat these as your ‘small rewards’ for working so hard during the day as this will also help with your motivation!

Now of course, we should certainly not be in the position where we cut down our studying so much that it is near to nothing. This is why the cycle always works. It ensures we are getting enough studying out of the day and doing the things we like, instead of procrastinating with these fun activities.

I hate to assign you homework, so think of this as a “minor task”. Try carrying out some of the things I have suggested and see how things go! I will be back next week with some useful tips on exam time management!

Have any questions about how to prepare for your A-Level exams? Having problems with any hard to understand content or tricky past exam questions? Then ask Syed. Syed will be hosting a series of Q&A webinars in the 2 weeks before final exams. Post your questions here, and Syed will answer them in these sessions.