So it’s the end of Hilary. First years, tormented by the pleas of their elders that prelims “really don’t matter”, are in searing panic. Those very elders, mods-takers and finalists alike, wait stoically for the whistle on the Exam Schools battleground, ready to go over the top. The trenches of revision are ahead, and if you are anything like me, you have desperately googled how to revise. Perhaps you were confronted by a ton of GCSE and A Level advice, and unsatisfied, you specified your search. “How to revise Oxford.” “How to revise Oxford English.” “How to revise three papers in 1 week easy.” “Goat farming internship for dropouts.”
Weary, preparing your Macintosh for a life of shearing bleating animals for rustic knitwear, you find it. This article.
I am going to provide a crash course on turning your revision around. This is not a warm bath, I warn you, but it will get the job done. If you’re doubting me, let me go over my credentials:
- Finalist in English, perhaps the most “do we really need lectures?” grouping in the university.
- Despite ADHD and latent addiction to mobile games (Level 43 on Hay Day), I have managed (not inexplicably, as this guide shall reveal) to actually finish my stuff early in order to attend flashcard prison.
- Not to blow my own trumpet, but I successfully switched majors from BA in having a pint and waiting for it all to blow over (it won’t) (Shaun of the Dead is not where you should take your life advice from), to BA in locking in hard before said pint.
This curriculum vitae should speak for itself. I like a pint, I like TV, and until recently, have followed the philosophy of “I’ll do it tomorrow,” or finding any and all excuses as to why today isn’t a great day for it. Well, tomorrow has arrived my friends, and today IS a great day for it.
- Research the scope of revision
This section is more suited to essay subjects, but I promise the advice gets more general later on.
Let’s set the scene. It’s the end of Hilary, and the Easter break is stretching ahead. The first thing you are going to do, before you even pack your bags, is use Week 8 to understand what you are actually expected to do. Go to your course handbook, read all the exam descriptions, and figure out how many essays/problem sheets/whatever STEM thing you need to do for each paper you’re about to take. If you want to be thorough, you’ll see how many things you have to prepare, and add two. If you’re like me, add one. So, for every paper that requires three essays, you are now preparing four.
Next, look at the limits of the paper (e.g. you can’t write your entire degree’s worth of essays on Chaucer), and look at the examiner’s reports. Seeing what’s been successful, and what has been appalling, is going to give you a good idea of how much to read, where to focus your revision, and what to absolutely avoid.
Then, you’re going to collect every past paper you can, and RAG rate the questions. Note which themes or topics come up every year, or at least frequently, and anything green (or at a push, amber) is a topic you will prepare an answer for. Now, go through all your old essays (I really do mean all, even the shambolic 500 word one from first year in which you’ve claimed Aethelred the Unready “loved a good book”), and whittle down to the best answers according to how many answers you’re preparing.
- Home for the vac
By this point, you’ve probably returned to District 12 (Yorkshire & the Humber) (I’ll bet money that at least ten Wheatsheaf-frequenters just shouted “Morrissey reference!”). First things first, take at least a day off. Cuddle your pets, talk to the people you live with, go outside, or watch the Sex and the City episode where Carrie farts at Big. Rest, you have earned it.
But once you hit the grind again, you’re going to return to the answers you selected/the topics you selected for revision. Edit your notes until all information is correct, and it’s a pretty good essay/overview, then break it down into flashcards, mind maps, or whatever tool you use to revise. In practice, what you should now do is use the flashcards to write a full answer. Once you can get a decent answer from relying on flashcards, you whittle the pile down and write it again. Once that produces a pretty good answer, you whittle again, and so on until you are writing a full answer from memory. Repeat until you’re prepared.
- Extenuating circumstances
Some of you may be despairing, because working at home for the vac feels genuinely impossible. Maybe you live so rurally that the local library has five books, one desk, and it’s permanently open for old people and their dogs to have Chatty Monday/Tuesday/every day. Maybe there isn’t even a library. Perhaps your house is loud, or your parents are chatty, or you have responsibilities at home. This is where we will adapt.
If you can, you need to put your foot down. You need to ask your surrounding people to kindly, firmly, leave you alone so you can work. You need to ask someone else to pick up the slack. And you need to feel guilt-free when you do this. You deserve time to study, and you deserve accommodations, especially at crunch time.
Where this is not possible, you’re going to have to get bendy about time. Week 8 of Hilary is golden time for picking up and reading anything you can’t read at home, or collecting reading to take home. Any reading-based revision, no matter if it messes up the order or chronology of your revision plan, will be done at home because it is passive, and can fit around most things. The writing portion, you can try and fit wherever you can at home, but will be hammered throughout Trinity mostly. Plan your papers so thoroughly that you have the hours blocked, and dedicate yourself to manageable writing stints, calculated based on priority – this will look like the paper you find hardest getting the most revision, the paper that comes first being second priority, and organising the rest according to individual circumstances.
- Taking care of yourself
If you’ve read this and you’re thinking “I can’t do it”, I might be obligated to provide a pep talk reminding you that you’ve got this far, you just have to get through it, and you’ll be proud of yourself when you do. But that is hardly one size fits all. Many of us here at Oxford have very real, very mitigating circumstances, whether that pertains to physical and mental health, responsibilities other students might not share, or past circumstances that have affected the amount of work you’ve been able to do up until now. To these people, I advise (on the practical side) letting your college and someone from welfare know, and organising any reasonable adjustments you could be entitled to. On the wellbeing side, I say to you that this guide is to be followed only if and when you’re doing okay. Not to be cliche, but you can’t pour from an empty cup. There was a point during my dissertation when every day I sat down to write, and nothing came out. Instinct is to keep pushing, keep sitting down and waiting for something to appear. The thing that surmounted that block was taking a break. Hitting the lock-in, becoming an academic weapon, listening to toxic StudyTok is all well and good if you actually take it with a pinch of salt. Consistent efforts do get results, but if you’re reaching exhaustion point in the name of consistency, you need a time out. It’s a little dire, but I always ask myself these questions if I’m scared to stop doing something: Will it kill me if I don’t do this? Will I go to prison if I don’t do this? If the answer to both is no, then you can’t do much harm taking a little breather. Of course, if the answer is yes, then you’d better do it (don’t sue me if you ignore that).
- A Final Note
If the above doesn’t apply to you, and you find yourself actually a serial procrastinator (very important to distinguish between procrastination and an underlying issue, mind you) then my final note is to at least half-arse it. My parents often refer to me as “half-a-job Stansfield”, but I will often reply that at least it’s half the job! If you can’t RAG rate, skip that step and go straight into editing old material. If you can’t be bothered with that, at least take down and revise the key points you’ll definitely need in the exam. And always remember that whilst grades do feel like everything here, no one scrolls that far down on LinkedIn.
Wishing everyone a merry revisionmas, don’t forget to have a yummy beverage once this all blows over.