Not time for revision already?

To all readers , Yes with absolutely no fanfare at all , I will be your new , very part-time blogger.! I am, I suppose the new kid on the blog!! My name is Mark Gillard and I teach Sociology for the Open University and at Bellerbys College in Cambridge. An interesting fact about my job with the OU is that from time to time I teach in a High Security Prison. More about that some other time.

At the risk of making myself unpopular with my very first blog , I thought I would say something about revision. Its never too early to do some initial preparation. I’m assuming that many of you will have exams in June. Read more here….....

First , are you keeping your work reasonably well organised? For those of you who are technological Neanderthals like me , this will involve separating different topics into different folders, then making sure that all notes , handouts , essays , vaguely relevant newspaper articles etc. are all there. For those of you who are technophiles, you will no doubt have some whizzy bit of software that does it all for you!

Second why not check out the syllabus or spec. as they are called these days to note what options you are doing , how far you’ve got , and what you’ve still got to do. And if you haven’t got one you should have one. They are available to download from all the exam board web-sites. Don’t download the whole thing though , they can be 60 or 70 pages long , just get the options that you are doing.

Third , if you haven’t done so already have a look at a couple of recent exam papers. Note the FORMAT of the paper. How many questions , how much time , how are the questions weighted. There is more general advice on some of the Exam board web-sites. On AQA for instance just click on ‘advice for students’.