If you have followed my Instagram account (@studyingwithjasmine) for a while, you might have seen me talk about Picmonic before. It is a website (with an app) designed for healthcare students to help with memorising content in a fun way! When I first started studying medicine, my biggest struggle was the volume of content and being able to separate different topics in my head. I have found Picmonic to be super useful to help with remembering specific bits of information, whether it be anatomy, pharmacology or physiology.
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A-Level Chemistry is a difficult A-Level, but with lots of hard work and determination, I managed to achieve an A* at the end of my course and I grew to love chemistry a lot more. At the start of year 12, I was panicking that I wasn’t understanding everything, but by the time it came to by Year 13 exams, I felt fairly confident that all my hard work would pay off.
Here are some of the tips/techniques that I used for Chemistry, I really hope they are beneficial to you! The exam board I did was AQA, but many of the UK exam boards are similar for Chemistry. Text Books I used the CGP text book for A-Level chemistry, it covers all of the content in a way that was easy to understand, but the right amount of detail! However, I think chemistry is a subject that you can’t learn mostly from a text book, it’s heavily reliant on understanding and maths skills. I didn’t make as many notes for chemistry as I did for biology, as it is a subject that requires less memorization and more application. I also had the Oxford Text Book for chemistry but I didn’t use this that often, it depends on your budget which text books you buy. If you’re struggling to afford text books for A-Levels, try and speak to someone at your sixth form as they may offer bursaries for students based on your household income. I enjoy biology as a subject, but at A-Level, there is a lot of content to learn which makes it quite tricky! Over the 2 years I picked up a lot of good study techniques to memorise and understand all of the information and ended up with an A* 😊
(The exam board I did was AQA but I’m sure any biology exam format will be pretty similar) 1. Text books- I’d say it’s pretty important to get a good text book for biology A-Level, one that is detailed enough but not too detailed that it becomes confusing. The main book I used was the CGP Biology Text Book (not the revision guides, they aren’t in as much detail!). These were pretty much perfect, they had all of the content in and no irrelevant information. So many exams are heavily content-based so finding methods to memorise content is important! You should always try to understand content before trying to memorise it, but quite a few exams now ask for definitions and specific sections of knowledge, so memorising comes in pretty handy.
I took A-Level Biology which included a lot of content and many specific facts to memorise, so I tried lots of different methods and here are the ones that I think were the most useful: 1. Use flashcards- there are different ways to use flashcards to help you memorise content, each may be suited better to different types of learners!
I love trying out new revision methods to find things that work best for me. These revision methods are ‘unusual’ in my opinion, some of you may already do a lot of these so I apologise if they are not new tips for you!!
I don’t do all of these myself but after researching new techniques I might start trying some more of them! 1. Record yourself speaking a topic, listen to it, and try and then speak it from memory - you find yourself actively listening and remembering information, and talking it aloud is a form of active recall! Be sure to do this every few days to memorise something long term 💛 I think maths is a tricky subject to 'revise', as it's a subject that requires a lot more working out and problem solving than sciences, English and other content-based subjects.
Personally I don't make notes for the whole specification in maths as I don't think that benefits me, so here are the other revision methods that I use: 1. Understand the content - it can be difficult to learn content for maths out of a text book so I would recommend to utilise your teachers and get them to go over anything you don’t understand. 2. If you are not understanding your teachers, look for online videos- I use exam solutions for videos (I think they also do GCSE) and there’s other sites called Mr Barton’s maths, and I believe @snaprevisehave started to do maths too! Mind maps are great resources to create throughout the year so, when it comes to exam season, you have something as the foundation for your revision.
For me, I like to make either a very detailed mind map or a very brief one. I find a more detailed one helps me to review and understand the content whereas a brief mind map helps me to memorise content ✨ I often make the mind maps from the text book directly, but if you like condensing content, maybe further condense your flash cards onto the paper. Of course everyone learns from making resources differently, but the following points are what I personally find best! 1. I do my mind maps on A4 plain paper, and I use solid black guidelines underneath to help me write straight! I prefer plain white paper as there’s no lines as distractions and helps the words to stand out more. ✨ Making good class notes throughout the school year is so important to reduce your workload when it comes to exam season. Class notes are useful to revise from, make flashcards from and even stick up on your wall!
1. Look at the specification before your lesson, or take it to the lesson with you, this way you know the things you need to know for your exam board- then you can make notes on the important bits and not wasting time and space writing down irrelevant information (although it may be interesting, you will only be tested on certain things in the exam) I only started typing my flashcards last year, before this I would write them all- this was very time consuming and I would often rewrite cards because I’d made a mistake or didn’t think they were neat enough! I now type my cards for everything, and use binder clips to organise them into topics!
1. I use Microsoft publisher, but you could use any programme with a landscape page that you can insert a table (I think Libre office is a free alternative to Microsoft) 2. First I insert a 2x2 table so my page is divided into 4, you could do it larger or smaller depending your desired size of your flash cards |
AuthorI am a 19 year old aspiring doctor and I am currently studying at medical school, after completing my A-Levels in Biology, Chemistry and Maths. I created this blog to share my study tips and techniques and advice on applying to university, as well as some health and lifestyle posts, too. I hope you find them useful! Jasmine x Archives
August 2020
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