The best way to revise is obviously to start early, ASAP. However, that's not always possible. I mean, you have computer games to play, TV shows to watch, clothes to buy, and what not. By the time you finish all the "important" things, only the last 2-3 days have anything to do with school.
Bad idea.
I mean, cramming sucks. It puts you under a lot of pressure and the worst part is, you don't learn anything. After the exam, you literally instantly forget what you learn. So much for education.
But sometimes, cramming is the only option, like it was for me. I was messing around and only started taking things seriously for the last 10 days or so. I was playing with fire, but, hey, I had more important things to do
If you really want to cram, you better do it the right way. No, that doesn't mean getting out all your notes and reading them 6555 times hoping you will retain all the information. You won't, trust me.
If you want to cram, you must first get out your notes, and compress your 600 paged biography into something like 10 pages. Cut all the words that make your work longer. You will be surprised at how little useful stuff there is. This will make your revision much more efficient.
Next, start making flashcards with aa the definitions you might need. One side with the word, one side with the definition. Repeat this over and over and over and over again, especially on the morning of the exam. This is critical. Your memory experiences decay at an exponential rate and only by reviewing your flashcards at regular intervals can you retain what you learn.
For the concepts, structures, diagram, flashcard them as well. Make flashcards, loads of them, with the Question and the Answer. The KEY here, is to make the questions seem as "exam like" as possible, and you should be able to see the structure of exam questions by simply looking at a past paper. For example, if you're learning about "Transpiration", put on the question side of your flashcard, "How does Humidity affect rate of transpiration (3marks)". Try to simulate exam conditions as closely as possible.
1-2 days before the exam, do a few past papers. This is EXTREMELY important. After doing a lot of past papers, I realized that many of the questions simply repeated themselves over the years. This is very intentional because there are only a finite number of questions. Go on Google and saturate all the past papers and who knows, you might come across questions that will turn up in the exam.
(An anecdote: In the MCQ, there were at least 7-8 questions that were EXACTLY the same as questions I saw in past papers. Yes, there was not even a word difference in the wording)
What about sleep? I think its better to sacrifice a bit of that. Scientists say you must have a good sleep one day before an exam in order to perform better in a exam. However, we don't have time for that now. Its a matter of life or death. If your exam is in the afternoon, you might be able to catch a few hours of sleep. Otherwise, just sleep more the next day.
Spend the night wisely, you're forgiven if you want to pull an all-nighter. You can't believe how well the human brain is able to adapt to all-nighters if done OCCASIONALLY. If you do it daily...It'll just be one of many days. Drink some coffee on the morning of the exam, and really....
NEVER CRAM AGAIN!
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