Wendy is a boss: note-taking

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Yep, for those of you who are super-asute, this is already on the other blog.

Note-taking is super important when it comes to revision time (and is still creative process!). By the time exams role around you want to have streamlined your notes down to the bare-minimum suitable for your needs. Take the 2016 Advanced Higher group as an example.

The Advanced Higher class of 2016 were studying Hamlet and Macbeth. They knew that a wide variety of questions would come up in their exam paper ranging from character study, setting analysis, scene setting and key incidents. They had to prepare for them all. The three girls work best from a combination of listing and mind-mapping which they then learned by rote (writing and repeating). The girls are now extremely familiar with the PEEL system for writing essays so the most important parts for them when it came to revision was making sure they knew the plots inside out and had the quotes learned so they could regurgitate them in the exam.

Wendy’s notes, in particular, were super effective. She had narrowed her list of quotes down to the bare minimum. Most of the quotes could double up and be used for character study, setting analysis, scene setting and key incidents depending on the question she selected. She then made her notes work super hard for her. She colour-coded them down the side. For each quote she now has a reminder of why it is useful. Even more importantly her notes have a clear layout, are spaced out well and are neatly written – exactly what you want in your final revision notes.

See if you can have a go at making revision notes for yourself