Einstein, Buddha, delicious food and how to study

　　The four things in the title may seem unconnected, but if you look hard enough you can find connections between almost anything. As I write this all our students are sitting mock exams. Every time exams come around I watch students studying for exams, often reading a textbook or doing many, many past paper questions. All of the students in our international curriculum plan to study at foreign universities. All of the current A2 students have offers from international universities. This suggests that our students are brave, courageous individuals willing to take a step into the unknown. Apart from when it comes to revision, at which point most go for the familiar and do the same methods they have always done.

　　Everyone I know likes delicious food. I love delicious food. There is a whole world of food out there, some delicious and some, not so much. Finding out which is which requires you to try something new, without trying new things food would be a little dull, life would be pretty dull.

　　Einstein said that insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Einstein was pretty smart. If you have found a revision technique that works for you, that is fantastic. However, there could be something that works even better. As you get higher up the educational ladder, moving from GCSE, to AS, to A2, degree and then who knows, perhaps masters degree or even PHD, as the work gets harder, hard work isn't enough. Of course you will need to work hard, but you also need to work smart to ensure that you are working efficiently as well as effectively.

　　You should always be striving to improve and that means trying new things. Trying to do new things all the time, in all aspects of your life can be exhausting, but everyone should try and do something new every week. Be that try a new food, a new revision technique or even just talk to something new. When you go to university in a foreign country, as I did a long, long, long time ago, everything can seem new a bit scary. The best way to deal with that is to lose your fear of change before you go by trying as many new things as possible. Some will be good, some may be bad, but trying something new is always a worthwhile experience as you can learn as much from your mistakes as anything else.

　　Here is a guide to memory retention for revision. How many of these do you do? What could you try?

　　Teachers agree that students who ask questions and participate in lessons often perform better in tests. The diagram shows that an active, rather than passive, involvement in the lesson move you up from somewhere between 5-20% up to 50-90%.