Revision Timetables - These reduce the stress of exams as they put you in control of your revision!

Set yourself realistic time slots to do actual revision. Don't forget to timetable in time to socialise and relax (be realistic about how much time you give to the socialising and relaxing!).

Within the revision time you can decide to plan 3 stages:

1. What is it you are actually going to revise? – the vision.
2. The actual getting down to the revision – the action.
3. The writing of notes or discussing the revision with someone – the evaluation.

Get a notebook and in it try and complete the following each day:

• What you have covered - bullet points from your revision.
• Write questions that you come up with from your revision - to ask your teacher/friends/look up in books/internet etc.
• To do lists - what to revise or re-cover if you don't feel you have fully understood the subject material.
• Little bits of information or items you want or need to remember.

TRY USING DIFFERENT COLOURS THEY CAN HELP YOU REMEMBER THINGS BETTER.

Use different colours to highlight points which are important.

Causes of stress - these can be raised when revising and taking exams and depend upon external factors, like the wrong working environment (too noisy, hot, cold, messy!), pressures from home and school, etc.

Effects of stress - one way of considering stress is a heightened state of arousal.  This is also known as the 'fight or flight' response and this can be really helpful when facing imminent danger (like a bear trying to eat you, or a teacher after you for coursework!), your body reaches this state very quickly, so you are ready physically to fight or to run away very quickly!.

This however can have a negative effect on your performance when you come to take your exams.  We need to learn how to get to a point where we are aroused enough so our performance is effective (worthwhile).  See the graph below, there is a point at the top of the graph where the arousal levels off and the performance is still high, as the arousal keeps increasing the performance drops off. Being too aroused or stressed negatively affects your performance in your exams.