Somerset Member of Youth Parliament James Lawson has been working hard on lots of things for his campaign, but they’re not quite ready to show yet, so he thought this month he’d do something a little bit different.

I hope you enjoy reading the article, it took me ages!!

I am in the stage of making loads of things for my campaign, so for this month, there aren’t any substantial updates. So, I am going to talk about exam pressure, and how to cope:

I am just starting year 11, which is a really important year for exams. When thinking about revision, it should always be remembered that when learning, your brain forms new pathways. Think of these as roads. Like real roads, they can fall into disrepair, if not maintained. However, they can also be strengthened and be made larger, like the extension of the A303 near Stonehenge. The point that I am trying to convey, is that to remember something, you may have to revisit it several times. Only looking at the information once, is like expecting a road from 50 years ago to be drivable with no maintenance. When revising you will hit roadblocks, like personal issues, or something as simple as prioritizing another subject over the one that your weak at. It is important to try not to get stressed, and to take regular breaks. If a cup of coffee helps, then grab that coffee before you start. You wouldn’t try and fix a road with no breaks. The final thing to consider, is to practice early, and to see what helps you. Everyone has different ways to learn and that’s okay – my friends like revising together, I prefer revising alone! You wouldn’t try to build a road with the wrong tools!

Top tips:

• Revise little and often: 5 times a week for 1 hour, is a lot better than 1 time for 5 hours. If you put down a huge layer of tarmac at once, then 1 issue could destroy the whole road. It’s the same with your brain.
• You can’t be “just bad” at one subject and “naturally good” at another since all subjects are remembered through the pathways in your brain. There is no pathway that has a stop sign, which you can’t bypass. You just need to find a way round it. All pathways are unique, which means that to remember them, you may need to try a different strategy to learn. Every pathway can become a motorway at some point, but all pathways will have different barriers stopping you remember them.
• Failure helps your brain grow! I know it sounds cliche, but it’s true – think of roads again! If you’re building a bridge over a shallow stream, the engineers don’t really need to work that hard at all, they could just refer to existing designs. But if you are trying to build a bridge over a huge ocean, the engineers would have to work overtime developing new designs and solutions. Think of your brain as an engineer. If you can’t remember something, your brain goes haywire. It builds new pathways trying to find an answer that makes sense. Like building the road around the ocean!
• The Pomodoro technique is an excellent way to revise. Have you ever thought, “I’ll watch JUST one more video, and then watched six?” YouTube algorithms deliberately recommend you videos that you just can’t resist pressing on, which is why you need to be rigid and just say NO. To do the technique, you need a timer and discipline! Just before your about to start your work, set the timer for 20 minutes. Try to make sure that you can see it ticking down. For this time, you need to only do work. Resist all temptation to pick up your phone – or in my case a model railway train – because you will be able to do this later. After the timer goes off, set a new one for 5 minutes and do whatever you want for this time. When the timer is up again, get straight back to work. This technique works because if you did 100 minutes work, and the thing you wanted to do was text your friend, the end would seem like reaching the top of the mountain. It would seem so far away, that you may just turn around and never get started. However, using the Pomodoro technique means that you only think about the 20 minutes, which seems a lot more achievable. You can think of it as walking a little up the mountain, having a chocolate bar, then walking up to the next break.
• Another effective technique is interleaved learning. This technique involves studying multiple topics in a period of time, rather than just one. If you were revising Geography, and you had 3 sections, you may just think that you should revise one. It makes sense, because you might want to get really good at one topic, then move on. It actually turns out this is wrong. If you study 3 topics in a period of time, your brain has to jump between topics, which means that it is putting more effort into the studying. Like before, effort equals brain growth. It’s also unlikely that the topics will be in a specific order during the exam. This technique will feel hard, but science shows doing it properly will grow your brain. I also mentioned earlier that different methods of revision were effective to some people. These two are effective for everyone, because it isn’t a way of revising like flashcards, it is just structuring your revision.
• The final thing that could help is sleep. I know – another cliche, but again, this one is 100% true! Sleep is basically a revision session that you don’t know about. When you sleep, your brain is given a chance to process everything that it has learnt in the day. Science shows that a good night’s sleep could help you remember 30% more than a bad night’s sleep. Sleep is the easiest revision you will ever do. So, next time you forget to revise, tell your teacher, I revised for 10 hours last night! Don’t worry, I’m joking. Sleep can be split into 5 parts, but you only need to remember 2. The first part is deep sleep, which happens when you have only just nodded off. Deep sleep helps you remember facts, so get to bed nice and early if you have revised maths – unless you fell asleep during the revision. Light sleep helps you improve your motor (movement) skills, such as crazy football tricks or a piano piece.

Thank you for reading, I hope it helps.

James

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