It feels like no matter time of year we are at there is a need to revise. Mock exams, internal assessments and summer exams always seem to come round quickly. Revision doesn’t need to wait, and you should certainly be starting now! Read before you revise is a blog for students, but will also be useful for teachers. It contains some revision tips linked to music, with specific ideas for GCSE & A-Level music.
Revise now
Don’t wait for your teacher to tell you to revise, or for the exam to be looming. Start your revision process now. Every week you should be considering topics that you can revise. You can make revision notes and start to get your notes and worksheets in order. Revise now, don’t wait!
And if you are teaching, then you can easily drop some revision into your starter or Do It Now tasks. You don’t need to wait for the students to come to you, put the revision right in front of them every week!
Chunking revision
Breaking down or chunking your revision will be really helpful. The earlier you start revising the easier this will be. If you have 8 weeks to go before your GCSE music mock, then you can tackle one set work a week (for Edexcel at least). Work out how many days you have to go, and use that to help you plan your revision. Trying to cram everything into two days will not only be stressful, but you are unlikely to learn everything.
If you are reading this in year 10/12 then you will have well over 365 days until your GCSE/A-Level Music Exam. Imagine if you did just 10 minutes extra per day, where you revise a specific topic. That would amount to 3650 minutes of learning, which equates to about 2.5 days!
Focus On Sound
When you are revising it is important that you are also listening to the right music. If you have a set work on your revision plan, then listen to it while you read & write. If you are needing to gather some wider listening then make sure you create a playlist so that you can quickly listen to examples.
But there is another useful tool for revision and that is Focus on Sound. This online resource is something that hopefully your school will have a subscription for – if not then ask your teacher to look into it. Focus on Sound is a complete revision resource packed full of key terms, set works and theory. Use Focus on Sound to help with revising key terms – there are tests and lessons included. Undertaking daily tests on Focus on Sound will help you to recognise key terms, instruments, styles and genres.
Set manageable goals
Make sure that when you revise you set yourself a manageable goal. Think through how much you can cover in the time you have. Schedule breaks, organise your work and don’t take on too much. And it might help to make a list of what you have achieved every week. This kind of list will motivate you and keep you working.
Teachers can also set students goals for their revision. I find that producing a tick sheet of tasks will help students to break down their revision and get it done. As adults we can help our students to see that revision is best done often rather than crammed.
Prepare for the questions
The first stage of revision will often focus on notes and revision guides. The earlier you start making revision notes and resources the better. Once you have these, it is important to focus the type of questions you will have in the exam. Short answer, multiple choice, paragraph and essays, there are often various types of questions.
In your revision process, make sure that you prepare for the specific questions. Writing revision essays, preparing for longer answers and focussing on quick fire key terms is vitally important. For your set works you should be thinking about the style, genre, composer and time period. This kind of context will be crucial throughout the exam and will link in with why the key terms are there.
Past Papers
Going through past papers can be a really useful task. Not only will you get to know the style of the exam, but the style of the answers. Working out what the examiner is looking for is key to success in an exam. Part of your revision could then be making your own questions and sharing them with classmates.
As a teacher I am often nervous to give out past papers because I so often want to use them for mocks. However as you get closer to the exam it is a good idea to make as much available to the students as possible. It is easy enough to share files so that they can listen and complete at home. The more time they spend thinking about the exam the better.
Listen Regularly
As a music student you should be listening to music all the time. Set works are of course the main focus, but also wider listening (especially at A-Level). My advice is to deliberately listen to music as much as possible, and you can do this when you are revising other subjects.
The other thing to do when listening is to think about sections that the examiner might choose for the exam. Extracts will be short, and they may be taken from a certain section or part of a song or piece. Make sure that you know the different between say the exposition and recapitulation, the chorus and the bridge. You need to know when it is the intro and be sure when it is the chorus. Take listening seriously, but also have music on all the time in the background of whatever you are doing.
Revise through summaries
A great way to discover if you know a topic, set work or key area of study is to write a summary. The ability to write a summary relies on your overall knowledge. If you can sit down and write a solid paragraph about a piece of music (with key terms) then you most likely know it well. This could also be a spoken task where you sit down with a friend and challenge them to summarise a key topic.
A summary will also make for a great revision tool in the lead up to the exam. You could probably fit a paragraph onto an A5 cue card, and. that will become a really useful resource.
YouTube
There are loads of great videos on YouTube that can help you with your revision. There are too many to mention, but it is worth searching for what you are looking for. It might be that you use it to watch other performances by the same artist. You might find some great revision videos that have been created such as the LSO series for A-Level and Music Help Guy.
Teachers you can make your own videos, or you can find videos and form a class playlist. Make sure that your students are aware of everything that is out there so that they have what they need to revise.
Revise with AI
Have you harnessed the power of AI in your revision & teaching? There are of course lots of positives, and a fair few negatives to AI use in education, but I think it can help with revision.
So next time you are looking for some Wider Listening, why not jump onto Chat GPT and ask for ideas. Or maybe you need a piece to compare to a set work, why not ask AI for ideas. It can also be useful for generating questions to help you in your revision – “I need 10 revision questions on the topic of harmony”.
Give it a try and see how useful it is for your studies. And teachers, use AI to help you work faster and smarter – it really will save you time!
Before you revise, Read!
The most important thing to do is read before you revise. Read over your notes, your past papers and your essays. Read through your exercise books, handouts and notes. What you don’t want to do is revise the wrong thing, or get comfortable with your revision. You want ot revise the stuff you don’t know, don’t like and don’t remember. Reading through everything will help you to work out what you do and don’t know, and then you can make a plan.
Revising the stuff we don’t know is the key to success, but as humans we don’t like to do this. We like to feel comfortable, a bit like avoiding a difficult section of music in our instrumental practise. Teachers you need to help students with this by putting the right optics in front of them when you run revision sessions. make sure you work out what the students aren’t so hot on, and then you can focus on that.
Read before you revise
I hope that this blog has been helpful and given you some great ideas for revision. There are so many different ways to approach this area, but it is always worth having lots of ideas. The key thing is to start early, start now in fact! Every day you can do something that will get you closer to that target grade. There are great tools out there to help you, and revision doesn’t need to be a big slog. Listen to music, watch videos, use AI and revise with friends. Whatever you do, just make sure that the information is going in, staying in and ready to come out in the exam room.
