A 10 mark ‘analyse with item’ practice question and answer for the AQA’s A-level paper 2: families and households section
Applying material from item C analyse two ways in which the nuclear family might perform ideological functions (10)
Hooks
Item C
Marxist sociologists have long argued that the traditional nuclear family performs ideological functions for capitalism, through for example, socializing children into thinking that hierarchy normal and inevitable.
However, radical Feminist sociologists argue that the main function of the nuclear family lies in maintaining inequalities between men and women through promoting patriarchal ideology.
A brief model plan…
Point 1: One ideological function = socialising children into thinking inequality is normal, this is done through ‘age patriarchy’ – children are expected to be obedient to parents.
Development – much like the correspondence principle in education this gets children ready to be obedient to their bosses in work and also to accept inequalities in broader society, class inequalities which exist between bourgeois and proletariat for example.
Further development – According to Marxist Feminists, traditional gender roles further encourage obedience to the rules at work – if man thinks he is ‘the provider’ and women are dependent at home, the male worker is less likely to go on strike because it undermines his provider role.
Further development – According to Marxists the family might also passify children by acting as a unit of consumption – they are taught to ‘find their identity’ in the products they consume, not in thinking and questioning, thus this might contribute to ideological control.
Evaluation – a problem with this specifically performing functions for capitalism is that ‘age patriarchy’ within families typically occurs in pre-capitalist societies.
Point 2: Radical Feminists argue the traditional nuclear family normalises gender inequality
Development – women stay at home look after the kids, men go to work, women are thus financially dependent on men in this situation
Further Development – This can also be reinforced by the way dads tend to police daughters more than sons (differential gender socialisation)
Further development – the privatised nuclear family also allows male violence against women to go unnoticed
Evaluation – HOWEVER, liberal fems and postmodernists would point out that gender norms are changing and the above is all much more likely in the age of the negotiated family and the pure relationship.
A Level Sociology Families and Households Revision Bundle
My attempt at a model 10/10 answer for this A-level sociology exam question (families and households topic)
This is the 10 mark question in the crime and deviance section of the AQA’s 2016 Specimen A-level sociology paper 2: Topics in Sociology, section A: Families and Households option.
In this post I consider a ‘lower middle mark band’ student response (4/10 marks) to this question and the examiner commentary (both are provided by the AQA here) before considering what a ‘top band’ answer might look like.
The Question (with the item!)
The Mark Scheme:
Student Response:
Examiner Commentary: (4/10 marks)
This is taken straight from the AQA’s own specimen (2016) material. NB I think the commentary actually misses out the most significant thing the candidate does not do, see below for my commentary on the commentary…
What the candidate does well
Two reasonable suggestions are offered
There is no problem that they are “opposites” in that both situations may occur in different families.
The response provides a competent explanation of each change, explaining how and why older people may impact on female members of the generation beneath them (unfortunately, this is not what the question has asked for).
What the candidate does not do well
The response fails to fully answer the question because it does not explicitly connect the change in the position of women to family structures – implicit links to roles are as far as the response gets.
This answer does not have a strong knowledge base and concepts are limited
The second paragraph could do more to explain how/why the ageing population will lead to more grandparents who are able to provide the suggested role.
Both knowledge and application to family structures could be much stronger in this response however there is enough material of partial relevance to access the middle band.
This answer is a little too brief, given that around 15 minutes of an examination should be allocated to a 10 mark question.
How you might improve on this response to move up to the top band….
This is my input:
NB -THE POINTS MADE DO NOT SEEM TO COME EXPLICITLY FROM THE ITEM…. IF THE CANDIDATE WAS USING THE ITEM, THEY WOULD HAVE ONE POINT ABOUT ‘INCREASING LIFE EXPECTANCY’ AND ONE POINT ABOUT ‘DECLINING BIRTH RATES’ AND THEN LINK THESE TO CHANGING FAMILY STRUCTURES.
TO MY MIND THE RESPONSE ABOVE IS BASICALLY ‘THE MIDDLE BITS’ – WHAT’S MISSING IS CLEAR REFERENCE TO THE ITEM (THE BEGINNING BITS OF BOTH POINTS) AND ESPECIALLY THE END BITS, ON FAMILY STRUCTURE!
Anyway, if you’d like to submit an improved answer in the comments which takes on board the above feedback, I might even mark it!
A Level Sociology Families and Households Revision Bundle
50 pages of revision notes covering all of the sub-topics within families and households
mind maps in pdf and png format – 9 in total, covering perspectives on the family
short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers – 3 examples of the 10 mark, ‘outline and explain’ question.
9 essays/ essay plans spanning all the topics within the families and households topic.
If you’re not quite as flush, how about this… just the 50 pages of accessible, user friendly, exam-focused notes for only £0.99* – from iTunes, Barnes and Noble and Kobo.
One way is that other institutions, such as the work place and schools are taking over previous functions which the family used to perform.
According to Parson’s Functional Fit Theory, families in pre-industrial society used to be ‘units of production’: they produced more of their own food, and the extended-family form worked well for this purpose: several members of one household lived and worked together in order to produce food and basic goods. At this time, the extended family also provided adequate education, limited to teaching children how to ‘work effectively’ as part of the family business.
However, with the onset of industrialisation, the factory became the main place of work and so the family lost this ‘economic function’. This also laid the basis for the family losing another function: that of education – children cannot learn the skills needed to work in factories at home, they need to do so ‘at work’.
Furthermore, following many more years of industrial development and economic growth, the number of jobs requiring specialist skills grew, meaning the development of primary and secondary education, which left the family only being responsible for ‘primary socialisation’ and formal education largely taken over secondary socialisation.
Parsons further argued that one other ‘function’ left to the smaller nuclear family was the stabilisation of adult personalities: that is men and women care for each other in relationships and the family provides ’emotional security’ (although this is criticised by radical feminists for ignoring the fact that women bare more of the emotional burden).
Although the nuclear family performs fewer functions, these functions are still important according to Functionalists,
A second reason is that the increase in divorce means that families are losing their ability to socialise children effectively as there are more ‘broken families.
This view is most closely associated with the New Right who argue that the increase in single parent families means less effective socialisation for children as they have fewer positive role models, evidenced by the higher levels of deviance displayed by children from ‘broken homes’.
However, radical feminists interpret this differently – they argue that the increase in divorce is a sign of the family losing it’s ‘patriarchal control’ function – women feel as if they are more able to leave abusive relationships, which is at least partly because changing gender roles means now that most women work, they are able to support themselves.
Moreover, IF single parents families are less effective at socialising children, this is because of the governments unwillingness to support single parents in work through appropriate social policies such as providing free child care for working single parents.
Finally, it’s also worth pointing out that it is not just single parents who struggle to socialise their children within the family: technological changes such as the growth of social media mean that all parents increasingly struggle to socialise their children effectively.
A Level Sociology Families and Households Revision Bundle
AQA A-level sociology Papers 1 and 3 will both contain an ‘outline and explain’ 10 mark (no item) question on sociological theories, and/ or methods.
One possible format for this question is what I like to think of as the ‘pure research methods’ format (‘classic’ might be a better word than ‘pure’) in which students are asked to outline and explain two theoretical, practical or ethical advantages or problems of using one of the main research methods.
For example (taken from the AQA’s June 2017 Education with Theory and Methods paper): ‘Outline and explain two problems of using documents in social research’
There are actually 36 possible variations of such ‘pure’ or ‘classic’ research methods questions, as outlined in the flow chart below.
Students may be asked to give two advantages or problems of any of the above methods, or more specific methods (field experiments for example), or they may be asked to give two advantages of using overt compared to covert participant observation, or asked to simply give two ethical problems which you may encounter when doing research more generally.
Then of course, students may be asked to relate methods to theories, or just asked about a pure ‘theoretical’/ perspectives question.
While there is no guarantee that this particular format of question will actually come up on either paper 1 or 3, it’s still good practice for students to work through a number of such questions as revision practice.
There are a lot of documents available and it can be time consuming to analyse them qualitatively
Taking news for example, there are thousands of news items published every day.
You also need to distinguish between ‘real and ‘fake news’.
Also, in the postmodern age where fewer people get their news from mainstream news it is necessary to analyse a wide range of media content to get representatives, which makes this more difficult.
Because there are so many documents available today, it is necessary to use computer assisted qualitative analysis, which effectively quantifies the qualitative data, meaning that some of depth and insight are lost in the process.
With personal documents, gaining access might be a problem
Personal diaries are one of the most authentic sources of information because people write them with no intention of them being seen.
However, they may not be willing to show researchers the content because they say negative feelings about people close to them, which could harm them.
Blogs would be easier to access but the problem is people will edit out much of what they feel because these are published.
Analysis/ development – Deviant and criminal groups may be unwilling to allow researchers to gain access because they may fear prosecution if the authorities find out about them.
Analysis/ development – some groups may be unwilling to take part in research because of social stigma.
Analysis/ development – the characteristics of the researcher may exacerbate all of this.
Analysis/ development – A further problem, is that if all of the above are problems, the research is very unlikely to get funding!
A second practical problem is that some studies can be very time consuming
Analysis/ development – gaining access can take a long time, especially with covert research.
Analysis/ development – even with overt research, gaining trust, getting respondents to feel comfortable with you can take months.
Analysis/ development – unexpected findings in PO may further lengthen the research process
Analysis/ development – Some Participant Observation studies have taken so long that the findings may no longer be relevant—e.g. Gang Leader for a Day.
Theory and Methods A Level Sociology Revision Bundle
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my Theory and Methods Revision Bundle – specifically designed to get students through the theory and methods sections of A level sociology papers 1 and 3.
Contents include:
74 pages of revision notes
15 mind maps on various topics within theory and methods
Using material from item A and elsewhere, analyse two reasons why women remain economically disadvantaged compared to men despite the increase in the gender gap in educational achievement (10)
Item A
Girls have been outperforming boys in education for 30 years now. However, despite this, men still earn more than women.
There are many explanations for this: the most obvious being that schools fail to adequately tackle other aspects of gender inequality: such as gender differences in socialisation, social roles and gendered differences in subject choice.
Suggested Answer
One reason is that despite getting better qualifications than men, women are more likely to work part-time than men.
This is because despite changes to education in the world of work women are still more likely to be the primary child carers, and thus take time off work, putting their careers on hold in order to bring up children.
According to Radical Feminists this shows that schools fail to tackle in-grained gendered socialisation learnt at home and via the media…. girls may increasingly be going into careers, but by the time they get to 35 and have their first baby it is generally women who take time off work, not men.
This might be because schools only focus on the formal aspects of qualifications (i.e. exam skills, grades) and fail to challenge gender-stereotypes about appropriate future work roles for men and women.
This could also be linked marketization – the curriculum narrows to focus on teaching to the test rather than focussing on broader educational issues such as promoting gender equality and diversity.
A second reason may be that girls are more likely to choose caring subjects which are linked to lower paid careers such as health and social care which leads into nursing.
In contrast boys choose more technical subjects which are linked to more highly paid careers, such as maths and computer programming leading onto engineering and computer programming.
According to labelling theory, this happens because of gendered stereotypes held by careers advisors, with subject advisors steering girls and boys into ‘traditional subject choices’.
This criticises the Liberal Feminist view that mere ‘equality of opportunity’ is sufficient to being about wage equality, and supports the Radical Feminist view that patriarchy (in the form of stereotypical assumptions) still works within schools to disadvantage girls.
However, all of this is changing and that a higher proportion of girls are choosing to do traditionally male subjects and are going into male jobs in greater numbers and that things are actually becoming more equal. Supporting evidence for this lies in the fact that women in their 20s actually earn more than men in their 20s.
This is one of the 10 mark analyse questions appearing on one of the AQA’s specimin papers, below I’ve simply adapted the AQA’s model answer and added in my own commentary….
Hooks in the item
What to apply the hooks to = pupil subcultures!
Item A
Schools give status to pupils on the basis of characteristics such as their perceived ability, behaviour and attitude, and this is often related to pupils’ class, gender and ethnicity.
Pupils with desirable characteristics are given higher status and treated differently. These pupils are likely to do well and to feel positive about school. Some other pupils may be more concerned about their friends’ opinions of them than with the school’s view of them.
The text below has been modified from the AQA’s student responses and examiner commentary. All I’ve done is split the paragraphs apart to show you clearly that there are 4-5 explanations/ development of each point. NB the response got 10/10.
Point 1
Hargreaves argued that schools streamed pupils on the basis of their behaviour (Item A line 2). Those students who were labelled as a trouble-maker were put in the lower stream.
They had two negative labels put on them. They were penalised by being put in a secondary school (modern) and by being put in the lower streams. The teachers called them worthless louts. The students were denied status and came together to create a sense of self-worth forming anti-school subcultures.
They did this by inverting the values of the school. In an anti-school sub-culture being bad became being good. Thus they didn’t hand in homework, cheated and broke school rules.
The more they did this the more their respect increased amongst their peers. Because these pupils were treated differently (Item A line 3) they developed a sub-culture.
Point 2:
The way teachers treat pupils causes pupils to form a subculture. This may be because they are labelled by teachers in the classroom. Labelling means attaching a definition such as bright or high achiever.
This labelling may be due to external factors such as possessing elaborated language code. Lacey found that teacher labelling can result in polarisation of pupils, where they become even further apart in achievement and behaviour.
Those who are positively labelled form pro-school subcultures, they tend to mix with other who are similarly labelled. The pupils in these subcultures work hard and have good behaviour.
These pupils gain more favour with the teachers and research by Ball showed how this meant the teacher spent more time with them. Linking to the first point, these pupils are also more likely to end up in higher streams, further improving their chances of educational success.
Examiner commentary
Good knowledge and understanding of two relevant reasons, streaming and labelling, for the reasons why pupils form subcultures. These include relevant sociological evidence and concepts. The points show developed application of the material from the item. The answer also draws links between the two reasons for the formation of subcultures. 10/10 marks awarded
Karl’s Commentary – How to answer 10 mark questions?
From this example, it seems obvious that the student has nit-picked the item to the extreme. What they’ve done in both responses is linked the first section of the item to the second section, so if you can do this, then that’s clearly best practice!
They’ve also done the following to ‘differentiate’: note – they talk about four different things!
Streaming – linked to anti-school subcultures
Labelling – linked to pro-school subcultures.
An alternative strategy may have been to pick up on the class, gender and ethnicity element and use this to differentiate even further in both points!
NB – There’s a colour coded version of the above in the revision bundle below, in which I show all the many links the candidate makes to the item!
Applying material from item A and elsewhere analyse two reasons why marketization policies may have increased inequality of educational opportunities for some students (10)
Hooks
What you need to apply the hooks to
Item A
Since the 1980s, a major aim of government policy has been to increase parental choice in education. In order to increase choice, the government introduced Open Enrolement, allowing parents to choose more than one school and league tables on school performance were also made publicly available.
However, critics of marketization argue that such polices have increased inequality of educational opportunity.
Suggested answer
The first way is that although open enrolement gave parents the right to choose more than one school, technically giving all parents the right to choose the ‘best schools’, middle class children have more effective choice than working class parents.
Development/ analysis: This is because middle class parents have more cultural capital than working class parents – they are more comfortable with reading school literature, attending open evenings and filling in multiple application forms (where they can use their elaborated speech skills), while working class parents are less confident and just end up sending their children to the local schools.
Further development/ analysis: This is further compounded by the ‘school-parent alliance’ – schools want middle class children because they know they get better results, which
Further development/ analysis: An even more basic reason is selection by mortgage – schools have catchment areas, and the houses which fall inside these catchment areas are more expensive, meaning only wealthier children get selected for such schools.
Further development/ analysis: All of this means that ‘choice policies’ have resulted in unequal opportunities for working class children, because they are less likely to be selected for the best schools, not because of their individual potential, but because the higher levels of material and cultural capital of the middle classes gives them more effective choice and thus a greater opportunity to be selected for the best schools.
A second way is that league tables have resulted in schools tending to focus more on formal academic subjects such as English and maths which possibly disadvantages those children who are not good at formal academic subjects.
Development – Because schools are now concerned about their position in the league tables, which depends on their reports and exam results, they have narrowed the curriculum to focus more on core subjects such as English and Maths, putting more resources into these subjects – this is good for those pupils who like those subjects, but bad for students who are gifted in sports or creative subjects, as these are now relatively less funded, meaning there is no equality of opportunity for all students to fulfil their diverse potentials.
Development – Postmodernists would argue this is especially problematic in a postmodern society which is supposed to be more individualised – surely in such a society, if schools are to provide equality of opportunity then they would diversify the way their resources are distributed rather than focusing them more narrowly on ‘core subjects’ for the sake of going up the league tables.
Evaluation – Having said this, the above point only applies to schools: it is quite possible that students who are more creative or vocational will put less emphasis on the cores subjects and instead take advantage of the greater diversity of ‘learning opportunities’ now available outside school to explore their talents, such as online courses and apprenticeships, which you could say ‘fit in’ with the idea of ‘an education market’.
Or how to get an A*. 20 of the best revision strategies of A* students or proven by research, to ensure you’re mentally sharp, focused and revising effectively.
20 Effective revision strategies used by A* students and/ or proven to be effective through actual research.
The revision advice below is broken down into three general categories:
General health and well being advice – how to ‘take care’ of yourself during the revision and exam period to make sure you’re physically and mentally up to the challenge.
General ‘exam and revision preparation’ advice – advice on planning your revision and exam period: what you need to do before you start your two months (or so) of revision, and what to do before any particular ‘revision session’
Specific revision techniques you should be using during any particular revision session (whether that’s 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and hour or more!)
NB – I teach A-level sociology (as if the blog doesn’t give that away), but the advice here should be relevant to anyone studying similar humanities A-levels, or even science based A-levels. If you’re doing A-level sociology, you might be interested these exam-focused revision resources I’ve put together – they’re basically a series of ‘bundles’ of revision notes, mind maps and model answers based on possible exam questions.
General health and well being advice
How to ‘take care’ of yourself during the revision and exam period to make sure you’re physically and mentally up to the challenge.
Eat properly – this means eating breakfast, plenty of fruit and veg, minimize the junk and sugar, and stay hydrated!
Get a decent night’s sleep – keep your phone in a separate room if necessary.
Get our for some exercise and fresh air – even just a brisk 20 minute walk around the block can help shake off fatigue.
Figure out when you work best (morning, afternoon, evening) and plan to do as much revision during your own personal ‘mental peak’ times as possible.
Figure out where you work best – at home, or at college, or a mixture of both.
Set yourself realistic revision goals and treat yourself when you reach them (see number below) – although don’t overdo the treats. Take a leaf out of the workout kid’s book – just a few pieces of candy as a treat at the end of each session, rather than a large Dominos, jumbo Toblerone or family size pack of Cornettos.
Preparing for Revision
Advice on planning your revision and exam period: what you need to do before you start your two months (or so) of revision, and what to do before any particular ‘revision session’.
An example of a monthly ‘overview’ revision timetable
Download the specification (or more broken down knowledge checklist) for each subject, put them at the front of your revision folder, or stick them on your bedroom wall. (If you’re studying sociology, then here is an overview of the AQA’s sociology specification). Another way of saying this, is that the first thing you need to know, is what you need to know!
On the above lists, grade each sub-topic into ‘easy’ ‘moderate’ and ‘difficult, use the traffic light system if you like…. then you’ll know what you need to spend more time revising.
Do a monthly ‘overview’ revision timetable – which overviews the topics you’ll be studying on a day to day basis, stick it at the front of your revision folder, or on your bedroom wall. This ‘overview plan’ should incorporate at least one day off a week. For A-levels, I’d suggest starting on April 1st (and if you think that’s a joke, you’re the fool) at the latest – to allow yourself time to ‘visit’ each sub-topic at least three times before the exam. Click here for an example of what I believe an effective revision timetable. (This ticks the ‘spreading out study over time’ box in many of the guides used to compile this mega-list.)
Read the examiners reports and any marked exemplars you can find from past-papers – together these will tell you what the examiners want you to do to get particular grades.
Download all of the past papers you can find, or at least know where you can get hold of them. Text books, revision guides, your teacher, or little moi (on this very we site) can provide you with examples of ‘possible questions’ for the new specifications, given that there aren’t too many exemplars around ATM.
If you have to, then organise your revision notes (or if you don’t have them yet, your actual notes) – into appropriate folders with dividers which demarcate each sub topic.
Sort out your study space – you don’t necessarily have to fold your clothes up, but at least clear a desk space in advance of hitting the revision. I’d also recommend having a ‘place’ for each set of revision notes for each of your subjects.
Cut out all distractions before you begin any study session – for most students this is probably simply a matter of putting their phone in another room for a couple of hours or so, and making sure there are no social media windows open through which you may be distracted. Obviously you might go online for revision advice, but don’t get distracted down the rabbit-hole in the process!
At the beginning or day (or week, but I prefer days), plan out what you are going to revise that day- with goals for each session. A decent ‘day revision plan might incorporate the following:
Two or three sessions with each session lasting from one to three hours, and focusing on one or more sub-topics (depending on how well you know that sub-topic).
Each session should have a distinct goal: for example: review all of the marriage and divorce topic by ‘testing myself’ and ‘plan 2 exam questions’ on this topic.
You should ‘mix it up’ over the course of the day – for example if you you’re doing three sessions, do one of sociology, one of English, one of History.
Your daily plan should be realistic – some sub-topics might take you two sessions, depending on how large they are and how difficult you find them.
If should incorporate all of the health and well being advice above: time for breakfast, breaks, exercise, and allow you time for a decent night’s sleep
It might incorporate an element of the ‘revision cycle’: the first 10 minutes of your sociology session might involve testing yourself on yesterday’s sociology session.
Specific Revision Techniques
This is probably what you came here for: these are the specific strategies you should be using during any particular revision session (whether that’s 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and hour or more!).
The advice below is supposed to apply to any of the major ‘topics’ or ‘chunks of learning’ within any topic. For A-level sociology, for example, a sub-topic is something like ‘perspectives on education’, or ‘demography’ within the family. For each of these topics, you should have something like 1-4 pages of your own revision notes, depending on how you’ve organised the information.
Some general advice is that revision should be active and exam focused, not passive (i.e. not just re-reading)
Test yourself – rather than simply re-reading your own revision notes, you should ‘turn the page face down’ and ‘go over the content in your head/ our out-loud’, and then turn the page back over to see how well you remembered the content.
Make brief, active revision notes with a clear structure (NB most of these should already be done BEFORE you start on your final wave of revision in April-May, so this should only be applying to the few gaps you have) – then do more reading and thinking and less ‘writing’ – i.e. think about the structure of the notes, use sub headings, and as few words as possible. Make links between other areas of the course and be as visual as possible (mind maps work well for many students), and TEST WHAT YOU KNOW immediately after you’ve made them.
When reviewing revision notes, do so actively – THINK about how you would use the material to answer exam questions, look for links to other areas of the course. This is where working with a constructive friend can come in really handy – test each-other, and explain what you’ve just reviewed to your friend. ‘Teaching’ someone else is often the best way of learning.
Read past papers and exemplars – make sure you’re doing this regularly, especially towards the end of May for A-levels (2018 dates)
Practice exam papers – both planning and the occasional full answer.
In short – Effective revision is not rocket science, it’s just a matter of adopting a healthy lifestyle, planning in advance, and doing active, exam focused revision in each revision session.
Sources used to write this post
Below, I list the sources I used to create the above ‘mega revision advice list’ with a summary of each of the specific pieces of advice given on each site, and a rationale for why I used this each source of advice.
Download the syllabus for your subjects and check off everything as you learn it
Break down revision into manageable, bite sized chunks
Don’t cram, revise continually (unfortunately if you’re reading this in May and you haven’t yet done this, then it’s already too late!)
Make a revision timetable.
I’ve included this first as everything on this list is just very sensible! No gimmicks at all here, just good, sound, exam focused revision advice. In terms of validity, these strategies are what have actually worked for actual recent A* students.
The above BBC article summarizes some research carried out by Professor Dunlovsky and co (published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest) which reviewed 1,000 scientific studies looking at 10 of the most popular revision strategies found that only 2 of them were ‘highly’ effective in promoting learning a further 3 had a ‘moderate’ impact on learning, while the remaining 5 had a low (or possibly detrimental) impact on learning.
2 High impact learning techniques – Do these!
♦Practice testing – Self-testing to check knowledge – especially using flash cards – HIGH
♦Distributed practice – spreading out study over time – HIGH
3 Moderate impact learning techniques – use them if they work ‘for you’
Elaborative interrogation – being able to explain a point or fact – MODERATE
Self-explanation – how a problem was solved – MODERATE
Interleaved practice – switching between different kinds of problems – MODERATE
5 Low low impact learning techniques – DON’T USE THESE!
X Summarising – writing summaries of texts – LOW
X Highlighting/underlining – LOW
X Keyword mnemonics – choosing a word to associate with information – LOW
X Imagery – forming mental pictures while reading or listening – LOW
X Re-reading – LOW.
In terms of validity of this advice, well it’s summarising 1000 pieces of research…. and certainly where the top five are concerned, I’m fairly convinced these are all effective revision techniques. As to the five to avoid…. personally I still think there’s a place for all of them, but only in moderation and only at certain stages in the revision process:
Highlighting and note taking are probably best used when learning initially, probably not for revision.
Mnemonics might be useful in certain areas – for example the TPEN plan for research methods.
I’ll withhold comment on the use of visuals…. Personally I’m a fan, but I’ll come back to this later.
As to re-reading, yes, useless, unless you’re ‘turning your notes over and going through them in your head’ and then re-reading said notes to check you’ve got them ‘in your noggin-nog’.
It may be directed at degree level students, but there’s lots of good advice that’s relevant to A-level students here too. The web sites also got lots of useful downloadable pamphlets, so it’s well worth checking out!
Plan your time effectively – work out a revision timetable, be realistic
Download exam papers
Find out what the examiner wants you to do
Learn actively – if you’re ‘reviewing’ revision notes then do ‘active reading’: test yourself, and ask yourself ‘how would I use this to answer an exam question’? Look for links between what you’re revising and other areas of the course.
Know the ‘structure’ of the course you are studying.
Make your revision notes memorable with sub-headings, and spider diagrams, and do them in your own words.
Work in blocks of two to three hours
Mix it up – revise something different in each ‘block’
Set targets and rewards
Test yourself
Practice exam questions – do written answers
Be nice yourself – basically, don’t overdo it! Take regular breaks.
Know when the best time is for you to revise and stick to it!
Revise with friends (?)
If you need to learn formulas and facts, then mnemonics or making up songs may help with ‘rote learning’
Stick to a revision cycle:
10 minutes after learning something (e.g. at the end of the 10 minute study break which you take after learning the topic).
1 day later at the beginning of the next revision session.
3 days later…
1 week later….etc
I really like this well-organised list of sensible revision advice! Check out the web site for some useful and free revision resources.
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my A Level Sociology Families and Households Revision Bundle which contains the following:
One way is that other institutions, such as the work place and schools are taking over previous functions which the family used to perform.
