The Right Way To Organise Your Study

Your child might think that exams are too far away to be starting studying, or to even think about just yet, but it’s amazing how quickly they’ll creep up.

So we’ve got a painless task for you to help them with.

It’s a study technique that will make sure your child has the best start possible to their exam preparation!

Make a Subject Map

The first thing your child must know before they actually start swatting at a desk is what they need to study and in what order.

To achieve this we suggest they (perhaps with your help) make a subject map for every subject they’re going to have an exam on at the end of the year.

A subject map is simply an organised list with every topic they need to cover by exam day.

They prevent your child ever forgetting to study for an important topic, and prevent them getting off track studying things they don’t really need to know. Simply put – they make sure your child studies for everything that they’re likely to be examined on in time for the exam.

Subject maps should have the following simple structure:

Subject Heading

• Major Theme – There will usually be 3-6 of these per subject

• First topic of the Major Theme your child should study
• Main points/key words of this topic
• Main points/key words of this topic
• Main points/key words of this topic
   
• Second topic of this Major Theme your child should study
• Main points/key words of this topic
• Main points/key words of this topic
• Main points/key words of this topic
   
• Third Topic…
   

• Next Major Theme

  and so on…

Here’s our example of a subject map

Because subject maps tell your child what to study and in what order, they act as a guide to prevent getting lost while studying. As we say to our students, you wouldn’t go on a road trip without a map, and studying is no different.

We recommend that your child creates their subjects maps at the front of a new exercise book as opposed to a lose piece of paper, as these are easily lost!

Having a go at making a couple of subject maps would be a great thing for your child to accomplish over the school holidays.

It will get them thinking about their exams and will give them an idea of how much they actually have to study – it might be a bit of a shock to the system!