Christmas break revision strategy
Some of my students are wondering what the best use of their time during the Christmas break is.
They seem to be anxious about the material they did not manage to cover before the term ended, while also fretting about the upcoming mock exams/collections/summative assessments in January.
A few pieces of advice are, perhaps, in order. Feel free to take them with a pinch of salt and keep in mind that each person’s situation is unique:
a) Get some rest. This should be your first priority. Avoid burnout at all costs, since the physical and psychological repercussions will be severe, and it will only impede your academic ambitions. Make sure that, for a good few days, you do absolutely nothing study-related.
b) Reread all the written work you submitted during the term, both formative and summative.
c) Carefully peruse the comments your course leader provided in relation to the aforementioned written work. Then write them all down in a new document and divide them into categories (e.g. comments related to lack academic citations/unclear essay structure/overly descriptive style of writing). This is now the document you will use as a checklist, i.e. as a document that you will go through before submitting any new written work, in order to ensure that you avoid making the same mistakes in 2022.
d) Double down on your strengths. Sometimes, students feel that they are very close to getting a distinction in, say, Contract Law, and they think it wise to “relax” and now only focus on, say, Public Law, which is not their strongest suit. In my view, this strategy is misguided, and is an almost surefire way of not getting any excellent marks at all. The best strategy is to double down on your strengths, keep improving in the course that you are already good at and try to ensure you get a first class mark in them. Don’t neglect the other courses, but please don’t grow complacent either. In life or in law, when you have an advantage, you need to press it, not abandon it.
That’s my (laconic) advice. Hope it helps. Enjoy the break and bon courage!
