This article has been reproduced with the permission of Access Education and authored by Joan D’Elia of Wesley College.

Why write my own Summary Sheet when I can easily copy or buy one from elsewhere?

This is a question that many Physics students ask leading up to the exams and my answer is always the same. “Yes, you can copy one or even buy a summary sheet but I don’t feel this will be as useful to you as writing your own”. The process of writing the summary sheet is just as important or in many cases more important than the sheet itself.

Writing the summary sheet, choosing which information to put on it is a great way to start your revision process. I usually advise my students to write their summary sheet as revision for each topic. Use it for the assessment task (often a test) and then make adjustments to it prior to the final exam. The adjustment process will often take place while using this sheet to assist with past papers and practise exams. This is when many students find their Summary Sheet lacking and make changes.

Having written the summary sheet you have a few advantages over the students who buy or copy one form elsewhere. Firstly you know what’s on your sheet, so you know where to find the information on your sheet. The second advantage is that you can put more or less information on each topic depending on your individual needs.

Having said this, what should go on the sheet and in what order? How should it be set out? I prefer a sheet with some order to it. I teach my students to summarise and am always surprised (maybe I shouldn’t be anymore but I am) at the number of students who have not learned this valuable technique before they get to their senior years.

To summarise effectively there needs to be some (usually a fair bit) of thinking involved. Summarising is not a matter of copying a few lines here and there while watching the telly or doing other tasks. It is a process whereby you read, think and write, thus pushing the information into your memory. Start by reading a section of your text, as you read write key words on a sheet of paper, leaving large blank spaces/lines between each word. Having read a section, close your book and fill in detail about each word. Definitions, link one word to another, examples, units, formulae…. all of this is really important. Now you go back and reread the same section of text. Check for both completeness and correctness in what you have written. Having completed this task for the entire course you are well on the way to having a useful Summary Sheet for the exam.

What else is important? Really good headings and sub-headings to help find what you are looking for when under pressure. Use of highlighter can be important but do this sparingly; otherwise you have a very colourful page where nothing in particular stands out. All you now need to add are a few useful diagrams with annotations, although you may have already included these in your summary. Last but certainly not least is formulae. I always advise my student to transpose any formula they may need to use in the exam. This seems to be an area that many students fall down in the exam. They know which formula is required but transpose it incorrectly, probably because they are under pressure in the exam.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention the most important reason for writing your own Summary Sheet…many students who go through this process and who do it well find that the sheet ends up as security. They do not need to use it during the exam because they have learned their Physics well by going through the process of summarising and reviewing but they know that if they do need to check anything it is right there on the sheet.

Good luck with your exam but always remember that if you are well prepared luck does not enter the equation!

Access Education is Victoria’s largest provider of VCE subject based Unit 3 & 4 exam revision programs. Covering a range of up to 17 subjects and offered in Melbourne at 3 locations as well as a further 6 locations in regional Victoria - Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Gippsland, Shepparton and Wodonga. Every year many thousands of students attend our quality, low-cost revision programs to give themselves an extra “edge” in preparing for their exams. The comprehensive notes which accompany each lecture are written specifically by the presenter for the lecture and become a valuable resource in students personal revision programs.

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