How can a tutor help with revision?

December 22, 2020

• Advice for Parents
• / Effective Revision
• / Topical

Parents are often confused about when is best to get the help their child needs to flourish in the increasingly competitive and difficult exams. Should they have a tutor while learning along the course? Is a tutor more helpful for revision purposes? The answer, unfortunately, is not as straightforward as that. The very essence of tutoring is a personal, individual relationship, where no two cases are the same. In this blog, however, we will focus on the latter: tutoring for revision.

One of the most basic and obvious ways in which a tutor can assist revision is simply through the fact that they have been in the student’s position before, and (as is the case with all our tutors) have done really rather well in their exams. In addition, tutors have years – if not decades – of experience in studying and discovering the very best revision methods. They also know precisely how to tailor the approach or method to each student’s individual requirements. Many students do not struggle with exams due to a lack of understanding of the content, but rather because they are struggling with the revision process.

Revision can be, as many of us know, an absolute nightmare, and tutors can provide a great crutch of support during this highly stressful time. Here are just some of the methods tutors can choose to aid revision:

1)     Create a tailored, efficient and maintainable plan.

When a student begins the process of revision, the sheer volume of content can seem overwhelming and exceptionally stressful. Equipped with hundreds of hours of experience, a tutor better understands exactly what is enough, but also, crucially, what is manageable. If a student over-stretches themselves, they are likely to burn out and perform worse than if they had stuck to a rigid, but less intensive, plan.

2)     Establish what needs revision, as well as places in which the ‘re-‘ is somewhat redundant.

Even if it is exam season and you begin to feel as though you should be revising, that does not mean you should learn things off-book which you simply don’t understand. The process of comprehending your studies will vastly aid in the revision process. A tutor can help enormously with this crucial stage of learning.

3)     Act as a valuable revision buddy.

The act of simply working with another person can be invaluable to students preparing for exams. It is widely proven that memory recall is one of the most useful ways of learning concepts and topics. Having someone to test you, to push you further than you would push yourself, is exceptionally useful for this method of revision.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the ways in which tutors can help students in the final push towards their exams. It is, however, a taster of what tutors can do for their students in an exceptionally stressful and exhausting period of their lives.