5 Ways to Revise When You Have Too Much Material

Having too much material to revise can be one of the most stressful parts of preparing for an exam. You open your notes and see hundreds of pages, several chapters, PowerPoints and practice questions. The first problem is often not even learning the information. It is knowing where to start.

I know this feeling because that was how I used to study. When an exam was coming up, I would try to start a few weeks before, but planning was never my strongest point, so I often went with the flow. Most of my revision was rereading and highlighting. I was spending time with the material, but I was not really testing whether I had learned it.

Eventually, I started looking into study methods that actually help students learn instead of assuming that spending more time reading means you are learning more. These are five techniques that I found useful.

1. Break large topics into smaller sections

When you have a large amount of material, looking at everything at once can make studying feel impossible.

Instead of thinking, “I have 100 pages to learn,” break those 100 pages into smaller topics or chapters. Make a simple list of what you need to know and work through it one section at a time.

This also makes it easier to see what you actually understand and what you do not. You might find that one chapter is easy while another needs much more attention.

For me, this was important because one of my biggest problems was simply not knowing where to start. Having lots of books, chapters and notes in front of me made studying harder before I had even started.

Breaking the material down does not make the amount of information smaller, but it makes it much easier to approach.

2. Use active recall instead of just rereading

One of the biggest changes I made to the way I study was learning about active recall.

Active recall means trying to remember information without looking at your notes. Instead of reading the same page again, you close the book and ask yourself questions about what you just learned.

This is important because recognising information is not the same as being able to remember it yourself.

I noticed this problem a lot when my school gave us practice tests. I would read my notes and think, “I know this.” Then I would take the practice test and get a bad score. I could not understand how I had thought I knew the material when I clearly did not know it well enough to answer the questions.

The problem was that I had become familiar with the information from reading it, but I had not practised retrieving it.

Research on retrieval practice has found that actively retrieving information can improve long-term learning and retention. Practice testing is also considered one of the more effective learning techniques compared with methods such as simply rereading.

(McDermott, 2021; Dunlosky et al., 2013)

So instead of asking yourself, “Does this look familiar?”, try asking, “Can I explain this without looking?”

3. Try a brain dump

A brain dump is a simple way of practising active recall.

Read or study a topic, put your notes away, and then write down everything you can remember. It does not have to be perfectly organised. The point is to see what you can actually retrieve from memory.

Afterwards, compare what you wrote with your notes. You will probably find some information you remembered correctly, some things you forgot and possibly some things you misunderstood.

This was one of the techniques that helped me realise how much I was forgetting while rereading. I could read a chapter and feel like I understood it, but when I had to write everything down without looking, there were gaps that I had not noticed.

That is what makes a brain dump useful. It does not just tell you what you know. It also shows you what you need to study again.

4. Test yourself more than once

Practice testing is another useful way to find out whether you actually know something.

The problem I had at school was that we would sometimes get one practice test. I would study, take the test and then find out where my gaps were. But after that, I did not always have another test with different questions to check whether I had improved.

If you have a large amount of material to revise, testing yourself multiple times can be much more useful than doing one practice test and then going back to rereading everything.

After a test, look at the questions you got wrong. Go back to those topics, learn them again and then test yourself later with new questions.

Research has found that repeated testing can improve learning compared with simply studying the material again, especially when students receive feedback on their answers.

(Roediger & Karpicke, 2006; Adesope et al., 2017)

The goal is not to get a perfect score immediately. A bad score can actually be useful because it shows you exactly where you need to improve.

5. Turn your existing material into questions

You do not always need to create completely new study material from scratch.

Take the material you already have and turn it into questions. A heading in your notes can become a question. A definition can become a flashcard. A section of a textbook can become several practice questions.

For example, instead of reading:

“Photosynthesis is the process by which plants convert light energy into chemical energy.”

You could ask yourself:

“What is photosynthesis and what does it allow plants to do?”

Now you have something you can actively answer instead of something you simply read.

This is also one of the ideas behind Leurons. I wanted a place where students could take the material they already have and turn it into resources they can actively use, rather than just giving them another place to read the same information.

Having your notes, summaries, flashcards and practice tests together can also make it easier to move between different ways of learning.

Studying hard does not mean just studying longer

One thing I wish I had understood earlier is that studying hard does not necessarily mean sitting at your desk for ten hours and rereading your notes.

For me, studying hard now means actively doing something with the information. It can mean testing myself, doing a brain dump, making flashcards, creating a mind map or trying to explain a difficult topic without looking at my notes.

The biggest change for me was moving from asking, “How long have I studied?” to asking, “What can I actually remember?”

If you have a huge amount of material to revise, you do not need to panic and try to memorise everything at once. Break it into smaller sections, actively retrieve the information, test yourself and use your mistakes to decide what you need to study next.

You might find that this makes your revision not only more effective, but also much less overwhelming.

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Sources and further reading

• Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58.
• McDermott, K. B. (2021). Practicing retrieval facilitates learning. Annual Review of Psychology, 72, 609–633.
• Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.
• Adesope, O. O., Trevisan, D. A., & Sundararajan, N. (2017). Rethinking the use of tests: A meta-analysis of practice testing. Review of Educational Research, 87(3), 659–701.

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About the author

Written by Vincent, Founder of Leurons

Vincent is a student and the founder of Leurons, an AI study tool designed to help students turn their existing study materials into active-learning resources such as practice tests, flashcards and summaries.