Ask a Year 11 student how they are revising and you will hear a familiar set of answers: highlighting notes, re-reading the textbook, copying out flashcards, watching YouTube videos. These methods feel productive. The problem is that most of them barely work.
A landmark 2013 study by Dunlosky and colleagues reviewed decades of research into study techniques and rated their effectiveness. The results were stark: the methods students use most are the ones that work least. Meanwhile, the strategies with the strongest evidence base are the ones students rarely use.
Here is what the research actually says, and how to put it into practice for GCSEs.
The strategies that do not work (but feel like they do)
Highlighting and underlining
Rating: low effectiveness. Highlighting is the most popular study strategy among students, and one of the least effective. It creates the illusion of engagement without requiring the brain to do any real processing. You can highlight an entire textbook page and remember almost nothing from it.
The exception: highlighting can be useful if it is a preliminary step before doing something active with the marked content. But on its own, it is not revision. It is colouring in.
Re-reading notes
Rating: low effectiveness. Re-reading creates a feeling of familiarity, which students confuse with understanding. After reading their notes three times, they feel like they know the material. But recognition is not the same as recall. Being able to recognise something when you see it is fundamentally different from being able to retrieve it from memory in an exam.
Summarising
Rating: low to moderate effectiveness. Writing summaries is better than re-reading because it forces some active processing. But the quality matters enormously. Most students write summaries by copying from the textbook in slightly shorter form. This is essentially re-reading with extra steps. Effective summarisation requires identifying and articulating the key ideas in your own words, which is a skill most students have not been taught.
The strategies that actually work
1. Retrieval practice (testing yourself)
Rating: high effectiveness. This is the single most powerful study strategy supported by research. The idea is simple: instead of re-reading information, try to recall it from memory without looking at your notes.
Why it works: every time you successfully retrieve a piece of information from memory, the memory trace strengthens. It becomes easier to access next time. This is the "testing effect," and it is one of the most robust findings in cognitive psychology.
How students can use it:
- Cover the textbook and try to write everything you remember about a topic. Then check what you missed.
- Use flashcards properly. The value of flashcards is not in making them (which is just copying). It is in testing yourself with them, getting the answer wrong, and trying again.
- Do practice questions and past papers. This is retrieval practice in its purest form. Every mark scheme answer you try to recall is strengthening that memory.
- Brain dumps: at the start of a revision session, write everything you already know about the topic before looking at any materials. Then use your notes to fill in the gaps.
2. Spaced repetition (spreading revision over time)
Rating: high effectiveness. Cramming feels effective because the information is fresh in your mind immediately after the session. But it fades fast. Spaced repetition, revisiting material at increasing intervals, produces much more durable learning.
The spacing effect has been demonstrated in hundreds of studies. Information reviewed once today, once in three days, and once in a week is remembered far better than information reviewed three times today.
How students can use it:
- Create a revision timetable that revisits topics. Do not study a topic once and move on. Schedule return visits at increasing intervals.
- Use a spaced repetition app for flashcards. Anki, Quizlet, or built-in tools like Marky's flashcard system automatically schedule reviews at optimal intervals.
- Interleave subjects. Studying Maths, then English, then Science in one session is more effective than spending the entire evening on one subject.
3. Elaborative interrogation (asking "why?")
Rating: moderate to high effectiveness. This strategy involves generating explanations for facts rather than just memorising them. Instead of learning "photosynthesis requires chlorophyll," ask "why does photosynthesis require chlorophyll? What does chlorophyll actually do?"
This works because it forces deeper processing. You cannot explain why something happens without understanding how the underlying concepts connect. It also creates more "hooks" in memory, making the information easier to retrieve later.
How students can use it:
- After learning a fact, ask "why is this true?" and "how does this connect to what I already know?"
- Explain concepts to someone else (the Feynman Technique). If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough.
- Draw concept maps showing how ideas in a topic link together. The act of making connections is the learning.
4. Practice testing with past papers
Rating: high effectiveness. This combines retrieval practice with exam technique. Past papers are not just a way to check knowledge. They are a way to build it.
For GCSE students specifically:
- Work through past papers under timed conditions. The time pressure forces recall rather than allowing leisurely note-checking.
- Mark your own work against the mark scheme. This is where the real learning happens. Seeing exactly where you lost marks and why is far more instructive than simply re-reading notes on that topic.
- Redo questions you got wrong. Not immediately, but a few days later. Can you now get the marks you missed?
What teachers can do to help
Students are unlikely to adopt these strategies on their own. They need explicit teaching and structured opportunities to practise them.
Teach the strategies directly
Spend a lesson at the start of Year 11 (or earlier) explicitly teaching students about effective revision. Show them the research. Let them experience the difference between re-reading and retrieval practice. Many students have genuinely never been taught how to study.
Build retrieval practice into lessons
Low-stakes quizzes at the start of every lesson take 5 minutes and are one of the most effective things you can do. Ask 5-10 questions from previous topics (not just last lesson, but content from weeks or months ago). This is spaced retrieval practice built into the school day.
Provide access to past papers and mark schemes
Past papers are the best revision resource that exists for GCSEs. Make sure students have access to them, know how to use them, and understand how to self-assess against the mark scheme.
Set practice papers as homework
If you can mark them quickly (or use tools to help with marking), setting regular practice papers as homework gives students structured retrieval practice with feedback. The key is quick turnaround. Feedback on a practice paper three weeks later has lost most of its value.
The best revision does not feel easy. If it feels comfortable, the student is probably re-reading. If it feels effortful, they are probably learning.
A practical revision plan for GCSE students
Here is a simple weekly structure a student could follow:
- Monday: Brain dump on Topic A (10 mins). Fill gaps from notes. Create flashcards for weak areas.
- Tuesday: Practice questions on Topic B (30 mins). Mark against mark scheme. Note areas to revisit.
- Wednesday: Review flashcards from Monday (spaced repetition). Brain dump on Topic C.
- Thursday: Timed past paper on Topic A (retrieval practice). Self-assess and redo missed questions.
- Friday: Interleaved review: mix of flashcards from the whole week. Practice questions on weakest area.
- Weekend: Full past paper under timed conditions. Mark it. Plan next week based on weakest topics.
The pattern is: retrieve, check, fill gaps, come back to it later. Every session should involve trying to recall information, not just re-reading it.
How Marky supports revision
Marky's practice exam feature lets students attempt past papers and get them graded instantly, with per-question feedback showing exactly where marks were gained and lost. The spaced repetition flashcard system automatically resurfaces weak topics at optimal intervals.
For teachers, this means you can set regular practice papers without the marking burden. Students get their results back immediately, which keeps the feedback loop tight and the revision cycle moving.
Start a free 3-day trial and give your students access to instant practice paper grading.