As your last chance to cram in all-important knowledge, revision is a pretty big deal. In fact, you could go as far as to say that the time you spend studying will have a direct impact on your results. At least, it will if you embark on a kind of revision that speaks to you.

It might go against what we ‘believe’ good revision to be, but the simple fact is that sitting at a desk and reading the same information time and again will never work for all of us. In fact, the people who can genuinely benefit from this revision style are few and far between.

This is for a few different reasons, including the fact that sit-down revision is uninspiring, unengaging, and ultimately not very memorable. By comparison, a revision technique that incorporates something like gaming can be a lot more effective overall.

This is by no means to say that you should replace revision with entirely unrelated gaming sessions. But, if you incorporate practice exam questions and fact-sharing within some fun games, you might find that your exam results are also a lot more fun to receive. And, we’re going to consider why that is.

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More incentive to get started

Gamification techniques in revision are great for one plain and obvious reason – they make it far easier to get started with and even enjoy the revision process. Forget forcing yourself to sit down at your desk and getting distracted by every last thing that’s more appealing than the task at hand. When you bring games into the mix, you make revision fun and ensure that it attracts your full attention far more often. The result? You’ll probably reach for that revision fun way more often during the leadup to your exam and will enjoy yourself in the process.

A chance to share knowledge

There are loads of great team games that can work well for revision purposes with a little adaptation. As well as providing you with a chance to spend time with your mates during a period where you might otherwise have to lock yourself away in a room, this is great for enhancing your accessible knowledge base. Playing study games with friends whom you share seminars with can be especially enlightening, as the chances are that you’ve each retained a slightly different knowledge base. Not only will this bring brand new facts and observations to your attention, but you may also find that your friend brings an entirely new outlook to the topic that could just end up tipping your grade when push comes to shove.

Sorting out your stress

Studies reveal that as many as 40% of students experience some level of exam stress, especially if they’re engaging in three or more hours of daily revision beforehand. In large part, revision-centric stress especially comes from things like intense hours of sit-down study, and the social deprivation that inevitably brings. But, guess what games are great for? Stress-busting, of course. Revision-based gaming, alone, can make an otherwise intense process a lot more relaxed and enjoyable. Bringing other people on board as mentioned can help you to continue getting much-needed socialisation and the relaxation that brings. All of which will help you to maintain a better headspace before, during, and after your exams. Not to mention that, when you aren’t putting such crippling pressure on yourself, you’ll probably learn a lot more, too.

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Making learning memorable

We all learn in different ways. If you can sit down, read a textbook, and retain everything it says, then more power to you. But, especially when you’re preparing for multiple exams in different subjects, few people will be able to remember every last fact this way. Eventually, you may even find that all of your revision hours just blur into one indistinguishable blob.

By comparison, revision games can provide far more memorable retention of important facts, dates, studies, and beyond. This is especially true if you break things up with, say, a different kind of game for each subject. That way, when you’re in your exam, you can simply think back to the game in question, and should be able to remember things like the questions you got wrong, as well as everything that you learned during gameplay.

Revision is an incredibly personal thing, and there’s no one ‘right’ way to learn. But, if book-based revision doesn’t do the trick for you, then what have you got to lose from introducing a few fun revision games into the mix?