Luke Baerschmidt is in his final year at Sedbergh School and has been predicted great grades in his A’ Levels. Luke is applying for a degree in Business Analytics and knows he will have to deliver on those predictions to secure his place. Here are the tech tips he is using to help him study and revise.
For the average teenager, studying and revision isn’t the first thing on our minds and for lots of us it’s hard to get things done without a nudge in the right direction. But with the pressure mounting it’s time to get serious and I have found these 4 tools vital in helping me achieve my mock results and buckle down for next year.
Tool 1: Cold Turkey
The first revision tool is the foundation of how I start my revising, as for myself I know that I can’t do any work if I have distractions all around me. This app, ‘Cold Turkey’ shuts down any incoming notifications during set periods of time that you choose to fit your timetable. I find it incredibly helpful as it gives me my own bubble to concentrate and work and without it I would find it much harder to get things done. An alternative to this is ‘Forest’, it is a softer form of shutting yourself off from the world. With this one you keep your phone on that app only whilst you revise, you start with a seed which grows to a tree and the longer you revise the bigger your forest grows. It’s satisfying for those who enjoy a subtle reward for hard work.
Tool 2: Grammarly
The second tool I use is ‘Grammarly.’ When writing essays or projects I find this tool very valuable for the final draft; it checks all your grammar and word choice based on set criteria that you choose, whether it is to inform or explain to experts or beginners and it sculpts your form of writing around that set criteria. In fact, I even checked this entire piece on it! Another feature that I like about this tool is the analytical check, this tells you the rarity of the words you use and the average length of each word which then gives you a performance score and a summary and I find that helpful for seeing how my work would appear to a professional.
Tool 3: Simplemind
The third tool is ‘Simplemind’, I use this for mind maps to keep all the information clear. It is super easy to use and you can print off the finished map. I use it mainly for my Psychology work and I could claim that this was the main reason for my A* prediction for this subject!
Tool 4: School Planner
Lastly, ‘School Planner’ is essential for organising my work and keeping on top of it. It is a super simple tool that records your daily activities and work and also leaves gaps for sport and social time since you have to have that vice. The nice thing for me is that it builds in a weekly report of if you are keeping up with your schedule which I use as a form of guilt trip if I can’t complete my weekly tasks.
