The Easter holiday will, as it has been for every A-level student in the history of the qualification, mark two week of intense revision. We have revealed some of what is coming up, and what is not coming up, which will give you a good indication of what you should be revising over these two precious weeks. Here are a few tips, hints and hints and resources to get you going
1 - Focus on the first two unseen assessments, but revise TV and magazines too
TV and magazines will be assessed a little later than print and audiovisual media, but you can't completely neglect them. There's a lot of content to get through!
2 - Use a variety of revision methods
This post gives a few examples of how you can revise. It's not an exhaustive list! And remember, a change is as good as a break. Flashcards are good for learning all nineteen theories, and picking random unseen posters or newspaper front pages is great for learning media language (see point 7)
3 - Revise every day
Little and often is the key here, and even as little as ten minutes 'counts' but you've got to do it every day. Think of this as a training montage. You're Rocky. You need to beat Drago. It's tough. But you can do it!
4 - Keep reading the assessment plan
I've had a few people ask questions or present straightforward misunderstandings which can be easily solved by reading the assessment plan page. Click here and read it now! It's the most important page on the blog to you guys right now, and all the latest changes will appear here, along with links to the revision lessons!
5 - Use the blog
The blog has a cheat sheet, every theory, every past paper question, a ridiculously in depth revision guide, every PowerPoint and pretty much every task you've been set in media studies. It's all here, and if you're not using the blog every day, you're missing out!
6 - Watch the music industry YouTube videos
We've released the information that music videos WILL come up. You will be asked to compare an unseen audiovisual media product to one of the two videos we have studied. Luckily for you, the whole of the music video unit is available in video form on the Media Focus YouTube channel! Check it out now!
7 - Revise media language
Media language is the most important thing you could possible brush up on right now. We've discussed how and why it's important, but make sure you know what every word means on the textual analysis toolkit, and, more importantly, practice applying it to random unseen texts!