What is the best way to revise for English literature?

Different revision techniques work for different people, but I find that employing a variety of different methods is often the best way to ensure that the most information information is retained. When studying a specific text or genre, it is often easiest to break down the content by theme or character in order to clearly organise your knowledge. Mindmaps are a great place to consolidate your knowledge as individual arguments can be presented alongside the relevant quotations, context and critical analysis. Therefore, these are great tools for essay planning, and they are much more fun to create than a simple page of notes. Additionally, cue cards can be a fantastic tool for learning quotations which is often necessary for closed book exams. I find that this technique works best for revising poems because you can select the few most powerful quotations and your most powerful analytic observations, and really narrow down the key content that you want to learn. Cue cards are also great for taking on the go and they are a useful for when you want to test yourself. I would also recommend that you try to read a few critical essays or examples of textual analysis you are studying because this will broaden your understanding of the themes and characters, and they may also inspire new approaches to your own essay planning and writing. Analysis is at the heart of the academic study of English, so it is important to try and refine these skills as much as possible through your revision so that you can develop your approach to past papers and eventually your exams.