Revise guides and workbooks

Revision guides are not a substitute for an up-to-date textbook!

Good revision guides are certainly worth getting – they are cheap and useful as a checklist of key facts, but they don’t contain the worked examples and in-depth explanations that are essential if your teenager is to study independently and be prepared for the tougher questions. Use them for revision! That is, before an exam when you want to refresh your memory of the key facts.

All of the publishers I mentioned in the article on Textbooks produce good revision guides that are worth getting. Schools generally advice students to buy revise guides from CGPbooks which have obviously done a great job of promoting themselves. They are cheap and usually available from school at a discount. Some are better than others and they get mixed reviews from students. Having said that, I do recommend them! They do contain all the key facts. But use them for revision and not for your core learning.

 Workbooks

Workbooks are large collection of questions designed to test your knowledge. However, they tend to be shorter questions, whereas some exam questions can be longer and many have more than one part. The CGPbooks workbooks are good, as long as you have one with the answers. You should be able to get these through the school, otherwise ordering direct from cgp is easy and delivery is very quick.

If you have questions about this topic, do ask me. Use the contact form below.