CGP Revision Guides > Reviews > Makes revision fun!

Author's product rating:   

Quality of Text	High
Interesting/Absorbing?	Very absorbing
Logical Layout?	Chapters in a logical order
Relevance of Questions	Very relevant
Helpful?	Life Saver!

Advantages:	Covers virtually every aspect of the subject, inexpensive, humour
Disadvantages:	can't really think of any !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

When I was between the ages of 14 and 16, I found the CGP revision guides very helpful whilst studying for my GCSEs. I used the books for English, Maths (intermediate tier), French, Biology, Chemistry and Physics (all higher tier). I believe the best books were the science and maths ones - the science ones proved very useful when revising for the modular exams which happened at the end of each term, and I also found the maths book helpful for my coursework assignments. Therefore, the books were not only useful for the final exams, but also as a reference during term-time.

These books are published on A4 sized pages, which enables a lot to be covered on each page. I liked the way the books made the subjects more interesting through the use of humour. The humour was done in a way that does not detract from the educational purpose of the revision guides - every single topic in the syllabus is covered, using easy to understand language. In most case, one topic is covered on each A4 page (if not, then a double page spread). At the bottom of the page, there is a little "pep talk" box summarising the most important points to focus on for the exam, and also to encourage you to cover up the whole page and write down everything you can remember, until you know everything on that particular topic. This is usually where the humour is used, although humour is occasionally used in the main part of the page too.

In addition to the humour and bright images, the use of underlining, itallics and colour is very helpful too, as underlining and colour is used to make important keywords and phrases stand out, so they are more likely to stick in your mind. The chapters and topics are arranged in a logical manner.

At the end of each chapter, there is a list of about 30 (quite challenging) questions for you to test your knowledge. If you don't know the answer to a particular question, you are encouraged to go back and read the relevant section of the book again, and repeat the questions until you can do them all without hesitation. In this way, the books encourage you to learn everything almost by rote memory, by writing things down until you can remember them off by heart. Although it is difficult at first, it does get easier the more you do it. The questions are actually more challenging than the ones you will get in the exam, as they rely on you remembering very small details. I think the theory is that in the exam you have to know everything off by heart, so you may as well get used to it now. If you can master the revision questions, you should have no problem in the real exam.

Importantly for young people, the books are very inexpensive compared to many other textbooks and revision guides. The prices have probably increased since I left school, but in my time the books cost £3 each if you bought them direct from the publisher, or £2 if you purchased them through your school. More recently, high street bookshops have begun to sell them too, so they are more readily available.

All in all, the books are very in-depth, and they are very different from any other revision guides I have ever used. They are very good at holding a young person's attention, which is very important in order for a revision guide to work well. I do believe there is a good chance the Maths and Science books helped improve my grades, as I achieved a grade B in both those subjects, even though I was a borderline B/C.

In addition to revision guides, CGP also publish workbooks, which are probably more useful for during termtime, although they could also be used to assist in your revision sessions, as they include, amongst others, lots of "fill in the blanks" exercises to build up your knowledge of the subject.