A GCSE pupil adopted an innovative revision method to prepare for her Religious Studies (RS) exams earlier this month.

With a number of RS topics to cover ahead of her exams, Bedford Girls’ School’s Emily Grace Carter plastered her sister’s bedroom wall with a stack of revision sheets and cards, to create a mind map replicating her thought processes.

Visualising numerous links between the 12 topics, ranging from Medical Ethics to Beliefs about Religion, Emily proceeded to use pieces of string to join the relevant sheets and cards together.

Emily said: “Religious Studies is one of my favourite subjects so when I was learning and revising for my exams I could see so many links between the different topics.

“For example, views on Medical Ethics will be affected by beliefs about religion or beliefs about good and evil. Topics are overlapping all of the time.

“It made a lot more sense for me to use a mind map where all the information for the different topics can be viewed in one place – rather than writing the same cards over and over again for each section and not being able to link them together.”

Emily’s mind map saw her produce a small revision card containing a quote from the Bible and an A3 sheet with more in-depth detail for every topic. To further jog her memory, Emily used different coloured ink for each topic.

With her GCSE examinations now over and this revision experiment under her belt, Emily is keen to use the mind map approach for her A Levels.

The Year 11 pupil added: “The mind map really suited my way of thinking and it was an enjoyable way of revising.

“In an essay-based subject like RS there will typically be topics which crossover. There’s definitely a place for mind maps in such subjects.”