What is the best way to revise for an English exam?

English can seem like a really tricky subject to revise for because there aren't really specific facts to learn, but there are plenty of ways of revising for it that are just as effective as learning for fact-based subjects! Firstly, make sure that you've read your set texts more than once; I would say that three times each is the optimum, but any re-reading is useful - you'll probably remember more than you think just from doing that! For closed book exams, it's important to have some quotes under your belt. For novels or plays, it's useful to divide quotes revision into two categories: 'character' and 'theme'. Make a list of the important characters in the text and find a handful of quotes that are signifiant for each one, and do the same for themes. For poetry you will only generally need to do 'theme' quotes. They shouldn't be long, but make sure they're not too specific so that they can be used for a variety of questions! If you're doing an open book exam, don't underestimate how well you will still need to know the text - it's still a good idea to make a list of characters and themes and note what events in the text are important for them, so that you don't waste time flipping through the text looking for stuff. Don't overuse quotes either, the examiner is looking to read about your ideas! For either kind of exam, once you know your characters and have identified some themes, you can look for links between them that will really make your understanding of the text shine. Spider digrams are a great visual map of these kinds of links. Once you start to get close to the exam, take a blank sheet of paper and make a spider diagram of everything you can remember about the text - quotes, events, contextual information - it'll show you where any gaps in your knowledge might be.