THE mere mention of the word exams is enough to bring most youngsters out in a cold sweat. In February we dropped in on students at Huntington School about to sit GCSEs and A Levels to find out how they were coping with their revision. Now it is three months on and, with some exams already under way, we went back to get a progress report.

Gemma Douglas, 18, is sitting A-levels in media studies, English literature, chemistry and general studies. In February she said she'd found differing her revision techniques worked for her.

She said science subjects like chemistry required a lot of book-learning at home, whereas group revision sessions could be extremely useful in arts subjects.

"Things are quite stressful at the moment," she said. "We are doing a lot of past papers and practice questions in different subjects.

"When I am doing my chemistry revision, I tend to revise with my friends because it's good to bounce ideas off people who are better than you.

"For English and media I revise on my own, writing out bits of essays."

English teacher Jane Collins said Gemma and her classmates had been assigned the task of creating revision guides for homework - writing down their top revision tips, with the best ones used as examples for students who hadn't done a good one.

"There is a two-way relationship with students, where they can and do come and ask for help with revision.

"We do what we can to promote responsibility for learning and students understand they can come to any of us and ask for help if there is a need."

One of the more unusual revision tips suggested to Gemma by a teacher was sitting under a table to revise - the theory being that if you revise somewhere unusual, it increases the chance you have of remembering the work.

"Apparently, if you are finding something really difficult to learn, sit under a table and it focuses your brain," said Gemma. "I haven't been sitting under a table, but I have been up in the loft at home, sitting and reading thing out, which does seem to work."

Alex Briggs and Alex Forbes, both 15, and Arianne Dickens, 16, are all taking eight GCSEs; but each has adopted different approaches to their revision.

Arianne is a big fan of the BBC Bitesize revision website and has been using it to revise for her French oral and listening exams. She said it was preferable to using tapes.

"There are plenty of examples on there to listen to and see how you do - I have been getting better and when I had my oral, I think it went okay as a result."

As far as languages go, Alex Briggs said he had been using the lingsscope website to help him with his revision.

When last we met, Alex Forbes was unconvinced that he needed to revise at all; but he said that since then, coming bottom in a chemistry test had made him rethink.

He said: "For subjects where you need to remember - things like RE and history - drawing spider diagrams and pictures has really helped me."

Spider diagrams are a shorthand way of summarising and memorising a text or story by writing out themes or events and joining them up with lines.

Last year from the top 200 state schools at A-level, Huntington School ranked 155 with Fulford School at 177.

At GCSE the general picture in York showed 56.5 per cent of children in York's secondary schools left with five or more A* to C grade GCSEs, above the national average of 53.7 per cent.

Updated: 11:24 Wednesday, May 11, 2005