go over/go through /revise ?

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Verona_82

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Hello!

I'm struggling to find a good verb that would convey the idea of looking at or studying some information again so as to refresh one's memory of it because it will be needed later. I've come up with 'go over', 'go through' and 'revise', but I'm afraid they don't fit the idea. What I mean is:

(a teacher to his students): Okay, today we're going to practice giving directions, but before that let's go over / go through/ revise prepositions of place.
...all right, let's do some revision on modal verbs before we read and discuss the text.
...and before we move on to the listening section, we'll go over/ go through ways of giving advice.

Honestly, I've looked all the three up, but they don't seem to fit the context. Or do they work here?

Thank you in advance.
 

Barb_D

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Review.

It's what would be said in American schools.

Before we jump back into quadratic equations, let's review the order of operations, okay?
 

Verona_82

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Thank you, but aren't review' and 'revise' used to talk about preparing for a test or an exam?
 

Barb_D

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Revise is never used that way in American English. It came as yet another surprise to me on the differences between American and British English that in the UK, it's used to mean what we call "review." In the US, if you revise something, you change it.

We review material, used exactly as I showed you above.
 

5jj

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Revise is never used that way in American English. It came as yet another surprise to me on the differences between American and British English that in the UK, it's used to mean what we call "review." In the US, if you revise something, you change it.
You'll get it right, in time.
 

Verona_82

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Thank you! I think I need to learn that. :)

Apart from 'review', are there any other verbs that would go with the context? What would a teacher in England say?
 

magimagicE

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I would use the word "summarise".

Before proceeding to our next topic lets summarise what we have learnt so far...
 

bhaisahab

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Revise is never used that way in American English. It came as yet another surprise to me on the differences between American and British English that in the UK, it's used to mean what we call "review." In the US, if you revise something, you change it.

We review material, used exactly as I showed you above.
"Revise" is from the French "réviser" to examine afresh, to look at again. In other words, it means exactly the same as "review".
 

5jj

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"Revise" is from the French "réviser" to examine afresh, to look at again. In other words, it means exactly the same as "review".
I don't agree.

For me, review means (roughly):
1. look over something, to see if it is satisfactory;
2. look back on past situations;
3. inspect troops;
4. write a report on a film, book, play, etc;

revise means (roughly):
1. change, correct, improve;
2. study for a test or examination. (That appears to be BrE only; Barb tells us that Americans would use review for this).

Revise can be used intransitively. Can review?

The answer to Verona's original question is revise (BrE) or review (AmE).
 

bhaisahab

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Originally Posted by bhaisahab
"Revise" is from the French "réviser" to examine afresh, to look at again. In other words, it means exactly the same as "review".


What I should have said is that both revise and review come from similar origins and have similar meanings. "Revise" from "réviser", "look at again" and "review" from "revoir", "see again". In the light of that, it seems to me understandable that the Americans might use one, while the British use the other to mean the same thing.
 

Barb_D

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If your boss gave you a report written by one of your colleagues (which you had previously seen) and said "Could you please revise this before tomorrow's meeting?" would you think you were to look it over to gather information from it, or edit it? (I know, in the real world, we'd have context to give clarity, but let's say he left it on your desk with a sticky note as your instructions... just wondering what your first thought would be.)

As a side note: Before I learned of this difference, if you said to me "Before we do quadratic equations, let's revise the order of operations" I would have marveled that you thought you could suddenly make addition come before multiplication.
 

Verona_82

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Thanks to everyone who took part in the discussion! I'm really grateful for your time and efforts!

The bottom line: I should use either review (AmE) or revise (BrE).These verbs mean 'study something again, refresh one's memory of something" REGARDLESS of the aim, don't they? (I got confused as all the dictionaries said that we revise/review information for an exam only. I'm being slow on the uptake today, sorry)
 

SoothingDave

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I'm curious about what the British would say in this situation:

Say there was a drastic last-minute change in the data, like stock prices. So an annual report for your company would need to be changed before being presented to the board.

We would say the report needed to be revised. What would the British say?
 

5jj

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If your boss gave you a report written by one of your colleagues (which you had previously seen) and said "Could you please revise this before tomorrow's meeting?" would you think you were to look it over to gather information from it, or edit it?
Edit.

In my post, I gave meaning #1 of 'revise' as: change, correct, improve;
 

5jj

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Say there was a drastic last-minute change in the data, like stock prices. So an annual report for your company would need to be changed before being presented to the board.

We would say the report needed to be revised. What would the British say?
The same*; see my previous post.

Many, many words have more than one (shade of) meaning on both sides of the Atlantic. Context and co-text normally make things clear to people speaking the same dialect. There are occasions when speakers of one dialect have problems with something a speaker of another dialect has said. The BrE use of 'revise' for 'study for a test or examination' appears to strike speakers of AmE as very strange.

* We might of course use some other word, such as 'change' or 'edit'. I assume that you might, too.
 

bhaisahab

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Originally Posted by bhaisahab
"Revise" is from the French "réviser" to examine afresh, to look at again. In other words, it means exactly the same as "review".


What I should have said is that both revise and review come from similar origins and have similar meanings. "Revise" from "réviser", "look at again" and "review" from "revoir", "see again". In the light of that, it seems to me understandable that the Americans might use one, while the British use the other to mean the same thing.

The same*; see my previous post.

Many, many words have more than one (shade of) meaning on both sides of the Atlantic. Context and co-text normally make things clear to people speaking the same dialect. There are occasions when speakers of one dialect have problems with something a speaker of another dialect has said. The BrE use of 'revise' for 'study for a test or examination' appears to strike speakers of AmE as very strange.

* We might of course use some other word, such as 'change' or 'edit'. I assume that you might, too.
With the above I was trying to say why those shades of meaning exist (I didn't make it very clear obviously). The two words "review" and "revise" are very close in meaning they both have Latin origins, via French "to look at again" and "to see again". Having spent a number of years teaching English to speakers of French, the difference between "to look" and "to see", was always a subject of some contention.
 
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Barb_D

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Thanks guys. As usual, I've learned a lot about how my British cousins use words from this thread!
 
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