This argument over required amount of study time at the college has been done before and all the same protagonists are making the same noises.
These are the 'facts' : to pass an Area Advanced written exam you need to be able to regurgitate (a selection of)85ish typed pages of MATS 1/2 info verbatim.
If, like Yahoo, you are a modern day genius with a photographic memory, then you will be able to go out in the piss during the week, do minimal study and cram the night before. If you struggle to learn new info then you will need to do lots of hours every night and extra work most weekends.
If you are not ATC's answer to Stephen Hawking and are just normal (like about 90% of people on my course), then you will study most nights during the week, stay off the pop during the week and have a good blowout at weekends preferably not thinking about college stuff; may be with some studying on a Sunday evening and extra before exams.

Yahoo,

For oral boards you are completely right. Studying for hours alone is no good and group sessions are the only way forward.
However, for a written exam where you have to write out word for word big chunks of MATS 1 there is no way of avoiding hard graft. Getting the gist of it isn't enough - for some questions a 'may' instead of a 'shall' could result in getting all or none of the marks for a question.

Zooker,

I have no idea why you insist on telling people that looking at a UK airways map is a good idea. It isn't. More to the point, I have no idea why you insist on giving advice to trainees on here. You shouldn't.

I don't know anyone on my course that looked at a UK airways map until being posted to their units'. Even then, after all the college training, the maps were intimidating. What must they look like to new recruits?

Totally irrelevant.

To pass the college you must learn 'Medway Control's' airspace and control imaginary aircraft within it. This is no easy task and the airspace is very daunting to people with no experience.
If you were to compare Medway with real airspace there is no comparison - real airspace is so complex and would mean nothing to new trainees. It may even have the effect of sowing seeds of doubt in their mind at to whether they will ever be able to be control busy traffic in complex airspace. Remember we are talking about brand new recruits who will be nervous at the prospect of saying 'Roger' to a fictional aircraft (I know I was)
Why are you so sure this is a good idea?
Have you been through the college recently?
Are you a qualified ATCO?
No pre-learning is required for college.
Good background reading would be skimming MATS 1, some Meteorology books and perhaps some aircraft recognition on airliners.net.
DO NOT look at an airways map!!

Very clever,

How about answering any of my valid questions as to what qualifies you to comment.
What is the point in looking at an airways map?
Which airways should you look at - A34, N601, L28, L9?

Just put him on ignore. Everybody else has.

L9 is one of my favourites, although UR8 runs it awfully close

I went through Bournemouth in the early 1990s, Saturday night go and get pissed, let your hair down. I studied every night for 4-5 hours, going over and over the study cards until it became second nature, It was boring as hell but the night before any exam I studied for an hour then went to the pub for a few beers, I never failed an exam, always getting between 80 and 90%, that worked for me.
Oral board stuff, yes, do it in groups, best way by far.

My anally retentive routine may not work for everyone but I found the course easy enough based on how I studied. Whatever way you decide on, I wish you all the best. :ok:

Excellent advice from almost everyone - thanks! How did you guys find learning the verbatim? What methods did you use? Does the college offer advice on it or is it kind of left to the students to figure out their own methods? I am not too bad with remembering things word for word but 85 pages worth seems like a lot! Did you guys learn it as if it were your lines in a play? :}

With verbatim pretty much the way most people learn it is to write it out again and again, because that takes a lot of time, I, and a lot of others tend to just write out the first word. This only works if you say it to yourself while you are writing it, you'll be amazed by how easily it comes back to you when writing it out in the exam

Or just do aerodrome and spend more time the in the pub. No verbatim for us!

^^^^And you get the multiple re-sits at oral boards.

I've watched every episode of ER over the last 15 years, but I don't consider myself in any position to offer opinion to medical staff.

Tit