GCSE Exams (1 Viewer)

Mar 16, 2016
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Just a little thread for people to post their experiences and revision tips. I myself will be taking these exams in the summer the first one is on the 15th May. Not far to go :eek:

Any others taking exams this year?
 

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Rhys

Add-on London Team
Mar 20, 2016
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I did my GCSEs back in 2012 & 2013 in Year 10 and Year 11. Some tips I can offer when it comes to revision is:
- to balance your time well, don't spend the majority of your free time revising. It's not healthy and it's unlikely you'll be able to process much information. Instead, try to make time for other activities that you enjoy, such as playing a game or watching tv. You need to have the right balance between your leisure life, and revision. This is not to say not to revise at all.
- Never try and do last minute revision just before an exam. Your brain won't register new things when under a lot of pressure.
- Get adequate hours of sleep prior to an exam, at least 6-8 hours of sleep is needed to keep your mind refreshed.
- Always eat breakfast before an exam. You need your mind and body to be as energised as possible.
- When revising, try make spider maps and diagrams. This is a great way for you to test your knowledge, prior to an exam, and is also a great way to help register new things.
- Deep breaths are good as well too quench nerves.
 

MylesW

i make things sometimes
Dec 29, 2016
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I did my GCSEs back in 2012 & 2013 in Year 10 and Year 11. Some tips I can offer when it comes to revision is:
- to balance your time well, don't spend the majority of your free time revising. It's not healthy and it's unlikely you'll be able to process much information. Instead, try to make time for other activities that you enjoy, such as playing a game or watching tv. You need to have the right balance between your leisure life, and revision. This is not to say not to revise at all.
- Never try and do last minute revision just before an exam. Your brain won't register new things when under a lot of pressure.
- Get adequate hours of sleep prior to an exam, at least 6-8 hours of sleep is needed to keep your mind refreshed.
- Always eat breakfast before an exam. You need your mind and body to be as energised as possible.
- When revising, try make spider maps and diagrams. This is a great way for you to test your knowledge, prior to an exam, and is also a great way to help register new things.
- Deep breaths are good as well too quench nerves.
Thank you for that Rhys! I think that will definitely help me and other members when it comes to revising!
 

Hullian111

EYMS Buses Really Mean Business
Aug 5, 2017
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Well, I had mine last year. It was pretty hard getting away from school in the end - and of course, around the exam period, I had my hardest school day ever.

The way I went about it, I just couldn't focus with nightly revision sessions. Now of course, please don't follow my lead, but I had short revision bursts, remembering in my head repeatedly what I needed to remember, then in the end, I just took up cramming on the day because my memorisation isn't too great. Sure, I barely scraped Science, didn't pass my Spanish (I knew I wouldn't be great), but in the end, I did what I could, and got the grades I wanted... after I resat my maths.

Take me back to school. Any day.
 

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I did my GCSEs back in 2012 & 2013 in Year 10 and Year 11. Some tips I can offer when it comes to revision is:
- to balance your time well, don't spend the majority of your free time revising. It's not healthy and it's unlikely you'll be able to process much information. Instead, try to make time for other activities that you enjoy, such as playing a game or watching tv. You need to have the right balance between your leisure life, and revision. This is not to say not to revise at all.
- Never try and do last minute revision just before an exam. Your brain won't register new things when under a lot of pressure.
- Get adequate hours of sleep prior to an exam, at least 6-8 hours of sleep is needed to keep your mind refreshed.
- Always eat breakfast before an exam. You need your mind and body to be as energised as possible.
- When revising, try make spider maps and diagrams. This is a great way for you to test your knowledge, prior to an exam, and is also a great way to help register new things.
- Deep breaths are good as well too quench nerves.
Thanks Rhys, I have exams starting tomorrow till the 11th so these tips will come in handy.
 
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Blastella

Not very well-known member
Oct 23, 2016
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Did my GCSEs in 2015 which isn't actually that long ago....

My tips are quite similar to everyone else's anyway:
- Past papers are the best ways to revise, especially in sciences and maths: The question styles are always the same, it's just the numbers that are different.
- Past papers can also give you an idea on how the exam will work - if you can't finish the past paper in the given time, you probably can't finish the real one in May!
- Write notes. This is not copying from textbooks. Have a read on the textbooks, then interpret the information in your own way, and write those down. If you can, read out the words that you are writing - because then you will remember it more!
- Plenty of sleep and life-work balance. If you get stuck with some questions, go do something else for a while and come back later. This is basically a "refresh" button for your brain!
- Have some rest! Some people will delete social media and games during the exam period - my personal experience is you don't need to. You can't be revising 24/7 because that's worse than going off to rest for an hour then revise again!
- Most importantly: GCSE is not the most important thing in life! Yes it is important, but it doesn't need to destroy you. As long as you try your best, it is going to be fine!
 
Feb 4, 2017
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- Past papers are the best ways to revise, especially in sciences and maths: The question styles are always the same, it's just the numbers that are different.
- Past papers can also give you an idea on how the exam will work - if you can't finish the past paper in the given time, you probably can't finish the real one in May!


Can’t quite emphasise enough the importance of past papers! They’re so useful, as mentioned by Blastella the structure remains largely the same in science and maths, also worth noting it’s important to understand what the questions want you to do! The only way to understand that is to do previous exam papers. Understand the question!

A note for humanities, a lesson from my teacher, RTQ, refer to the question! Meaning, if the question is asking ‘how has development in Afghanistan impacted on local economies’, in your answer make sure to include part of the question in the answer. Ie. Recent development in Afghanistan has had widereaching impact on local economies such as...

Write notes. This is not copying from textbooks. Have a read on the textbooks, then interpret the information in your own way, and write those down. If you can, read out the words that you are writing - because then you will remember it more!

Absolutely! Don’t passively revise, don’t just read textbooks and copy notes, you’ll learn nothing and be wasting your own time. Now is the time to discover the most effective ways of revising, unfortunately your teachers won’t help you much unless you ask them one on one, but remember everyone has their own methods, so what works for a friend might not work for you.

Some use flash cards, some use large posters, don’t have massive blocks of text! You won’t want to re read them, only have key information and break it up, colour codes etc.

- Most importantly: GCSE is not the most important thing in life! Yes it is important, but it doesn't need to destroy you.As long as you try your best, it is going to be fine!

Personally have to disagree, GCSEs are very important, don’t underestimate their worth. From these you’ll decide on your A-Levels and very little is more important than A-Levels! They’ll dictate what uni you go to and what you can do. GCSEs are important, treat them with respect and do your best.

Getting to grips with it now saves you a lot of hassle later! I’m at university studying Aerospace Engineering , basic gcse mathematics still forms the basics of what I do now, understanding key methods like expanding brackets, functions [MY GOD everything in my degree is based around functions!] quadratic equations, simultaneous equations is important because you only expand on GCSE stuff. There are rules that you learn now that carry across to very advanced levels, teachers for some reason don’t tell you this but my degree still uses rules that I was taught at GCSE. You’d be surprised by the amount of trigonometry in engineering.

Best of luck guys! Smash it, let us know how it goes
 
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Castlemilk37

98% Organic Human (may contain traces of asbestos)
Jun 29, 2016
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i'm sitting my National 5s at the moment, from what I've learned is that you need to watch the time, especially if you're a bit slow like me. I'm not sure about the GCSE books but for N5 it's just lines and a bit for a question number so I'm not too sure if you have to answer them in order, if you don't have to do them in order I'd say prioritize the questions with the higher marks over the less heavily weighted questions.
 

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Apr 16, 2016
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I think most of this has already been covered but I did my a levels last year and GCSE's 3 years ago.

1. For English lit it is not about the answer being correct it is more about the content that is within the answer and the structure and how it is liked to the text. PEEL paragraphs might help you
2. Past papers - You can never do enough of these. Not only do they help you get into the style of the paper but also you may pick up on areas which you may be not sure about which you might want to recover before the exam.
3. mind maps/diagrams - These worked wonders from me in science in which my parents was skeptical about this technique but I passed with this and a little bit of reading the text books. I did 1 a3 sheet for each science and it was compleatly filled.
4. Rest is just as important as revision. After doing a day of revision at school (0830 till 1700) I did about 1 hour in the evening an that was it. Typically I did a little longer the evening before an exam but that was it. I also mixed the subjecs up each night so i was not repeating everything.
5. Revision on the morning of the exam ie on the bus does not work.
6. The top tips before the exam might be useful and you might pick up on something you might need in the exam.
7. Each mark is worth about 1 minuet in the exam - use this so you complete all the questions but if you don't know one come back to it towards the end where you might have a bit more than the allocated time so to speak.

and finally Good luck to everyone!

Tom
 

MylesW

i make things sometimes
Dec 29, 2016
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These are notes I have to remember when revising
1.
Make Spider Diagrams
2. Listening and writing down notes during lessons is key! You want to get every bit of information you can!
3. Dont revise 24/7, as your brain can not remember every single thing for your topic.
4. If you want to, yeah, you can go to revision classes within your school, these can help you make sure you have every bit of information needed to revise at home.
5. If you are stuck on something, ask your Teacher/Parent/Carer for advice! They were childeren once!
 

Lukeyboi

Lukeyboi's OMSI Workshop
Apr 5, 2016
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I've my Year 10 mocks this month and next month and to say the least I'm quite worried about some of these.

So far:
-Computer Science - my coding and theory generally tend to be fine, I just need to brush up. Least concern for revising
-Product design (some of you might know this as Resistant Materials) - Yeah i can manufacture, but i really need to revise my materials
-Maths - Generally speaking, I'm quite good at maths, but theres a few things I definitely need to go over
-English - I cannot annotate, I cannot compare poems, and i've my poetry mock on Tuesday, I'm freaking out a tiny bit, but i'm going to be doing a load of polishing up this weekend for it. Ended up with a 9 for a creative writing practise test though
-German - I'm doing fine with it, but i'm a bit worried of my capabilities.
-Physics: This is the subject I'm performing best in, I got a GCSE Grade 8 in the last test I did
-Biology and Chemistry: No comment, doing ok with both these

That's all the GCSE's I'm doing, if any of you are taking these subjects aswell and you have some useful revision tips and tricks up your sleeve, please let me know as I'd love to organise my revision based on what people find works best for them.

Currently I use:
-Flash cards
-Past papers
-Online games/resources such as bitesize

Any others I'd appreciate them so much :)
 
I've my Year 10 mocks this month and next month and to say the least I'm quite worried about some of these.

So far:
-Computer Science - my coding and theory generally tend to be fine, I just need to brush up. Least concern for revising
-Product design (some of you might know this as Resistant Materials) - Yeah i can manufacture, but i really need to revise my materials
-Maths - Generally speaking, I'm quite good at maths, but theres a few things I definitely need to go over
-English - I cannot annotate, I cannot compare poems, and i've my poetry mock on Tuesday, I'm freaking out a tiny bit, but i'm going to be doing a load of polishing up this weekend for it. Ended up with a 9 for a creative writing practise test though
-German - I'm doing fine with it, but i'm a bit worried of my capabilities.
-Physics: This is the subject I'm performing best in, I got a GCSE Grade 8 in the last test I did
-Biology and Chemistry: No comment, doing ok with both these

That's all the GCSE's I'm doing, if any of you are taking these subjects aswell and you have some useful revision tips and tricks up your sleeve, please let me know as I'd love to organise my revision based on what people find works best for them.

Currently I use:
-Flash cards
-Past papers
-Online games/resources such as bitesize

Any others I'd appreciate them so much :)
what exam board are you for english? For the lit papers really you just need to remember the key quotes!! For annotations i would recommend finding unseen texts and see what you can annotate for that. Also for poetry remember your techniques, like rhythm etc.. I never really had to memorise techniques, as i've seen so many texts by now. Practice papers and the 2017 papers are the best to revise and use a quotation bank. If you are OCR like me then i have some resources i can send you.
 
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Ironically, I've done two sets of mocks this year, and I did better in the ones I didn't revise for compared to the ones I did. Not revising I find, puts less pressure on me. But that's just me.

Also, for those taking GCSEs currently, as long as you get a pass in the exam, the grade you get honestly doesn't matter, because you have to stay on in education until you're 18. A-Levels are what employers look at, not GCSEs which renders them as useless as 11+ exams.
 

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