#gcse computer science

[lynxtopia]

Apparently this is the first year OCR Computer Science hasn't made somebody kill themselves that must've been a really good paper

[origami-butterfly]

Some mixed memes (AQA English paper 2, Edexcel maths paper 1, AQA triple higher chemistry paper 1, and OCR Computer Science paper 2)

Mostly because I can't find the energy to make lots for each exam, so they're all going to be in one post.

As always, if people have memes about their own papers/experiences, please show me, I am curious

[dandoesntknowanymore]

MORE GCSES (And a provisional GCSE result?!)

25TH MAY - Physics Paper 1 (Edexcel) Great paper. Some really weirdly worded questions, and I struggled a little on both the 6 markers, but I got there at the end. How did you all find the rock question? And the critical angle one? Those sucked, but I think I got answers for both.

ALSO 25TH MAY - Computer Science Paper 2 (Edexcel) Also great!! I made some small mistakes but I had one hour left to fix em so hopefully I caught them all. Wasn't sure though. That formatting question was a lil difficult to decipher what it wanted but otherwise alright :)

Additionally, my school is doing the marking for my Art GCSE and then sending it off to the examiner to see if their modification was correct. They sent us the results today so we know what our predicted grade is going to be. I'm so fucking mad I was SO CLOSE TO AN 8

[bluescreening]

Practical GCSE Advice

Tips From A New Year 12 Who Somehow Got All 9s

Don’t worry, I’m not becoming a studyblr. I’m writing this on results day as a sort of farewell to GCSEs and to impart some “wisdom” upon the youngsters before I move on to A-levels. I’m going to keep this to specific, practical things you can do to improve, none of that vague nonsense. Subject-specific tips for maths, geography, triple science, language, literature, graphic comms and comp sci under the fold because this is too bloody long already.

General Tips:

Don’t go revision crazy. People will always emphasize revision, but so long as you’re revising effectively (see below) you’re safe to start revising about a month before mocks, and two months before your final exams. In terms of a revision schedule during those months, I worked with one or two hours per day, with a free day on Friday and Sunday. 

Use apps to stay organised. Put your school timetable and exam dates in your calendar of choice with appropriate reminders and colour coding. To keep track of homework and revision, use Adapt - you can put in your GCSEs and it tracks which topics you have covered and how many times, as well as allowing you to input homework and your school timetable. During study time use Forest (free on Android) to lock yourself out of your phone for a certain amount of time.

Pay attention to lessons from the start. From the beginning of Year 10 every lesson is a GCSE lesson, and everything you learn could come up in an exam. Follow along with your teacher, make the best notes you can, do the work and understand the concepts as early as you can. You’ll thank yourself in a year as you watch the rest of your class wonder what a ribosome is when revision time comes.

Revise effectively. Use Adapt or a textbook to keep track of your confidence level on every topic, so when you’re revising you can focus on the ones you don’t understand whatsoever. Also, don’t just read stuff when revising. You have to train your brain to retrieve the information. Memorise vocabulary and basic facts using flashcards, then answer exam questions. Lots and lots of exam questions.

Use your teachers. They want you to succeed because it reflects well on them! If you don’t understand something after a lesson, pop back at break or lunch, or shoot them an email and they will help. Don’t just bank on it not showing up in the test because Sod’s Law dictates that it will. After Christmas in Year 11 they will often start revision sessions or intervention. Attend them for any subjects you’re even slightly shaky on. They’ll boost your grade like nothing else, even if it does take up some of your chill out time.

Buy textbooks and study materials through school. If your school offers you textbooks and workbooks it’s likely that will be the best deal for them, since they’re purchased in bulk. Grab all you can in Year 10 and talk to the school if you can’t afford many - they may be willing to help. If you know any higher-level teachers see if they have any sample study materials from CGP and the like. My English teacher gave me a lovely set of sample CGP Macbeth flashcards that would have proved really useful.

Make flashcards at the end of every topic. Stay on top of them. You want a term on one side and a definition on the other, or a quote and analysis etc. If you don’t like endless bits of card floating around use Quizlet - you might not even need to make them yourself as many people have shared GCSE flashcards there.

And finally - don’t forget you’re a human! Humans need regular sleep, healthy food including breakfasts, hydration, fun and social time. Make time in your day to take care of yourself. Your brain works better when you’re healthy so often an extra hour of sleep will do more for your grade than an extra hour of revision. Hanging out with your friends and keeping up with your hobbies reduces stress. 

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have about any of this stuff, or if you just need advice I’m here too! I’ve done it before, I can help you out.

Subject Specific Tips:

Edexcel Maths:

Use CorbettMaths. All the time. If you haven’t done every one of his worksheets at least once you’re not grinding hard enough. Jk, but seriously this guy used to teach me in real life and he’s awesome. He makes flashcard packs, videos on every aspect of GCSE maths, daily challenges, textbook exercises, practice exam questions... literally everything you could ever need.

Practice everything until you’re sick of it, and then do ten more questions.

You’ll need to memorise some trig identities. Don’t memorise them as a table, that’s hard. Memorise them as these triangles, sketch them out in an exam and work it out on the spot. Easy.

AQA Geography:

Don’t goof off during your fieldwork. Don’t make the same mistake as me. If I ever had to do the fieldwork paper I would not have got a 9. Even though it’s a field trip, even though you’re with your friends, this will directly impact your GCSEs and you need to treat it like an exam.

Memorise vocabulary then move onto exam questions. Geography is very formulaic and exam questions repeat themselves - take advantage of that.

Memorise. Your. Case. Studies.

AQA Biology, Chemistry and Physics:

A l l  h a i l  f r e e s c i e n c e l e s s o n s .

Practice those reading comprehension questions where you’re presented with information and have to answer questions about them. A surprising amount of people get overwhelmed because they haven’t revised it. You can’t! You have to read and understand it within the exam.

Memorise your bloody equations for physics or you will fail. Use Quizlet, learn them all by the end of year 10 even if you don’t know what they’re about yet, practice using them.

Buy the CGP workbooks and complete them! Make sure to buy the answers too, because CGP are scammers.

AQA English Language and Literature:

Identify 10-20 brief quotes from each piece of literature so you have a few for each character and theme. They can overlap! Also, memorise the author’s intentions for each one. With poems (for those of you who have to do them... I’m not salty, I promise) ask your teacher to recommend 5 that match up with the most themes and memorise 3 quotes from each. Remember to analyse the rest of the poems too - any of them could come up so it’s good to have an understanding.

Memorise structures for every question. The examiners will tell you not to use structures. Shut up, I got all 9s. Structures are the best way for slow writers to ensure they get everything they need to in. TETAAC (topic, evidence, terminology, analysis, alternative interpretation, context) works for lit essays and can be modified for every other question. Work out how many paragraphs you can write in 40 minutes and take that into account when planning. Once the plan is done it’s just a matter of making it sound frilly. English: hacked. My normal plan for a lit essay is a one-sentence thesis statement for an intro, 3xTETAAC paragraphs and a conclusion which reiterates everything but better.

Don’t worry if your grade is terrifyingly low to begin with. That’s just how English rolls. You’ll slowly develop the skills you need and start to make 3 or 4 grades of progress throughout year 11.

OCR Art and Design - Graphic Communication:

Think long and hard about whether you want to do graphics or fine art, if your school offers both. Graphics is designing logos, fine art is whatever you want. I should have taken fine art in retrospect.

Make as much work as possible from the very start, even if you haven’t decided on your portfolio project yet. Everything, and I mean everything, can be shoehorned. If you make a lot of work you have some leeway and can leave out your early stuff so your overall portfolio looks better.

Annotate as you go and store all your thoughts digitally. Even if you have no clue what you’re supposed to write in annotations, put down your thought process. It’s easy to tidy up something you wrote a year ago, but it’s really hard to stare at a letter F made out of newspaper and remember where on earth you were going with it.

To make enough work you will need to stay after school often and give up a lot of lunch times. That’s just how it goes. At least with the right crew it can be fun - the combo of my friends and the very chaotic art teachers at my school made my Thursday graphics sessions something to look forward to.

OCR Computer Science:

Use Quizlet flashcards to memorise terms. Being able to correctly define terms is half the battle, literally. You’ll basically get an instant 9 on the first paper if you memorise every term defined in the textbook. Luckily, someone beautiful and generous by the name of sporkified (wink wink) on Quizlet has created two sets with everything you need to know for the entire qualification.

Practice programming in your chosen language before your programming project starts. Learn to do everything mentioned in the textbook and try it out on a sample project. Many will tell you to not bother about the programming project, it doesn’t matter. That’s true to some extent, but excelling in the programming project can tip you up a grade as well as making the algorithm questions on paper 2 easier for you.

Take part in Cyber Discovery. Give it a Google, sign up. It’s really hard if you have no practical computer experience but doing it gave me a real edge with paper 2 which is where you want to focus your energy as it’s weighted more. Also it’s fun.

[peachblossomstudy]

(disclaimer (again, i know): i didn’t get to do my actual exam because of coronavirus, but my final grade was a nine and i got a nine in my mock)

computer science was definitely my favourite subject at gcse, and it’s one i’m carrying on to a level. i really struggled to find computer science revision tips online, so i thought i’d share what i did to get a nine:

learning python - the language we learnt at school was python, and although we were taught everything we need to know in school, i really recommend going through an online course like the python course on codecademy to get input from another source. i learnt most of the python i know in the summer before year nine, but the more you can learn and get confident in for gcse the better.

key terms - gces computer science is a pretty content-heavy subject, so quizlet was my best friend! i made a set for pretty much every theory topic and most of the programming topics, with key terms and things i needed to remember. learning the terms in these sets was a big part of my revision, and i shared them on a quizlet class for the rest of my class as well.

practice papers - unfortunately there aren’t that many papers available for computer science (for ocr at least), but i couldn’t recommend doing practice questions more!! computer science is a bit of a weird subject in that the mark schemes are pretty vague and pretty specific at the same time, so i found doing practice papers and acquainting myself with the markscheme really helpful.

info-dumps - as part of my active recall revision i used the whiteboard app on my laptop (microsoft surface) to test myself on what i’ve learnt by basically writing out everything i can remember, then adding/correcting from my notes and quizlet flashcards.

i hope these tips were helpful, and good luck to all my gcse comscis out there! my askbox is always open if you need advice or a chat <33

[biostudyblr]

27/10/19

half term grind 😔😔

[missile-silo]

@ edexcell what the flying fuck

[saltedtaffy]

3 exams done. 17 more to go