Introduction
With mocks all over now and the run up for GCSEs well underway in my school and many others, it’s got me thinking about last year when I was in this position like all the year 11s this year. I remember it being such a stressful and quite obscure thing because I had never done external exams before and I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought I would share some of my own experiences and advice and maybe quash some myths. I hope this will help and if anyone has anymore advice or specific questions feel free to message me or add a comment below.
Also while I will be focusing on GCSEs because they are exams that I have experience with, a lot of this advice will apply to other exams so don’t be put off!
*disclaimer*
these are just my own experiences with GCSEs and therefore are by no means universal. I have tried to draw from the experiences of friends and other people I know as well but everybody is unique so not everyone is going to be the same. BECAUSE OF THIS, not all of the advice will suit you and the way you learn. But I would suggest that you try at least a few of the tips just to see if it works.
Mocks - What do I do with them?
By this point, I think everyone will have done their GCSE mocks and probably have their grades back for them. Mocks were a very stressful experience for me because I hurt my hand literally the night before my first exam so I could barely write and I was in a lot of pain for the whole week of doing them. Because of this, I got very very stressed and then started to get worried that the same thing would happen in my GCSEs.
This leads me into my first point mocks are not the real thing: they are very much a trial run and I would say that nothing can really compare to the real exams. By the time you get to your second or third actual GCSE exam you reach a point where you don’t even think about the actual process of all the stuff you have to do before the exam because you are so focussed on the information. Furthermore, if you get grades that you are disappointed with, try not to be worried by that because they, in the grand scheme of things, do not matter
Do - learn from where you went wrong
Don’t - see a mock grade and get stressed out that you are going to fail the whole subject at GCSE
I know this is very easy to say but genuinely lots of people I know went up at least one grade from their mocks. Your mock grade is not an iron clad prediction of what you will get at GCSE
Now that you have got your grade, what do you do with the exam???
First, all of my teachers gave us back the paper to look through and then went through the mark scheme for each questions. THIS WAS SO SO HELPFUL!
If you get the paper, and you get a bad grade or one that is lower than what you were expecting, this is what I would you suggest you do:
Take a deep breath
Remember that this is only your mock grade not the final thing
Resolve yourself to actually learn from this
Read through the paper: did you make a silly mistakes? Did you keep making the same mistakes? Was there a particular question and topic that you lost lots of marks on?
Make notes on the mistakes
Ask the teacher to either give you the mark scheme or through the paper with you - I personally found this really useful because a lot of the time you can use the mark scheme to make notes for each topic and write processes, definitions, etc, using exactly what they want
Make a list of the topics that you found particularly difficult so that these can be your priority for revision
Key point - use your mocks as the spring board for your revision. They are there to point out any weak areas of your knowledge.
Pre-Study Leave Revision - “I haven’t done anything!”
After mocks I planned to get very serious with revision. I was going to dedicate 5 hours a week for all my revision during school time. In the Easter holidays i was going to stick to my revision timetable and I was going to do 6 hours a day. I was going to finish all of my notes for all of my subjects by the end of the Easter holidays.
I did not manage to do ANY OF THAT
My biggest advice for revision before study leave is to give yourself a break. Remember that you are still in school and are in probably the most stressful school year you’ve had yet.
You need to prioritise your studying and use your time wisely rather than put impossible standards on yourself which only make you more stressed when you can’t achieve them.
What should your priorities be:
Do you have any exams before study leave starts? If so, dedicate a little bit of time each weekend to revise that. For me, these were my German and French oral exams and these were the exams people in my school got most stressed about so make sure you’ve had plenty of practise
HOMEWORK!!! This may seem odd because at this point you may be thinking that your teachers shouldn’t be giving you homework and should just let you revise, but actually the homework they give, in my experience, can be really helpful. It is basically revision but you also know that someone is probably going to check whether you’ve done it so you’re more likely to actually do it
If you have time, but DON’T stress yourself trying to make time, do some past papers or make some notes
Revision Techniques: Past Papers vs Notes
Which method is better?
Honestly, neither. In fact you need to use a mixture of both to get the best out of your revision.
Note Taking
Pros:
writing out information is a good way to learn it
you need to know the information at least vaguely to properly be able to do past papers
it’s more studyblr aesthetic
Cons:
it’s very time consuming
you could be focusing more on making the notes look pretty than actually absorbing the information
there is the danger that you could spend so much time learning the information that you don’t actually have time to practise exam technique
Past Papers
Pros:
exam technique and learning to recognise what the question is asking for is really really important
you need to be able to practise doing the papers under timed conditions
you can start to see trends in the types of questions that they put on the papers
Cons:
they’re pretty difficult to do if you don’t know the information
sometimes it can feel like you are just answering questions rather than actually learning and revising
it’s a lot harder to refer back to the past papers to check information
As you can see, there are pros and cons to both so you can’t just rely on one method to get you through exams. here’s how I combined the two to maximise my revision:
I downloaded/printed off the specification for each of my subjects
I went through all of my class notes to see if there were any gaps in my class notes compared to the specification - if there were I would use my textbooks to make notes on it
Go through the specification again. Rank (eg through traffic light colours) each sub-topic on how confident you feel with it. [note: think carefully about this one and actually be honest with yourself. It’s very easy to just think you don’t know anything and make it all red- but in reality you are going to know quite a lot)
Make notes on your worst topics. And try to make notes in a way that is actually constructive and lays it out in a way that you can conceptualise it more. For example, in chemistry, I just could not ‘rates of reaction’ to click. It was one of the easiest topics but for some reason I could never answer the questions right so I make a mind map (before I had just written bullet points) and condensed my notes to one A4 page so I could refer to one the most important pieces of information.
Once you have finished making notes on your worst topics, do two past papers without any notes
Go through the past papers completely with the mark scheme. In a different colour pen to the one you wrote with, actually write the answers from the mark scheme on the past papers
Then, make your notes for the topics from the past paper mark schemes. For example, in biology, which has loads of content to learn, I would write processes, such as protein synthesis and generic experiments, using all of the key words given in the mark scheme. This meant that I always would hit all the key marks
Repeat this for each past paper you do and eventually you will see that you are no longer losing marks
Why this works:
You are making sure you know enough before starting the past papers
You are practising exam technique
You are making notes on the gaps in your knowledge using exactly what examiners want- which means lots of marks
Because you are doing lots of past papers, you can start to see themes and trends in past papers and the types questions that come up all the time
Study Leave
before my study leave, I didn’t think I would get much work done because I had been so bad at doing work and focusing on revision In half term and Easter but here’s a little bit of reassurance if you are thinking along the same lines as I was: study leave is completely different to a half term
I’m not entirely sure what exactly makes it so different but for me and pretty much everyone I know, it wasn’t actually that difficult to revise and stay focused during study leave. Maybe it’s because all you really have to think about are GCSEs or maybe it’s the sort of adrenaline of exam season but I was able to be more focused than I have ever been before.
Here’s my tips to help you:
Stay off your phone: you can either use an app like forest to make sure you stay off your phone during revision time or just turn it off completely
Prioritise your study schedule: there is no point studying for a biology exam that you have in three weeks if you have a history exam this week
Prioritise your studying: there is no point studying a topic that you already know like the palm of your hand if there are three other topics that you are not sure on
Stay hydrated and well fed: have healthy study snacks and lots of water. Also don’t feel bad if you need some more unhealthy snacks As a treat after exams or after finishing a particularly long day
Get a good night sleep as often as possible: taking GCSEs is extremely tiring. I can’t tell you the number of times I came home after a long day or week of exams and just completely wiped out. So it’s really important to sleep as much as possible even though I know pulling that all nighter is very tempting
Lean on your friends and others in your year: everyone is going through the same thing and there is also going to be someone who can help you. I found GCSEs to be one of the most uniting experiences in my school life
Summary
Use mocks to find the gaps in your knowledge
Before study leave, don’t set unrealistic revision goals, instead focus on completing homework
During study leave, use a mixture of notes taking and past papers to revise
Use past paper marks schemes to guide your notes
Prioritise your studying during study leave
Sleep well and stayed healthy
I hope this was helpful and if anyone has any other questions or more tips feel free to reblog or send me an ask/message
- Sophie x