When did you start revising for your GCSE's

Around what month did you start revising for your GCSE's and when do you think is the best time to start?

How long did you spend revising for each individual subject?

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Reply 1

Fractite

I started revising for my GCSE's prior to Year 11 (about April of Year 10).

Each individual subject per day I spend about 45-60 minutes on.

Reply 2

Daydreamer3

Original post by Fractite

I started revising for my GCSE's prior to Year 11 (about April of Year 10).

Each individual subject per day I spend about 45-60 minutes on.

Oh wow, thats quite early. Do you reckon starting in the summer holidays would be a good time? Also how many weeks do you think you spent on each subject? For example, chemistry 5 weeks.

Reply 3

Ranveen Pandhal

Hey!!!! Well personally i believe that you should start early so that you can revise each subject adequately like slow and steady

Reply 4

Daydreamer3

Original post by Ranveen Pandhal

Hey!!!! Well personally I believe that you should start early so that you can revise each subject adequately like slow and steady

Do you think it is better to revise one subject for the whole day or spend about 1 hour on each different subjects?

Reply 5

Vanilla Cupcake

Original post by Daydreamer3

Around what month did you start revising for your GCSE's and when do you think is the best time to start?

How long did you spend revising for each individual subject?

Started preparing resources (notes, flashcards) around February half term, started properly revising during Easter

Honestly as long as you keep your notes and stuff from year ten mocks then you don't really need to start early, my school told us to start three months before but who has time for that lol

Reply 6

sophie-xx

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend revising in your summer holidays if you're only in year 10! Just concentrate in lessons and revise for any in class tests you may have. As long as you understand all the material you're covering in class, GCSEs don't require too much revision. I would recommend starting in February/March of year 11. For now, enjoy yourself! Remember these are meant to be some of the best years of your life :smile:

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 7

Ranveen Pandhal

Original post by Daydreamer3

Do you think it is better to revise one subject for the whole day or spend about 1 hour on each different subjects?

Start with 1 subject then when u feel like you can't take that subject any more do another but maximum try finish 1 subject before moving to another

Reply 8

xxxtentacion..

I started easter this year - it's more or less recapping the year over instead of relearning everything

Reply 9

katodizzle

I properly started revising in Easter but have gone into maximum overdrive since exams started. My teachers always preached 'don't cram because it doesn't work' but for most things yes it does. I'm spending most of my time on things I struggle with, like maths, science and Japanese. My strengths are humanities so I revise them 2-3 days before the exam.

Reply 10

Fractite

I just revise the subjects quite randomly until exam season - when I get an order based on which exam(s) I have in the coming days (me rn).

Reply 11

xEmilyxx

I started early March and revised a little bit each day, starting with the sciences first as I had the most amount of exams in this, and then built up other subjects recently. But to be honest, there's some subjects I haven't revised at all, simply because I'm happy with the grade I'm getting in them and either because every single lesson since January has been revision or because I just know the spec well enough I haven't forgotten it.. I don't know anyone else who started as early as me, most I know started early May and are revising each exam as it comes.

Most of my revision notes and materials had all been made up in preparation for previous mocks.

Like sophie-xx said, revision in year 10 will not benefit you unless you're revising for mock exams, in which case, revision then is a good time to trial different revision methods to find the best one for you. Or if you're sitting any exams early, then revise for those. Seriously, you should use year 10 to focus on coursework and classwork and mocks. You shouldn't even think about your main exams until after Christmas in year 11. It'll stress you out early and by the time exams come, you'll be sick of the materials you have to learn and probably discourage you from continuing at such a key moment.

Reply 12

username2013595

started revising properly like the beginning of may

too late.

Wow. I didn't. The only subject I did revise for was Religious studies (because that was my lowest grade) and I started that 4 days before my exam. Meh I could've done better if I revised I guess.

Reply 15

Daydreamer3

Thank you so much, everyone, for your replies. :smile:

But how long did you spend revising for like 1 topic, for instance, C4 (Chemistry). How many weeks or hours would it take you to cover the whole of the topic c4 until the point where you have memorised it all?

Reply 16

Ara8311a

Original post by Daydreamer3

Around what month did you start revising for your GCSE's and when do you think is the best time to start?

How long did you spend revising for each individual subject?

I tried to keep on top of making notes throughout year 10 and year 11. Every few weeks I would blitz everything I'd covered at school since my last note-making session. In the summer of year 10, I used the time to catch up and understand things I hadn't at the time. In January I started doing past papers for certain subjects and focusing harder in class. By the time we got to March/April, most of my lessons were just revision. I started doing past papers but I didn't start learning things seriously until a few days before the exams.

It depends on how you feel about different subjects for how long you spend. Maths is something I enjoy so I spent a while on it because I preferred it. On the other hand French was something I needed to spend more time on so I spaced my revision more with listening questions.

Good luck with GCSEs but seriously don't worry about it too much! By the time you get to them, you will be more than prepared. :smile:

Reply 17

pixiefuller

Original post by Daydreamer3

Thank you so much, everyone, for your replies. :smile:

It takes me a few days to learn one unit e.g. AQA B1, but I don't have a very good long term memory so I have to revise it last minute in order to remember everything and basically 'cram'!

(Although I will have revised some of the topics earlier on in the year :smile:

)

Reply 18

s.mo

A month before exams started. think it was the right time tbh

Reply 19

KomradeKorbyn

Original post by Daydreamer3

Thank you so much, everyone, for your replies. :smile:

I know you want a definite answer with a timeframe but it's hard to say; it depends on the individual - how good your revision methods are, how much you spend revising per day, how much you space the revision out, etc.

What I wouldn't recommend is trying to start doing more than an hour of revision a day until you get to the time before year 11 mocks, as if you do start revising heavily at the start of year 11 then you will likely feel burnt out by the time you get to the mocks, let alone the actual exams.

As a general guideline: revise a couple hours a day for the weeks before your mocks, and then a few hours a day for the couple months leading up to your real exams.

But really, it's not the amount of time that matters, it's how much you need to learn and how much of that you have learnt. If you already know 100% of each topic then you wouldn't need to revise at all, but obviously none of us are in this position.

You will have subjects, and topics within those subjects, that you know very well, and subjects/topics that you know very badly. Revise the bad ones more, and prioritize getting your core subjects (English, maths, science) up to whatever grade you want as they will be the only ones that most universities care about.

If you're a year 10 (I assume you are) then at this moment the best thing to do is to ensure you understand everything they're teaching you in lessons, and asking questions when necessary. If you want to give yourself a headstart, do a quick review of content you have learnt in lessons whenever you feel you're starting to forget it, but don't feel the need to do hours of revision a day until year 11. Revise for mocks, but other than that as long as you understand what you're learning at the moment then you'll be fine.

Oh, the only exception to this would be languages - languages essentially require you to memorize a ton of different words, so a small amount of revision (even just five or ten minutes a day) will pay off a lot.