Everytime I sit down to revise, I panick!!!!

I know the terms but the last question always holds something like 8-12 marks out of 90 and I never get full marks in it. I've tried looking at the mark scheme but each year the question varies so much that I start to stress how I won't be able to achieve the 2A*s I want and need.

I know that but there's over a hundred pages. I need to trim it down I just don't know how and where to do it.

How come you NEED 2 A*s?

ok, now i know why your panicking LOL. at least make a start and there's gonna be stuff that you will already know.

I can do that for the rest of my exams but I need 98 ums in this exam, which is what's getting to me.

Umm...well it's more along the 'want' part. But I feel like I need all the A*s I can get to get into the top uni's i'd like to pursue law at in a few years time. Plus, I need to compensate for my schools mess. They mucked up a lot of my other GCSEs where I would have had A*s and now have As in due to wrong coursework submition, incorrect marking of coursework, being mislead etc etc.

Why do you need to get an A* in this exam? And surely if the grade boundaries are that high then the exam itself can't be that hard. Just chill out, posting on here is only getting you more worked up as you think about it more, and it's stopping you from doing your revision. I got A*s at GCSE with night-before revision, as I say - you have at least a few days to get this exam sorted, that's more than enough time for a GCSE exam.

What I advise, is to just get to bed for now (which is what I'll be doing soon ), and then waking up tomorrow morning, emailing your teacher asking how best to start your revision, and making a revision timetable in the meantime.

Universities don't care too much about GCSE grades, trust me. As at GCSE are perfectly fine, even for a competitive course like Law. Just relax, they're only GCSEs! The real test is AS and A2 levels.

I know it's fairly easy, it's the fact that I need 98 ums which keeps adding to the pressure. I also DO understand most of it, it's the 8-12 mark questions which are stressing me out. I have no room for error!

Yeah but top uni's do, don't they?

I have never done Business Studies before, but let me tell you a few secrets;

Basically, your teacher will always ask you to revise hard and study past exam questions thoroughly.

In effect, yes, you need to do that - but hell no you don't need to be worried. Most likely you will walk in to an exam, get a question and you will be like - Ohh wait, thats an easy question - I know the knowledge already omg what am I thinking.

Basically Im just saying don't worry because the questions you will get you should know how to answer unless your teacher has taught you wrong.

Secondly - Should you revise with a text book, don't revise the majority of the book in a day. You are REQUIRED to spread the book revision out daily otherwise you eventually forget it.

So daily - Read some, store it, use it.

Not as much as you think they do. GCSEs may be the most important thing in the world to you right now, but once you get to college it'll be a different matter. Yes, they're important - but getting exceptional grades in them is not as important as getting good grades at AS (and ultimately A2) and having that killer personal statement to match.

I applied to top universities (St Andrews, Bristol, Exeter, Nottingham, Liverpool) and got into four out of the five (rejected only from St Andrews) - and want to know what I got at GCSE? 3 A*s, 3 As, and 4 Bs. Not bad GCSEs (especially with no revision), but not exceptional - admittedly I didn't apply for Law, but there isn't that much difference in the weighting they place on GCSEs for different courses unless you're applying for something like Medicine.

So calm down, you shouldn't be worrying about all this yet. If you work yourself up about it then you'll just get stressed and you won't do well at all - just give it your hardest okay? No need to beat yourself up about it, I'm sure you'll be fine.

erm...except I don't have a whole year to write everything down. I have a week or less perhaps.

Ok, that is pretty reassuring. Thank you. Do you mind if I ask what course you applied to do?

I applied for Spanish, which isn't that competitive (not many people want to do languages), but when applying to top universities it's competitive enough.

Though even universities like Oxbridge don't really put that much emphasis on GCSE grades. Oxford put the most, apparently - but even so, they only officially say you need at least 5 As to be seriously considered. With my GCSE grades (and coupled with the fact I'm 'poor' - it was a widening access thing) I was accepted onto a study day last year for Spanish at Oxford University - only 11 people got on it. They accepted people that had a realistic chance of getting in, based partly on their GCSE grades. So don't worry!