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jessyjellytot14's strive for AAA

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Monday 08/02/16

I'm going to be honest- I haven't really done much studying or revision for the past couple of days but I am now feeling well rested so am ready to resume to my rigorous study schedule. Just kidding, its not that rigorous (yet) but I'm going to spend an hour on each subject every day as a bare minimum. I have to focus on my long term goal, which is to get AAA in my AS exams so that my predicted grades are as high as possible for when it comes to applying to universities. Today I got back two test results:

.Psychology- Memory and Research Methods Assessment: 87.5% so far, but my teacher still needs to mark the last question which is worth 12 marks, so my percentage may go up or down.

.Maths- Core 2 Chapter 4 Circle Geometry Assessment: 89% I'm quite pleased with this, although I lost marks due to silly mistakes such as:
- Not squaring the radius properly... I can't remember what happened but I probably forgot to put it in brackets when I squared it on the calculator or something idk
- Not realising what a question was asking; all I had to do was use y-y1=m(x-x1) and sub in the coordinates of the circle's centre to get the equation

Tomorrow I am doing a resit for my physics mock which I am dreading because I haven't revised for it. Its so pointless in me resitting it because I got a decent grade in the original and I'm probably going to do worse in the resit. Even though my teachers are saying not to worry if you've already got a good grade in the first mock, if I get a bad grade in this one then the grade will still get put onto my sixth form's online grade system and my overall grade for physics will be brought down :s-smilie:
Tuesday 09/02/16

Feeling meh today. In maths, we got our S1 chapter 6 (correlations) test results back and I only got 81% :frown: I wouldn't usually be terribly disappointed with a mark in the 80s but literally every one else in my class got 100%, even people who didn't revise or do all of the textbook exercises! Even though I know that the marks I lost were due to silly mistakes, I still feel stupid.
In psychology, we got our Memory and Research Methods assessments back and my final grade is 84%. It went down because we peer-marked each others tests yesterday and then the teacher checked if they had been marked properly and it turned out that the girl who marked mine had been too nice. I did however, get full marks (12/12) on the essay question which I am happy about! To improve, I definitely need to freshen up my understanding of research methods and practice plenty of questions on it!
The mock exam resit in physics went okay, but I don't even want to think about all of the silly mistakes i've made. I definitely need to start putting more time into physics.

When I got home from sixth form, I did about an hour and a half's worth of revision for an upcoming test we have on electricity in physics on Thursday. I made some colourful summary mind maps and tomorrow I will answer some past exam questions! I'm going to spend about half an hour writing some notes on chapter 7 (Regression) of S1 now and then i'll go to sleep.
Goodnight!
Original post by jessyjellytot14
Tuesday 09/02/16

Feeling meh today. In maths, we got our S1 chapter 6 (correlations) test results back and I only got 81% :frown: I wouldn't usually be terribly disappointed with a mark in the 80s but literally every one else in my class got 100%, even people who didn't revise or do all of the textbook exercises! Even though I know that the marks I lost were due to silly mistakes, I still feel stupid.
In psychology, we got our Memory and Research Methods assessments back and my final grade is 84%. It went down because we peer-marked each others tests yesterday and then the teacher checked if they had been marked properly and it turned out that the girl who marked mine had been too nice. I did however, get full marks (12/12) on the essay question which I am happy about! To improve, I definitely need to freshen up my understanding of research methods and practice plenty of questions on it!
The mock exam resit in physics went okay, but I don't even want to think about all of the silly mistakes i've made. I definitely need to start putting more time into physics.

When I got home from sixth form, I did about an hour and a half's worth of revision for an upcoming test we have on electricity in physics on Thursday. I made some colourful summary mind maps and tomorrow I will answer some past exam questions! I'm going to spend about half an hour writing some notes on chapter 7 (Regression) of S1 now and then i'll go to sleep.
Goodnight!


No worries, mistakes are better to learn from than getting everything right one one test.

And that's still a great grade at this stage :borat: so hopefully with a bit of work you can push up :biggrin:
Original post by SeanFM
No worries, mistakes are better to learn from than getting everything right one one test.

And that's still a great grade at this stage :borat: so hopefully with a bit of work you can push up :biggrin:


Yes, that is very true and thank youuu :smile:
Wednesday 10/02/16

I'm going to try having a different layout for my blog posts by having a separate paragraph for each subject so that it is more structured and easier to read.

Maths:
Lesson: In the first lesson, we did practice exam questions on binomial expansions because we have a test on it tomorrow. In the second lesson (stats) we started working through a booklet which has past exam questions on the regression chapter.
Test updates: We got given back our Core 2 chapter 1 assessments and I got 98% yassss
Extra study: In my afternoon frees, I answered some questions on binomial expansion from the Solomon Worksheets in preparation for the test.

Unfortunately, I haven't done anything for psychology or physics today, despite the fact I have a physics test tomorrow on electricity :s-smilie:. I was going to do some physics revision this evening but I ended up going out with a friend, which I haven't done in aagggeessss, so of course I took up the offer!
Thursday 11/02/16

Sixth form has been quite nice today. I'm not going to continue with the layout I mentioned in the previous post because its too time consuming so maybe I should just use good old bullet points! Aka emojis
:fluffy: In maths we did the Core 2 chapter 5 binomial expansion test which was a bit tricky in places but I'm hoping that i've managed to solve everything correctly and not made silly mistakes. I'm hoping to get 90% or above just for the confidence boost. Our teacher also gave us a Core 1 past paper to do over half term, as well as some questions on chapters 3,4 & 5 of Core 2.

:fluffy: In physics, much to our delight, our teacher has postponed the electricity test until after half term! Instead, we marked some of the answers in our green booklets (basically a booklet containing past exam questions on the electricity topic). I've already lost so many marks, and we didn't even get round to marking half of it! Luckily most of these lost marks are due to silly mistakes (as per usual :rolleyes: ) rather than lack of knowledge.

:fluffy: In tutor time we were learning about the dangers of alcohol and drugs but I got to escape as I had a meeting with one of the teachers who help us with UCAS because I'm apparently one of the 'top achievers' in my year group lel. She said that me applying to Cambridge is worth a shot, although after reading through the overview of their 'Psychological and Behavioural Sciences' course, i'm not sure if I reaaalllyyy want to go there. Their course focuses heavily on the biological and sociological parts of psychology and I'm not taking biology for A-level so i'll probably be at a disadvantage.

:fluffy: When I got home, I made some notes for psychology on Milgram's Variations of his original study on obedience, and then I answered the questions on it from the textbook which is our homework due in tomorrow.

I'm now going to write a To-do list for each of my subjects to do over half term in my planner and allocate days to when I'll do each task.
Friday 12/02/16

Wow i'm soooo sleepy right now but I don't want to miss a blog post today. It is now half term though YAY but I have lots of studying to be doing over the course of next week, which I have spent all evening planning, and I will record how it goes on here. Anyway,
:fluffy: In the morning, I completed a Core 1 January 2011 paper and I managed to get 96%! The only marks I lost were due to:
- Doubting myself and not finishing an answer because I thought I was wrong but I turned out to be right :facepalm:
- Not knowing how to find where a reciprocal graph crosses the y-axis but I know now (Thanks Exam Solutions!!)
:fluffy: In double psychology, we learned about the authoritarian personality which is SO interesting! I'm going to finish writing up notes on it tomorrow.
:fluffy: When I got home, I didn't do any more work because I was too busy making a revision timetable for next week. I've decided that I'm going to self-teach myself the rest of S1 because my teacher just rushes through it anyway and I want to start doing past papers asap. Although S1 will be my last exam (in 123 days) so i'm not too worried.
Saturday 13/02/16

I've managed to complete all of the tasks I set myself for today which were:

:fluffy: Maths: To watch the exam solution tutorials on chapter 7 of S1, make notes on anything I didn't already know and then answer all of the questions in the homework booklet. After having done that, I am feeling confident with regression which means that I only have chapters 8 and 9 to learn before I can start doing past papers!

:fluffy: Psychology: To finish writing up notes on the authoritarian personality, including the evaluation points. I ended up procrastinating a little by decorating the front and back cover of my psychology notebook with patterned tissue paper, but I managed to finish both to a good standard!

:fluffy: Physics: To answer a couple of textbook questions on moments. This took longer than anticipated, but I think I'm starting to get used to the questions now. Just need to do more practice, and hopefully soon i'll be able to answer the questions without staring blankly at the diagrams for 20 minutes!
:heart: Sunday 14/02/16 :heart:

Happy Valentines Day! Although for me, its been more of a ' eat your body weight in chocolate and doughnuts ' day. Diet starts tomorrow. For real. Nevertheless, today has been a really productive day. I have:

:fatcontroller:
Maths: Used Exam Solutions to learn how to solve an equation when the power is an unknown. Later on, I did a Core 1 June 2009 paper and ended up getting 81% which is not good enough, so I corrected my mistakes and did the whole paper again and ended up getting 97%. I lost the two marks on the last question because quite frankly, I do not happen to know that 'root 216' equals '6 root 6' off the top of my head.

:fatcontroller:
Physics: Made some flashcards on everything we've learnt in the electricity topic so far. After that, I answered questions from the electricity section of the June 2014 paper and did pretty well, apart from on the nasty 6 marker on 'designing an experiment'. I hate these types of questions so much. How are we supposed to know what equipment or procedures to talk about??

:fatcontroller:
Psychology: Wrote up notes on using cognitive interviews for eyewitnesses. I have now finished learning the memory chapter, woop woop!

I hope you appreciate the fat controller bullet points lel.
(edited 8 years ago)
Monday 15/02/16

I was supposed to be having an early night tonight, but its already 22:30 as I write this hahaha..ha.....ha
Today I have:

:fluffy: Maths- Completed a Core 1 Jan 2012 past paper and got 69/75 which is 92%. Not too bad. I lost marks due to not reading a question properly (it said to put something equal to 29 thousand and something and I didn't read this oops) and then on the lovely last question, I tried to solve a simultaneous equation using a much harder method than necessary, and made arithmetic errors as a result.
:fluffy: Psychology- Wrote up notes on explanations for social resistance.
:fluffy: Maths- Answered the logarithms part of my homework. This took longer than anticipated as I had forgotten all of the logs laws, so I had to learn them all again. Then I answered some solving log equations questions from the solomon worksheets. My revision schedule for this half term is fully booked, but I will definitely dedicate a good couple of hours to logarithms in the near future. Logs are actually quite fun tbh.

Was going to answer some questions on moments for physics but logs took up my entire evening and i cba to fetch the physics textbook from the other side of my room.
Tuesday 16/02/16

I went out in the morning (first time i've gone out since Friday oops) and later on I:

Psychology: Read through my notes on research methods and then answered some questions out of the textbook.
Maths: Attempted to teach myself all of chapter 8 of S1 (random discrete variables) but this chapter is longer than I thought so I've only covered about 3/4 of it. I don't want to cram it all in in one go so i'll learn the rest another day. Perhaps self teaching chapters 8 and 9 in this one week was a bit over-ambitious but i'll see how far I manage to get!
Physics: I was planning on recapping the waves topic (my worst topic) and then answering some past exam questions on it but that didn't exactly happen. I read the specification for waves and highlighted what I know and don't know. That counts as revision, right? The problem with waves is that it is mainly just remembering how to do experiments and drawing diagrams of double slits and lasers and the best way to do this is exam questions. However, I am not good enough in the topic yet to do exam questions :tongue:. Okay, maybe thats a slight over-exaggeration. I just don't enjoy the topic at all!

On a side note, here is a grade tracker sheet thing i've made for the Core 1 maths past papers I plan to do. I've also made one for Core 2, Stats 1 and physics but I haven't started past papers for those yet.
Core 1 grades.JPG
For some reason it has uploaded sideways because my computer loves me <3

Spoiler

Wednesday 17/02/16
Hello! I went to the cinema to watch Goosebumps this morning avec my mum and brother so I didn't get any studying done then, but I made up for lost time when I got back.
:suitd: Psychology: I re-taught myself the first half of the bio-psychology topic (since I didn't pay attention in class when we got taught it in December) and wrote up some detailed notes on it. I never knew that the spinal cord is an extension of the brain! Its kind of creepy when you think about it...
:suitd: Physics: I answered a few past exam questions on electricity, although I am limited to what I can do as we haven't been taught much of it yet.
:suitd: Maths: I answered the circle geometry questions of my homework and I am proud to say that I managed to answer all of them without getting stuck or confused!

Study tip: If you have a number of subjects that you want to study/revise in a day, outline which subjects you least want to do and do these first. By doing this, you are more likely to complete everything that you had planned to do because the thought of doing your most interesting subject at the end will act as motivation to plough through prior subjects. You will also procrastinate less. This is what works for me anyway!

Oooh and on a side note, I now have my work experience placement sorted! I will be an information assistant in the library at my local university :h:
(edited 8 years ago)
I just found your blog and it's great! Like you, I'm a bit of an oxymoron in that I'm a lazy perfectionist. I think I'm going to do daily updates like you're doing because it'll encourage me to do at least a little bit of work every day!
Original post by lovegoodjpg
I just found your blog and it's great! Like you, I'm a bit of an oxymoron in that I'm a lazy perfectionist. I think I'm going to do daily updates like you're doing because it'll encourage me to do at least a little bit of work every day!


Thank you! :smile: And yes, doing daily updates definitely helps because I don't particularly want to write " Today I did nothing because I couldn't be bothered" too often. Whereas before, I would do this literally every day but it wouldn't 'matter' because I wasn't recording it anywhere
Hey!! So I think we're in a very similar position, I'm also very lazy and didn't do as well in my GCSE's as I wanted to because of it (A*AAAAAAAAAAAB)
I'm in year 12 too, currently taking Maths (Edexcel), Psychology (AQA), biology and chemistry. Reading your blog is so motivating!!! Can I ask what you think you want to study at university?:smile:
Original post by kate13xox
Hey!! So I think we're in a very similar position, I'm also very lazy and didn't do as well in my GCSE's as I wanted to because of it (A*AAAAAAAAAAAB)
I'm in year 12 too, currently taking Maths (Edexcel), Psychology (AQA), biology and chemistry. Reading your blog is so motivating!!! Can I ask what you think you want to study at university?:smile:


Hey! I'm glad my blog so far has been motivating for you :smile: I'm hoping to study psychology at a Russel Group university (or psychological and behavioral sciences at Cambridge if they give me an offer) but it all depends on how well I do and how things turn out. How about you?
Original post by jessyjellytot14
Hey! I'm glad my blog so far has been motivating for you :smile: I'm hoping to study psychology at a Russel Group university (or psychological and behavioral sciences at Cambridge if they give me an offer) but it all depends on how well I do and how things turn out. How about you?


Oh cool! I hope you get into Cambridge then!! I want to study medicine but my back up is psychology :smile: can I ask what textbooks you have for your subjects? I find it really hard to figure out which ones are best and I know I need some more to help with revision!!


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Thursday 18/02/16:cookie:

Aaah today has been so fun! :biggrin: I met up with a couple of friends from sixth form and we played cards against humanity which was hilarious. We also browsed the shoes section of TK-Max and decided which shoes would be best suited for our teachers. Lets just say most of our male teachers have got allocated with leopard-print heels or over-the-knee leather boots!
:topic:

Anyway,
:suitd: Maths: I used Exam Solutions to teach myself the rest of Chapter 8 of S1 which is fairly straight-forward. Later on, I answered all of exercise 8A from the textbook.
:suitd: Psychology: I made "essay flashcards" for the behaviourist approach and the social learning theory. This is basically where I summarise each paragraph i'd write if I had to write an essay about the approach. I write these onto flashcards (obviously) and colour-code each paragraph. So in the exam i'd think " blue, purple, green, red, pink" which then leads to " introduction, further description, positive evaluation points, negative evaluation points, conclusion" which will then hopefully lead to what each paragraph contains.
:suitd: Physics: Today I need to practice some more moments questions but I am yet to do this. I am seriously slacking with physics. Or maybe its a subject better studied at night...yes thats it. :idea2:
Original post by kate13xox
Oh cool! I hope you get into Cambridge then!! I want to study medicine but my back up is psychology :smile: can I ask what textbooks you have for your subjects? I find it really hard to figure out which ones are best and I know I need some more to help with revision!!


Posted from TSR Mobile


Thanks! I'll give you the links to the textbooks I use for psychology and maths

Psych:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/AQA-Psychology-Level-Year-AS/dp/190868240X
This is absolutely amazing and contains everything you'll need to know, plus practice exam questions and exam tips and aaaah its just a godsend :tongue:

Maths:
Core 1: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edexcel-AS-Level-Modular-Mathematics/dp/0435519107
Core 2: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0435519115/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=569136327&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0435519107&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0PAC2Y8X16HAVBB1VMA5
Stats 1: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edexcel-Level-Modular-Mathematics-Statistics/dp/0435519123/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0QRMJXSY5X0ZP1AKBB4B

These are also quite helpful, although in my opinion they're better for practicing rather than learning. I just use Exam Solutions (plus my teachers) for the latter!
I found your blog last night and not only has it motivated me to ensure I do the very best I possibly can for the remainder of the year but its also convinced me to start my own blog diary as well :smile:.

Also I completely relate to your time management problem in Psychology, in Politics I end up spending 20mins on a question that's supposed to take me 10mins and therefore I end up with 15mins left to answer and a 25mins question. Even with 25mins I still struggle to answer it fully but I'm sure with practice both of us can beat our timing problems! :wink:

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