Peachy23's journey to AS Success!

Hello! I'm in year 12 and currently studying Maths, French, Economics and Chemistry! I've been predicted:

Maths - C
Chemistry - C
Economics - A/B
French - B/C

I'd like to achieve all 4 A's hopefully and need some serious motivation!

My main weaknesses are:

Maths - circle geometry and trigonometric functions (basically C2)
Chemistry - everything (apart from things like amount of substance, which is mostly maths)
French - speaking!!!
Economics - 20 mark questions

Fortunately, i won't be having my mocks until after half term so hopefully I'll see some improvements! :biggrin:

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Reply 1

dragonsneed

Good luck! What are you hoping to do in the future? :smile:

Reply 2

Kevin De Bruyne

Circle geometry and trig are probably the most difficult areas of C2 - the key is practice. :biggrin:

Good luck with revision and your mocks! :rave:

Reply 3

Peachy23

Original post by dragonsneed

Good luck! What are you hoping to do in the future? :smile:

Thank you! I'm not quite sure yet but I'm thinking of doing Economics at university :smile:

Original post by SeanFM

Circle geometry and trig are probably the most difficult areas of C2 - the key is practice. :biggrin:

Good luck with revision and your mocks! :rave:

Haha, yeah I know I'm not the only one finding them difficult! Definitely need to practice more. Thank you :biggrin:

Reply 4

Peachy23

4/2/16

Just had a French practice speaking session and got 13/15. It's a big improvement from the 9/15 I got in my first speaking session at the beginning of the year. Still not quite where I want to be so thinking of writing down bullet points for all topics/possible questions in the next few days!

When I get home I'm planning on finishing off some French homework and writing up some economics notes in mindmaps. :biggrin:

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 5

Peachy23

5/2/16

Had an alright day at school today and spent 3 hours writing up economics notes last night!

I usually don't do any work on Friday or Saturday (which is absolutely terrible, I know!) but I'm going try and complete most of my homework tonight so that I can write up more notes tomorrow :smile:

Reply 6

Peachy23

6/2/16

I'm ashamed to say that I got nothing done yesterday :frown:

after getting home, I just spent time with the family and then later on last night, I was too tired to do any work!

So I'll have to finish homework today and try to start on the notes as well!

Reply 7

username2369377

I really want an A in AS German and speaking is also my weak point! Got a D in the speaking mock but a B in the listening, reading and writing, so at least I know where to focus my revision more

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Reply 8

Peachy23

Original post by zombie-dance

Speaking is definitely my weak point! Well done on your B in the other sections though, I hope I do as well as that in my mock :smile:

How have you been revising for speaking then? I haven't started yet but I know I've got a lot to do!

Reply 9

username2369377

Well I have this booklet that my teacher gave me with past questions in that I have written answers for so I've been going through them, but of course you're not allowed to answer the questions with rehearsed answers, that's what I'm panicking about😁 and thank you, I'm sure you'll be fine! Writing happens to be my strong point, so I think that helped a lot; just make sure your answer is well structured and you answer every part of the questions (sometimes there's 2 parts). For reading and listening it's mostly just about knowing the vocab and for the grammar section, practice! c:

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Reply 10

Peachy23

Original post by zombie-dance

Yeah, I've been worrying for the same reasons! I don't want it to sound like I've memorised answers :/ Thank you for the advice, I'm usually alright with the reading/grammar bit but I haven't tried writing an essay without actually having resources in front of me. Listening also isn't my strong point mainly because I have terrible hearing in general :frown:

Reply 11

username2369377

Yeah, it's definitely difficult to write an essay without a dictionary or being able to search up genders of words and such, but it takes practice ^-^ you'll get there

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Reply 12

Peachy23

8/2/16

Seriously lacking motivation right now :frown:

can't bring myself to do anything but the homework that's due tomorrow...I just can't wait for half term but I want to start revision in the next few days! Not feeling too great today :/

Reply 13

Peachy23

9/2/16

Feeling much better today! :biggrin:

just finished some maths and I feel like I'm getting the hang of radians. Bit annoyed that I didn't get any other work done but I'm hoping to write some of my French essay in a free tomorrow.

Reply 14

Peachy23

11/2/16

Just wrote a French essay on marriage (definitely a difficult topic for me because I don't have many opinions on it in English, so I find it hard to say stuff in French :/) I haven't done much revision wise this week which is a bit disappointing but it's my birthday tomorrow and then half term :biggrin:

hoping to get lots of revision done over the holidays so I'm prepared for the mocks!

Reply 15

Peachy23

15/2/16

Did absolutely nothing on Friday and Saturday because of my birthday and currently not feeling very motivated :frown:

But my mocks start on Monday so I'm going to have to get the work done. I'm finally sitting down to make some chemistry notes using the specification as well as my CGP guide and AQA textbook!

Reply 16

Peachy23

17/2/16

Quite happy with the amount of work I put in today but I'm still worried that I may not be able to do enough in time for mocks! I'm also a bit worried about my revision strategy because looking at all the information I have to know, I'm kind of scared and I don't know if I'll be able to remember all of it. Last year for my GCSEs, I wrote notes by putting it all in mindmaps using the specification and CGP revision guides after learning I'm a visual learner. I tried just writing up notes, condensing it all onto flashcards and even just doing straight up past papers but mindmaps seemed to be the only things that worked for me. Hoping this style of revision helps me at AS as well but I guess I'll find out after getting my mock results :/

Just wanted to write an overview of what I've done/what I'm planning to do for the rest of the week:

Chemistry - spent 4/5 hours making mindmaps (have done about 10 sides worth but have still got a long way to go!) just looking at all the detail is kind of daunting :frown:

My mind maps look like this if anyone wanted to see (I appreciate that it's a bit all over the place but it's what works for me :tongue:

)

Maths - planning on doing maths revision on Friday by using my CGP guide to do all the example and practice questions (might use flashcards to jot down the formulas I need to remember but haven't fully decided what to do about them yet) and after that I'll look at doing some past papers and maybe some Solomon papers if I'm feeling good :biggrin:

I'm going to start with C2 revision because it's my first maths mock and it's the one I'm weakest in (hate those trigonometric functions!)

Economics - really want to do well in this because it's hopefully something I want to do in the future and I genuinely enjoy it! I also feel like I come across as not knowing much in lessons because I'm quite shy and don't like to answer question so I want to prove that I can actually do it. Hoping to start revision for this tomorrow after I've done some more chemistry and once again, I'll be making mindmaps using the specification and my CGP guide!

French - this is probably my biggest challenge because I'm quite rubbish at the speaking. Listening and reading should be fine but I might do a few past papers on Saturday. For the essay, I'm just going to make mindmaps/flashcards for advantages and disadvantages for each topic and might look at some previous essay questions and write some bullet points for them. I'm also going to try and remember good phrases to use for the introduction/conclusion etc. and brush up on my tenses (especially subjunctive!) For speaking, I need to make my chosen topic card (which I decided would be family because I don't want to be asked about marriage! :biggrin:

) and then I'm going to look at all possible questions and write bullet points for each of them. Fortunately, my speaking mock isn't until after next week so I'm considering leaving that for next weekend.

I feel like this post has gone on way too long! However, I just wanted to mention this lovely app I downloaded which has been quite helpful to me and I hope it benefits someone else :smile:

Someone mentioned this app on Tumblr for preventing procrastination/stopping distractions so I thought I'd try it out. The app basically lets you set a certain amount of time where you study while a tree grows and if you use your phone/close the app, the tree dies. It may not work for everyone but I thought it was quite cute and it does seem to be keeping me away from my phone! :biggrin:

(edited 8 years ago)

21/2/16

It's been a while since I've posted but I've been studying non stop for the past few days for my mocks starting on Monday. I don't know why but I'm really stressing out (even though I know they're just mocks! :frown:

) I'm Asian so my parents expect really high grades and will be pretty disappointed with anything less than an A tbh - even if it's not the real exam. I've got a lot to do tomorrow!
I spent today going over C2 and actually enjoyed logs and radians! I did some past paper questions and I'm feeling okay for maths.
I wrote some economics notes today and I still haven't finished them :/ so I'm planning on waking up a couple of hours earlier to finish notes off so I can review chemistry and economics notes. Then I might do some statistics/C1 practice or maybe a French practice paper (minus the essay as I don't think I'll have time for that tbh)
I also didn't get around to writing up my chosen topic card so I'm planning on doing that tomorrow as well!

Reply 18

Peachy23

23/2/16

Had 4 mocks exams on Monday:
French went pretty good (I'm usually horrible at listening but it was surprisingly alright! There was also a section on advertising and we haven't done that topic yet so that was a bit of a challenge but it wasn't too bad)
Economics went quite rubbish to be honest. I'm usually quite good at it but the 10 mark question went all wrong and I drew the wrong diagram (I had initially drawn the correct one but ended up doubting myself and changing it :frown:

) the multiple choice section was pretty terrible too.
Maths Core 2 went surprisingly ok, still don't know if I did well or not though. It was only on logs, radians and circles so it was some of the easier stuff.
Chemistry was absolutely dreadful! It's the one I revised the most for but I feel like I've completely forgotten how to revise and that the methods I used at GCSE just don't work anymore :frown:

I felt quite down about it and I'm kind of stressed about how to revise. I just felt like I didn't know anything on that paper and guessed most of it. Someone also recently told me that the CGP revision guides aren't that good at A Level and that they lack detail so I'm a bit worried about that as well.

I had another Economics mock today and it went a bit better (I think :/) The 20 mark question was on subsidies which I loved! But the multiple choice was macroeconomics and I found it really difficult (especially because I didn't revise fiscal policy/monetary policy as we'd only gone over it briefly but it seemed that most of the questions were based on that)

I have my statistics mock tomorrow and I'm determine to do well in maths so I'll be revising quite a lot for that tonight and I also have chemistry which just really makes me miserable but I really want to do well in the second paper as I did terribly in the first!

I'm just generally stressing thinking about the real exams and how I need to find a new way to revise and when I should start proper revising and it's just really worrying me.

Reply 19

Peachy23

26/2/16

It's finally Friday and I've definitely had a long week! It's been so nice to just sit at home and relax after school today.

Chemistry on Wednesday went better than the first chemistry paper but it still wasn't too great to be honest (it was mainly inorganic but had some questions on organic).
Statistics went quite well because I'd done some past paper questions beforehand and I didn't find it too difficult (I also did GCSE statistics last year so I know most of the stuff)
I had no exams on Thursday :biggrin:

so I took the opportunity to work on my French speaking as the mock is on Thursday next week (really nervous for it!)
I had my French essay/writing mock today and the question was on holidays. I hadn't done much revision because I was really tired and didn't really know how to revise for it. It went alright but I think I may have misinterpreted the question and I'm a bit worried that I haven't answered it properly. I also didn't have time to even start a conclusion so I'm a bit annoyed at that :frown:

I know I'll have to work on my timing for the essay section.

Over the weekend, I'll be practicing speaking. I've got my chosen topic questions decided so I'll be writing potential answers for those (and trying not to memorise them because I want there to be some spontaneity). I think I've said this before but I'm planning on writing up potential answers for any possible questions that could come up (we have this speaking booklet that contains lots of past questions) and then going over them. I'm also aiming to look over past cards and trying to write up answers for them within 20 minutes because that's how much time you get in the exam.

My biggest problem in terms of revising is that I make huge plans but I never end up doing even half of what I intended to do and I know it's because I just procrastinate a lot! Lately I've been having problems concentrating as well and I just can't bring myself to revise. I really hope I gain some motivation in the next few days because speaking is definitely a challenge for me and I want to see that I've improved even if it's just a little bit.