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how hard did you have to work for all A/A*?

hi everyone,
this is my first thread :smile:

i'm going to be in year 11 this September and really want all a*s in my GCSEs. I took ICT early and got an a* however I worked very very hard for it. For those of you who achieved all As and A*s, when did you start revising and how long for? i go to a grammar school that is full of really smart kids and they've been revising all summer?! do you think i should have been doing this too?
or should i start on the first day back and how hard should i be revising at this point?
Thanks for all the help.

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Reply 1

Zerodos

Well i didnt even get any A* however if you want them it seems logical to do as much work as you did for IT for every GCSE

Reply 2

username163729

This'll just lead to more boasting.

I worked hard for my A's and A*'s though, and by that I mean revising in the week before the exam for around 6 hours per subject.

I didn't work hard for the GCSE's I didn't care about though. French is full of FAIL.

Reply 3

I Have No Imagination

Didnt really work that hard.

Reply 4

*Star*Guitar*

I got two A*s and five As. Just did the work that was set throughout the year. All I really revised for (over say a month) was biology, rest was about 2 nights' worth of revision.

Reply 5

ILILILILIL

Didn't work hard for 2 A*s in Double Science when I did my GCSEs. Just stuck in my head. Other subjects were annoying to try and get a B.

Reply 6

DaveJ

I started revision in March and worked VERY hard. But maybe I'd have got the same results if I didn't work so hard, I dunno - I was pretty paranoid.

Reply 7

Brighten

Just do a lot of past papers. There's not point spending hours and hours every day revising when your exams are months away.

Reply 8

Darkest Knight

Not very. But I wouldn't recommend not working for it.. I don't expect to get away with it at AS/A2 so plan to start working hard soon.

Reply 9

AJ-24

I got a few A*s and the best thing - is to learn it as you go along ..

Come revision time, just do like 5-6 hours per exam, you'll mostly know the stuff anyway :smile:

(thats what I did anyway - might not work for everyone)

Reply 10

francescarella

yeh i didnt work that hard throughout the year, just kept up the same pace as in year 10, but by the time exams loomed near, i revised really hard.
i put all my notes of each subject in a pile in my room and every night i revised notes from a different subject, depending on what order my exams were in.
it seemed to work out well as i got 2A* and 8As :smile:

just keep workin ahrd and revise lots. thats all there is to it. unless you're a genius and can fluke exams :smile:

Reply 11

Arielle

I'm going to be completely honest and say I actually did nothing all year 10 and year 11 except maybe work a little bit harder in year 11, I did about 30mins revision the night before each exam and managed to come out with 7 a's, 4b's and a d(ict half course pah). I know they're not outstanding and I wish I had done a bit of work but it proves that with GCSE's as long as you have some common sense and do some work, anything is achievable. Good luck!

Very hard

Worked really hard and It payed off last year, but i hate the tossers who go "ohh i didn't work that hard", well clearly you did to get an A*

Reply 14

qgujxj39

I worked quite hard in subjects that I wasn't so good at, and did barely anything for ones I was good at.

Reply 15

*pitseleh*

I didn't work that hard to be honest. I think I did a few hours a day over a month for all of my exams put together (I did 11 GCSEs, but I can't remember how many exams I sat exactly). I ended up with 5 A*s, 5 As and a B. I don't mean that as a boast - I was very lucky; I picked things up easily.

Use your efforts for ICT as a baseline: try to do that amount of work for the rest of your subjects. But you should be aware that you may be more of a "natural" in some subjects, so you might not need to work so hard for those; conversely, with subjects you find harder you'll probably need to put in more effort than you did for ICT.

Good luck. :smile:

Reply 16

QED

Didn't work very hard - but then seemed to fluke it a bit. It's best off working though, work as you go along - make notes on everything this year and make sure you know it all, then just look over it and refreshing for revision - not cramming and actually learning new stuff the night before the exam. Learn from my mistakes - I think I was just a bit lucky.

Reply 17

Pollywollydoodle

I revised quite a lot. I just made sure I knew everything in the revision guide that was relevant to my course. I didn't revise for subjects I am naturally good at (French) hardly at all. By revision I mean extra work that isn't set by teachers - anything in class or homework set by teachers you obviously need to do well to get an A/A*.

I revised like a maniac for subjects I wasn't very confident in (Geography, maths etc.) I went over the things again and again for hours until I was confident enough I could do well. I ended up with an A* in the maths exam and 100% in the geog exam although I only got an A overall since the coursework let me down :frown:

I didn't work hard enough at it.

Reply 18

NoQualms

TKnightrider

Worked really hard and It payed off last year, but i hate the tossers who go "ohh i didn't work that hard", well clearly you did to get an A*

Actually not necessarily....some things come more naturally to people; i didn't work hard for my english language course but even in mocks i would get A*s some people have flares for stuff....languages were actually always my thing.

Obviously the subjects i enjoyed like maths i put more work into-but even that i just did the work set/found it easy.