year 10 going into year 11

So, throughout year 10 I have been working relentlessly (arguably, I could say from year 7) and perhaps even avoiding sleep creating a rational plan to how to approach my GCSEs and revising. Now, when I say “revising” I mean learn the content and then actively recalling the information with writing in detail everything I learned (in my own words). As well as this, I also ask for advice from my teachers, especially my English teacher and even she said she is proud of my remarkable efforts. I am beginning to lose patience because everyday I pay attention in class and it doesn’t pay off; I do everything that I’m supposed to do. Despite all my efforts, I find myself being stuck at a grade 5 and 4 and it’s killing me. I know to some people out there that would be great and I am beyond grateful and proud of myself because I know I tried but I always question this because, did I? I don’t know anymore, but I aspire to be a doctor in the future and a grade 5 or 4 is not going to get me there. I need serious help and I don’t know if I’m being too harsh on myself or if I need to do more past papers but I just want to make my parents proud and I’m getting to the point where I am trying to live up to my brothers expectations (grade 9 student) and pretending I’m doing well in school (I’ve lied way too many times). Furthermore, I can’t even say that i have any distractions in school I’m practically a loner, I do have a couple of friends but we only talk in school at like lunch or at break (if I find them🤣, no joke.). Anyway, if you have any tips that could help my suffering please respond. Thank you for reading this!

Reply 1

aneer3wq3wt

13

Original post by gcsestudent195

So, throughout year 10 I have been working relentlessly (arguably, I could say from year 7) and perhaps even avoiding sleep creating a rational plan to how to approach my GCSEs and revising. Now, when I say “revising” I mean learn the content and then actively recalling the information with writing in detail everything I learned (in my own words). As well as this, I also ask for advice from my teachers, especially my English teacher and even she said she is proud of my remarkable efforts. I am beginning to lose patience because everyday I pay attention in class and it doesn’t pay off; I do everything that I’m supposed to do. Despite all my efforts, I find myself being stuck at a grade 5 and 4 and it’s killing me. I know to some people out there that would be great and I am beyond grateful and proud of myself because I know I tried but I always question this because, did I? I don’t know anymore, but I aspire to be a doctor in the future and a grade 5 or 4 is not going to get me there. I need serious help and I don’t know if I’m being too harsh on myself or if I need to do more past papers but I just want to make my parents proud and I’m getting to the point where I am trying to live up to my brothers expectations (grade 9 student) and pretending I’m doing well in school (I’ve lied way too many times). Furthermore, I can’t even say that i have any distractions in school I’m practically a loner, I do have a couple of friends but we only talk in school at like lunch or at break (if I find them🤣, no joke.). Anyway, if you have any tips that could help my suffering please respond. Thank you for reading this!

something is 100% wrong in how ur revising.. if uve been grinding since yr7 and ur getting 4/5s u must not be reviisng efficiently. refine your revision methods as everyone has different methods.. best plan is to also just look at the papers and see what u got wrong as u must be losing marks on content based questions. also dont bang out for hours a day lol it can definitely hinder ur performance and attention span.. but active recall is good, maybe do past paper questions on specific topics ur finding hard?
just see what ur doing wrong in papers and go from there is good - make sure u know all the content off by heart by active recall like ur doing, then topic questions then past papers - mark those papers and see what ur getting wrong and revise that and just go from there.

also u dont need all 9s to be a doctor lmao, very few do. just get most 7+ ideally 8s and a few 9s. 8+ in science and stuff is ideal too, and u need minimum 6 in eng lang and maths.
dont burn urself out by doing like 4 /5 hrs a day too. id say if u want top grades , stay consistent from start of year 11 with 2/3 hours, obviously ramp up near exams and mocks or on weekends etc , this is kind of what i did and i got 99998888775 and now going into yr13

Reply 2

m.shab

4

Original post by gcsestudent195

So, throughout year 10 I have been working relentlessly (arguably, I could say from year 7) and perhaps even avoiding sleep creating a rational plan to how to approach my GCSEs and revising. Now, when I say “revising” I mean learn the content and then actively recalling the information with writing in detail everything I learned (in my own words). As well as this, I also ask for advice from my teachers, especially my English teacher and even she said she is proud of my remarkable efforts. I am beginning to lose patience because everyday I pay attention in class and it doesn’t pay off; I do everything that I’m supposed to do. Despite all my efforts, I find myself being stuck at a grade 5 and 4 and it’s killing me. I know to some people out there that would be great and I am beyond grateful and proud of myself because I know I tried but I always question this because, did I? I don’t know anymore, but I aspire to be a doctor in the future and a grade 5 or 4 is not going to get me there. I need serious help and I don’t know if I’m being too harsh on myself or if I need to do more past papers but I just want to make my parents proud and I’m getting to the point where I am trying to live up to my brothers expectations (grade 9 student) and pretending I’m doing well in school (I’ve lied way too many times). Furthermore, I can’t even say that i have any distractions in school I’m practically a loner, I do have a couple of friends but we only talk in school at like lunch or at break (if I find them🤣, no joke.). Anyway, if you have any tips that could help my suffering please respond. Thank you for reading this!

Wow. I mean well done to you for sticking through and you should be immensely proud of that. As a recent GCSE student myself, I used to work hard from year 7 too, but of course SO much more in year 11. So please don't stress yourself too much because that will be seriously bad for your mindset and your grades. You've mentioned that you try to learn the content and actively recall it consistently, which is great. But I think what will really help are practice questions. For example, I used websites like ExamQ for help with my Maths, which stored every single Maths question from previous GCSEs. Teacher feedback is amazing too. Inspect your past test papers (if you've been tested in schools) and ask the teacher where you went wrong and what you were missing that caused you to lose marks on a particular question. Also inspect the mark scheme, especially in highly specific subjects such as the Sciences and see the wording they use because sometimes what we put into words is lacking from the actual answer provided.
I really hope this helps you but I'd just like to say please don't worry too much. As long as you try your best in the moment. Make sure to sleep well btw, eat well and focus on your mental health too. During my GCSEs, I never ate and would delay my sleep so much. It was terrible. But I reckon that I would have done so much better if I hadn't neglected my health. Please don't do the same as I did :frown:

If you need any specific help on a subject, topic, or whatever, feel free to ask. Keep pushing yourself and don't give up. Trust me, it isn't as scary as it seems :smile:

Reply 3

user1787

7

Original post by gcsestudent195

So, throughout year 10 I have been working relentlessly (arguably, I could say from year 7) and perhaps even avoiding sleep creating a rational plan to how to approach my GCSEs and revising. Now, when I say “revising” I mean learn the content and then actively recalling the information with writing in detail everything I learned (in my own words). As well as this, I also ask for advice from my teachers, especially my English teacher and even she said she is proud of my remarkable efforts. I am beginning to lose patience because everyday I pay attention in class and it doesn’t pay off; I do everything that I’m supposed to do. Despite all my efforts, I find myself being stuck at a grade 5 and 4 and it’s killing me. I know to some people out there that would be great and I am beyond grateful and proud of myself because I know I tried but I always question this because, did I? I don’t know anymore, but I aspire to be a doctor in the future and a grade 5 or 4 is not going to get me there. I need serious help and I don’t know if I’m being too harsh on myself or if I need to do more past papers but I just want to make my parents proud and I’m getting to the point where I am trying to live up to my brothers expectations (grade 9 student) and pretending I’m doing well in school (I’ve lied way too many times). Furthermore, I can’t even say that i have any distractions in school I’m practically a loner, I do have a couple of friends but we only talk in school at like lunch or at break (if I find them🤣, no joke.). Anyway, if you have any tips that could help my suffering please respond. Thank you for reading this!

Hi, i have recently just finished my GCSE and got a 9 in english lit and lang, history, citizenship studies and rs, 2x8 in science (3 marks of a 9-8 so sad :frown:

)a 7 in maths and a 6 in french I went from a grade 5/6 to a 9 in less than a year for english so anything is possible.

Im not sure all the subjects you struggle with or what you take so i will talk about maths (which i went from a 4 to a 7 in year 11), science and english.

So for english if you want proper help like example essays, grade 9 revision notes, ideas, knowledge organisers let me know because it depends what text//plays you study. But what i did for english lit was write out full mark essays (it would take around 4 hours) which link to every part of the text or play that has juicy extracts in that the exam board will use, using the technique parallelism and then i would remember them for exams so i would be fine for every question that came up. I would also just plan some techniques that linked across the plays and the themes like guilt and link them to quotes and characters. But yeah like i said i can help if we studied same texts if not i can give you can example essay on the structure to use?

For english Lang i would remember grade 9 sentences // sentence starters that would have gaps in so when you read the text all you would have to do is add a quote and technique and i would have pre planned words and analysis... for example if there was something to do with light i would be like. Ostensibly the motif of light: 'insert quotation' represents (utopia, redemption, paradise, growing, hope, societal change, humanity)
For the question 5 i would remember pre planned grade 9 descriptions that can be turned into a story or kept as a description no matter the question (i still have mine if you want it as i sat the gcse in year 10)

For maths i would watch the gcsemathstutor and write notes and example questions and answers so i could remember the technique on how to answer//the method and then i would use his checklist and tick it off if i knew it and then go onto maths genie and complete the questions by topic. Also i would use a revision guide especially for topics like circle theorems.

For science i would first watch freesciencelessons and make a powerpoint for each paper of science and write out everything i needed to know then i would use thephysicsandmathstutor who has notes for every sciences and add them to my powerpoint and then when it got to about january i started remembering every slide at a time so i knew every bit of info and then in class we would do past papers.