Help needed on revising for AS/A2 exams! (8 in total)

Hey,
So I have got 8 exams during May/June in total. 6 of them are retakes (BUSS1, BUSS2, BUSS3 - an A2 exam, ECON1, ECON2 and ECON3 - an A2 exam) as I did fairly badly :frown:

. The other 2 are my unit 4 exams in A2 Business and Economics.

Ok so lets get to the point, I have got another 16 days of the easter holidays remaining and I want to do 3 hours revision a day, which gives me a total of 48 hours of revision.

So I was wondering if I should spend more time on my AS retakes due to the fact that it is easy to gain marks in those exam? Another reason is because my first AS exam is on 16th may and my first A2 exam is on 20th June. So as you can see my AS exams are much sooner than my A2 exams.

I was planning on spending 35 hours revising for my retakes and only 13 hours on my unit 4 June exams. The reason for this is because my retake exams are fairly easier (so more marks would be gained) and also because my retake exams are roughly one month before my actual June exams.

Please could other students who know what they are talking about please comment to my thread and let me know the best possible ways of revising for these exams and what exams I should focus more on during the easter holidays.

Thank You :smile:

Reply 1

Groat

13

What grades are you aiming to achieve when certificating?

I'm afraid to say I disagree with your mantra that you should revise more for the retakes as they are easier. I would be putting more time into your A2 modules as they are harder and surely some of the content would help with your AS retakes.

However, I do agree that you should be putting more time into your AS exams. You can manage quite a lot of revision in the period before the A2 exams start, but 13 hours is simply not enough for 4 exams!

Reply 2

Alf123

OP

3

Original post by Groat

What grades are you aiming to achieve when certificating?

I'm afraid to say I disagree with your mantra that you should revise more for the retakes as they are easier. I would be putting more time into your A2 modules as they are harder and surely some of the content would help with your AS retakes.

However, I do agree that you should be putting more time into your AS exams. You can manage quite a lot of revision in the period before the A2 exams start, but 13 hours is simply not enough for 4 exams!

Ok, my only option is to ensure that I try my best to revise 4 hours on some days! Or revise slightly less for my AS exams and revise a little bit more for my A2 retakes.
By doing this I can end up revising more on my A2 exams (at least 17-18 hours).

Even though this still might not be significantly more revision, 4-5 hours is still a lot :P. Also when I go back to college, I would studying for those exams in class anyways (unit 4 exams), as well as going to after college revision sessions for the AS and A2 exams. So I strongly feel that I will be fine hopefully :smile:

.

EDIT: I am hoping to get at least 2 B's out of my 8 exams and the rest C's as I only need 3 C's to get into university. Not the best grades I know, but this is totally my fault for not revising during the first year where I got an overall grade of D in both Business and Economics! I got C in AS Applied ICT, but this is coursework.

I just hope that the amount of revision I am doing (38 hours in total for 8 exams is enough for me to achieve 3 C's at least!). To be honest I expect to be getting quite a few B's due to the fact that I feel that I am putting a lot of effort into revision as I normally do not revise until within the last week of an upcoming exam! This time I am revising well before 5 weeks before my first exam and 10 weeks before my last exam :O

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 3

mellie220

12

What did you get in Business Studies before and what are you aiming to get?
I also do Business so I may be able to help you with some useful advice :biggrin:

Reply 4

Ksjushona

Original post by Groat

What grades are you aiming to achieve when certificating?

I'm afraid to say I disagree with your mantra that you should revise more for the retakes as they are easier. I would be putting more time into your A2 modules as they are harder and surely some of the content would help with your AS retakes.

However, I do agree that you should be putting more time into your AS exams. You can manage quite a lot of revision in the period before the A2 exams start, but 13 hours is simply not enough for 4 exams!

Yeah, I pretty much agree with this. Also, look at what percentage of the final mark each exam is and maybe divide your revision time with that in mind. :smile:

Reply 5

Alf123

OP

3

Original post by mellie220

What did you get in Business Studies before and what are you aiming to get?
I also do Business so I may be able to help you with some useful advice :biggrin:

I got a C in BUSS1, D in BUSS2.
This year I did terrible and got a U in BUSS3! :frown:

What grade/s did you get? :smile:

Reply 6

Alf123

OP

3

Original post by Ksjushona

Yeah, I pretty much agree with this. Also, look at what percentage of the final mark each exam is and maybe divide your revision time with that in mind. :smile:

Thanks for reminding me! I know that BUSS2 is 60% of the AS grade. So I should be focusing on this more than on BUSS 1.

However, I am not sure about Economics :s-smilie:

. Do you by any chance know where I can get the percentages from for this course? It is AQA Economics just to let you know :tongue:

Thank you.

Reply 7

mellie220

12

Original post by Alf123

I got a C in BUSS1, D in BUSS2.
This year I did terrible and got a U in BUSS3! :frown:

What grade/s did you get? :smile:

Bear in mind, Business is my worst subject :P
BUSS1 - A
BUSS2 - C (1 mark off a B)..
BUSS3 - B
Granted, BUSS3 was a nasty exam, I thought I'd done horribly!
I didn't revise for the exams, because the exam technique is far more important! It may sound like bad advice but you only really need to know the basics of Business... notably quality, motivation, theories of maslow/porter, PED (you'll know that from economics), labour productivity etc.
If you feel less confident try reading the book and making important notes through spider diagrams (assuming you have the wolinski and coates book?)

I won't write a massive essay about exam technique but remember to apply the case study to the questions constantly in BUSS1 and BUSS2! If you go on about your knowledge without applying it to the case study you won't get good marks.

The only advice I can give you for BUSS3 is use the formulas in the front page whenever you can (thats the only reason why I think I passed.. I was talking **** in that exam because I was so lost :confused:

)

Reply 8

Bubbles0ox

16

Original post by Alf123

.

Work out EXACTLY the dates of your exams then start revising 6 weeks before them
that will probably mean you'll start revising for AS retakes now.

when you say three hours a day do you mean per subject?
if not, do this:

TV/ Sleep/ Get up: 9 -11
Revise 11:30-1:30
Break
Revise: 2-3
BREAK
Revise: 3:30 – 5:30
BREAK

That will be plenty imo.
I also have 8 exams (technically 10 but i dont care about the last 2) and this is what ive been doing.

Yes is means you cant go out before 5:30 but will be worth it! you could have one break day a week where you go out or something

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 9

Ksjushona

Original post by Alf123

Thanks for reminding me! I know that BUSS2 is 60% of the AS grade. So I should be focusing on this more than on BUSS 1.

However, I am not sure about Economics :s-smilie:

. Do you by any chance know where I can get the percentages from for this course? It is AQA Economics just to let you know :tongue:

Thank you.

Sorry, I don't do Economics, so can't help you with that one. :smile:

Reply 10

Groat

13

I just had a quick look at the AQA Economics specification, each module is worth 25% of the A-Level.

Hope that helps!

Reply 11

Butterfly1991

1

What are your marks for Economics? Each module is equal.

Reply 12

Alf123

OP

3

Original post by mellie220

Bear in mind, Business is my worst subject :P
BUSS1 - A
BUSS2 - C (1 mark off a B)..
BUSS3 - B
Granted, BUSS3 was a nasty exam, I thought I'd done horribly!
I didn't revise for the exams, because the exam technique is far more important! It may sound like bad advice but you only really need to know the basics of Business... notably quality, motivation, theories of maslow/porter, PED (you'll know that from economics), labour productivity etc.
If you feel less confident try reading the book and making important notes through spider diagrams (assuming you have the wolinski and coates book?)

I won't write a massive essay about exam technique but remember to apply the case study to the questions constantly in BUSS1 and BUSS2! If you go on about your knowledge without applying it to the case study you won't get good marks.

The only advice I can give you for BUSS3 is use the formulas in the front page whenever you can (thats the only reason why I think I passed.. I was talking **** in that exam because I was so lost :confused:

)

Well done mate, you did really well :smile:

Only if I put my head down beforehand! :angry:

Thanks for your advice, I would be using it a lot, and yes I got the John Wolinkski book :P

Do you feel that by doing past exam questions would help me? I never really do this and i heard it is a good way for practicing your exam technique?. One of the reasons I feel that I do bad in exams is because I just usually read off a book (John Wolinkski for example) and do not make any serious notes to look back on afterwards! So I forget 70% of what I have revised when it comes to the exam! :frown:

Reply 13

Alf123

OP

3

Original post by Groat

I just had a quick look at the AQA Economics specification, each module is worth 25% of the A-Level.

Hope that helps!

Thank you very much! So I should roughly do equal amount of revision for each unit :P

Reply 14

Alf123

OP

3

Original post by Butterfly1991

What are your marks for Economics? Each module is equal.

ECON1 - D
ECON2 - D
ECON3 - U, really found this exam hard :frown:

I know really bad grades! I retook ECON1 in January and the paper was easy! I quite strongly believed I would have got a B at least, however the problem was 'time management'. I kept blabbing on and on with the lower mark questions, so by the time I got to the D question (question was on bufferstocks, the topic I revised the most on!) I only had like 13 minutes to be exact to answer a 25 mark question and I question which I believed I would of got at least 20-22 marks on!

Do you or anyone else know any tips or ways I could manage my timings more efficiently? Do you think I should answer the higher mark questions first, or should I still by answering the question in the order it is given to me on the paper?

Any real decent advise would be welcome :smile:

Thank you.

Reply 15

Alf123

OP

3

Does anyone have any tips on how to stay concentrated while revising without getting distracted? Because I feel that revising for 3 hours may not be enough as I have got 8 exams! So i might try on some days to revise for 4-5 hours as I am really determined to do well!

I just need the will power and I know I can do it. However I do need some basic tips from you guys to help me stay focused. I mainly need advice on revision techniques, how long to revise for before taking a break? How long should my breaks be?

Also might sound weird, but what food or drinks could I eat to help me stay focused? As well as is it best to revise during the morning around 30 minutes - 1 hour after I have woken up, afternoon, evening or night? How many hours of sleep should I get, is 8 hours enough?

I know it is a lot of questions but I feel that by having my concentration levels improved significantly I would do really well in my exams!

Reply 16

Butterfly1991

1

Original post by Alf123

ECON1 - D
ECON2 - D
ECON3 - U, really found this exam hard :frown:

I know really bad grades! I retook ECON1 in January and the paper was easy! I quite strongly believed I would have got a B at least, however the problem was 'time management'. I kept blabbing on and on with the lower mark questions, so by the time I got to the D question (question was on bufferstocks, the topic I revised the most on!) I only had like 13 minutes to be exact to answer a 25 mark question and I question which I believed I would of got at least 20-22 marks on!

Do you or anyone else know any tips or ways I could manage my timings more efficiently? Do you think I should answer the higher mark questions first, or should I still by answering the question in the order it is given to me on the paper?

Any real decent advise would be welcome :smile:

Thank you.

Are you aiming for a C? what did you get ECON 4?
You need to get at least 60/100 in all your papers which will give you a UMS mark of 240 which is a C.

For ECON1/2 there are multiple questions, go over as many past exam papers so you can become familiar with the questions. The questions asked are the same but just worded differently.

For the essay you need to make sure you give yourself at least 25 mins. A good introduction and both sides of evaluation. If you do that you can't really go wrong.

You could do the data response question first as there are more marks. Data response question carries 50 marks and the multiple choice carries 25 marks. So if you run out of time. You would only be losing few marks.

Check out Tutor2u. They have tips on how to answer exam questions :smile:

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/

Good luck.

Reply 17

Alison1992

13

i'm doing 6-7 hours a day and i only have 3 exams
i always revise 'task related' i.e. say 'today i am going to do these questions' or 'today i am going to do this exam paper' it keeps me focussed and i have a list of things to get through each week

Reply 18

yesioo

15

oes anyone have any tips on how to stay concentrated while revising without getting distracted? Because I feel that revising for 3 hours may not be enough as I have got 8 exams! So i might try on some days to revise for 4-5 hours as I am really determined to do well!

Go to the library. I know it's sunny and you want to frolick in the sunshine but the library is as close as you are going to get to school conditions in the holiday. Plus there are so many great resources :coma:

Plan your revision for that day. Either say "today I'm going to study chapter 17 and make a powerpoint and ..." or do sections of your course. It's up to you.

Also, imo you should be doing around 2 40 minute sessions for each exam a day. However, allow yourself a day off a week so you don't burn out. You're basically doing a day off school and a little bit of homework.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 19

Alf123

OP

3

Original post by Butterfly1991

Are you aiming for a C? what did you get ECON 4?
You need to get at least 60/100 in all your papers which will give you a UMS mark of 240 which is a C.

For ECON1/2 there are multiple questions, go over as many past exam papers so you can become familiar with the questions. The questions asked are the same but just worded differently.

For the essay you need to make sure you give yourself at least 25 mins. A good introduction and both sides of evaluation. If you do that you can't really go wrong.

You could do the data response question first as there are more marks. Data response question carries 50 marks and the multiple choice carries 25 marks. So if you run out of time. You would only be losing few marks.

Check out Tutor2u. They have tips on how to answer exam questions :smile:

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/

Good luck.

Thanks for your response :smile: