how many past papers is a a sufficient amount?

now, I've read up a bit about peoples revision techniques and a lot say a lot of past papers, and in honesty reading the books hasn't helped me much, evident from my mock results.

so i;m going to do past papers and read over topics where i got questions wrong.

but how much is sufficient?

here are my gcses and what i want get in them:

physics A*
maths A*
chemistry A
biology A
business A*
history A*
Spanish A*
English (meh) B (couldn't care less about English, as long as i get C but ensure i don't go for scraping a c).
re (compulsory B (again, rather work on other subjects, could easily A* if it would be worth it though?)

so yeah, i've got some physics and maths past papers and workbooks for science maths and history.

so, i suppose i'm talking numbers. do more and more papers help or is there a limit as when it longer helps and actually requires some reading or other? thanks in advance..

Reply 1

Miniroo92

It's difficult to say really as it'll vary from subject to subject. When I took my Maths last year, I maybe did about 15 past papers in preparation as well as using a workbook. It really helped and I got an A in the end (11 marks off and A*). It should be said however that I took this a year early and so was the only exam I took last summer. To be honest, I would say you can never do too many past papers, as long as you cover all the areas in revision, you should be covered. I did 6 past papers for my Chemistry which seemed to be sufficient, but I won't find out what I got until March. Anyways, do as many as you can and although it will be boring, it will pay dividends in the end. Good Luck!

Reply 2

SharkEel

English is extremely easy to get an A* in, as long as you revise properly and get all the answer techniques down. Don't muck up your English, because it isn't hard, and it pays.

I'd say keep doing past papers until you can do a paper from scratch and achieve around 90% of the marks.

Reply 3

xoflower

You can get an A* in RS, Chemistry and Biology. Its just memory.

English I agree is quite hard to do well in.

Reply 4

Bobjim12

Original post by xoflower

You can get an A* in RS, Chemistry and Biology. Its just memory.

English I agree is quite hard to do well in.

i know, but i have terrible memory!

i suppose its probably worth going for RS A*? i still have the time i guess to remember all of it.

Reply 5

EastGuava

Original post by SharkEel

English is easy? ;_;

Reply 6

Bobjim12

Original post by EastGuava

English is easy? ;_;

Yeah wtf is he on about. Its easy for som, for those who like reading. I am not one of them.

Reply 7

xoflower

Original post by Bobjim12

i know, but i have terrible memory!

i suppose its probably worth going for RS A*? i still have the time i guess to remember all of it.

All you need to remember is quotes for RS. If you have knowledge of the religions then its easy. Are you doing AQA?

For my mock last year I got an A in rs with no revision..

Reply 8

EastGuava

Original post by Bobjim12

Yeah wtf is he on about. Its easy for som, for those who like reading. I am not one of them.

Yeah, some people don't need to put any effort in to do well, which is rather unfair :P Not necessarily only for those who like reading- well there probably is a correlation with that. However, I like reading and it's not my best subject by far (but I haven't always been interested and I don't read very often so that might be my problem...). If you really don't like reading, you should definitely find something that you'd enjoy as I'm sure it would be beneficial in some way. I'm guessing you won't be continuing with English after GCSE, so you might as well make the most of it. It's not *that* bad after all!

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 9

Bobjim12

Original post by xoflower

All you need to remember is quotes for RS. If you have knowledge of the religions then its easy. Are you doing AQA?

For my mock last year I got an A in rs with no revision..