edexcel c3/c4- tips to get 90+ums?

Well you're doing pretty much all you can to be honest, if those bullet points are what you're doing i'm sure you'll score +90 ums with ease.

If you want to be extremely thorough, i suppose you could write what you're doing in a "wordy" sense when you complete questions, to ensure that the actual understanding of the method sticks in your head.

I also created my own little revision guide booklets for all of my modules which was really helpful - basically a guide for basic methods and little tricks/tips that i've noticed along the way or which aren't covered well in class.

cool i might give that a go. i haven't done all of those things yet but it's what i'm planning on doing- one thing i was wondering though is whether it's worth doing the harder papers under timed conditions or just working through them at my own pace?
on the one hand it might be better to condition myself to answer them quicker but on the other hand maybe spending longer trying to work out questions i'm stuck on could be more beneficial, then just doing actual past papers in exam conditions closer to the time?

In my experience eliminating silly errors is much harder than actually learning how to do the stuff which for me is pretty simple. I am error prone though and make arithmetical slips a lot. Practise helps, meticulous checking as I go, always doing things the same way, not taking short cuts, I do everything I can. A guy can go from A* to B on silly slips alone with no problem even if he answers every question confidently (he thinks). That is what worries me.

C3 - Don't make any stupid mistakes

C4 - Fully understand the content (vectors can be tricky)

if i'm feeling confident on C3 what do you think are the best steps to take to master C4?
i was thinking go through all the review exercises, find areas that i might find particularly hard (some integration, vectors) and have a look through all the questions/examples in that section, then do some solomons papers/past papers?

if i'm feeling confident on C3 what do you think are the best steps to take to master C4?
i was thinking go through all the review exercises, find areas that i might find particularly hard (some integration, vectors) and have a look through all the questions/examples in that section, then do some solomons papers/past papers?

This is what I would do for c4 if I were in your situation. First make sure I really understand the exam specification so print it off and review it. Next up is good notes. For every single item in the spec you need a page of notes clearly commented telling you how it works. For every new thing you note up, also do the exercise. At least start the exercise right away and keep going back till it is all done perfectly. Redo mistakes etc. Now the next step is most important and is skimped in all schools and text books. Make sure you have a worked example of every type of question which that topic can throw up. Consult the mark schemes as you put your example together. Comment important items.
So: Each new thing you learn has a page of notes, an exercise and a lot of full worked examples. Now make a list of the questions. That is your revision self tester sheet. Each question has the worked example / answer.
Now what I do which is different is I consult past papers as I go along. I do not "save them up". You can not remember them all so you can do them over in your revision period. As I go through the questions for each topic I make sure I have the model answer already or I add it then I add the type of question to my reviser sheet. The last thing I do as I go along is I create my "cheat sheets". These are single page reviser notes on everything that is in that topic.

The big ticket items in C4 are integration and vectors. They both need a lot of work. Good luck. HTH.

See I wouldn't bother with notes, just do all the questions you can tbh, if you do all the review exercise questions then past papers, then solomons then there is no reason why you should be getting less than 85ums

I cant help but feel like the idea of a revision book won't work for me is the thing.. i've had a terrible habit of writing revision guides/sheets for myself in the past and not looking at them enough or not feeling like i got enough out of them to justify the time they took to make.

Do you think that if purely DOING maths seems to be the best thing for me, a good substitute would be this:

Tackle as many questions as i possibly can, focusing on the harder or more in-depth areas (integration, vectors) and leave a mark next to all the questions i find that make me think differently or require me to adapt my knowledge, or simply really difficult questions.

I've been doing this so far doing through the questions in the C4 book one by one and just leaving a * by any particularly confusing/odd/different questions which i'll hopefully review back over, so i don't just repeat a load of questions that i can already easily do.

Let me know if you think this would be useful as a substitute for the whole revision booklet idea if i don't think it will work for me

Well don't just star awkward stuff for later. That is the very stuff you need to learn. I wrote a longer reply but it vanished

Don't bother with the vectors questions in the Edexcel C4 book - go for the questions from past papers for this spec

is there a reason for this? we've only just started covering vectors in class last week because it's the last topic we have left to cover

cool i might give that a go. i haven't done all of those things yet but it's what i'm planning on doing- one thing i was wondering though is whether it's worth doing the harder papers under timed conditions or just working through them at my own pace?
on the one hand it might be better to condition myself to answer them quicker but on the other hand maybe spending longer trying to work out questions i'm stuck on could be more beneficial, then just doing actual past papers in exam conditions closer to the time?