Revision: the earlier the better?

So I'm in year nine at the moment, and I was wondering when the best time to start revising for my GCSE's was? I was thinking that when I hit year 10 in September, I'll revise 5 times a week after school. A year 11 in my form tutor told me to do this and he's predicted A*/A's because he just put a bit more effort in than everybody else. He has the weekends free and is perfectly happy with his life. He said that keeping his head down for a couple of years won't hurt anybody, but would only make his life better for the near future. Should I do the same?

Reply 1

Chlorophile

Original post by galapogos

Everyone has their own way of revising but personally, I think the idea of starting to revise in Year 10 is nonsense and anyone who genuinely claims that they've revised regularly from the start of Year 10 is a liar. Most people start revising a bit before the Winter mocks in Year 11 and seriously in Spring Year 11 and that's generally plenty.

The issue with starting revision in Year 10 is as follows:
-You won't be able to keep it up because you'll get bored and may well lose the will to live because GCSEs aren't very interesting
-You'll have forgotten the stuff you've revised by Year 11
-It's simply not necessary
-You'll burn yourself out in time for the real exams

The amount of revision you need varies from person to person, but you definitely do not need two years. I am sure that the majority of A/A* students didn't start revising properly until at earliest 3 months before their exams. It's really great that you've got enthusiasm, but you'll be doing yourself a lot more good if you spend that time enriching your study by going beyond the curriculum (like doing outside reading) than revising tedious GCSE content!

Reply 2

C0balt

You don't need to start at the start of Year 10, definitely not. (of course if you can then go ahead!)

Most of the good, model, enthusiastic and motivated students would start their revision at the start of year 11 the earliest (I only know one person who did it, and she got 8A*s) and majority of model students would start revision before mocks in January. Some bad students would start from Easter holiday in Year 11 or even worse guys start a few days before.

I would say make sure you have your notes from class are organised, and make sure to pay attention in every class and do every homework given. That should be enough for Year 10, really.
If your class notes are organised, you may not even need to make hundreds of pages of revision notes later unlike some people spend hours on. You could just do a simple timeline or spider diagrams for each topic. Listening in class is very essential as well, though it can be boring, especially for people who learn a lot by listening (like me). In my case, most of the concepts sink in my brain just by paying attention in class and interacting with the teacher and I can hear the teacher talking in exams (ofc they don't but it feels like it).

You can start revising starting from year 10, and it's good that you are a serious student, but it's very hard to keep yourself motivated for GCSEs they are really dull imo...you are forced to take subjects you don't care about and even if the subject is your favourite it can be too easy sometimes or maybe too hard possibly.
So yeah as I said if you keep yourself up to date with all the homework and classnotes, pay attention in class then you are fine!

Reply 3

Samuelcd

Well, I expect youve heard this before, but it really does depend. I can't really see how you could revise from the start of year 10... Perhaps making revision cards and notes that you then use for your revision in Year 11 though.

Personally, I have always been better revising later. I started properly in the Easter Holidays, doing approximately 6 hours a day. Now I do 3 hours a night after school and 8 hours on a sunday (saturday off). I only revise for my exams that are within two weeks. This worked for me last year, as so I am counting on it again this year. However leaving all revision for only a few weeks can be disastrous - perhaps use the end of year 10 exams to experiment?