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Advice from previous Year 11's to upcoming Year 11's

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Just finished Year 11:

1) Year 11 went so quickly! September to November was packed full of coursework, then mocks prep in December. January was a drag with mostly 2 or 3 exams each day for 2 weeks! Didn't revise much for them and still did well surprisingly. Other who didn't do well definitely got a reality check. February to May flew by with finishing coursework and revision. Before you know it exams will be upon you. I definitely didn't revise enough for the real exams, only revised night before for most!

2) 19!

3) Start revising ASAP, don't leave it all last minute like I did! Make sure you try your best for coursework as it can really make a difference to your final grade. Be organised with revision notes!


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(edited 9 years ago)
Pretty much just finished Year 11.

1) How was year 11 for you?
It was... alright. I did have a situation or two when completing Drama coursework due to someone in the class but I won't really talk about that and I had a panic attack after finishing the English IGCSE exam because the day after was the group performances for Drama. And I did leave revising a little too late but not as extreme as to leave it until the day before the exam, all in all for me, it was pretty much the same as Year 10- with a bunch of people in my year complaining how they don't need GCSEs and such.

2) How many exams did you sit?
15.

3) What advice will you like to give to the upcoming year 11s?
Don't be nervous because I can guaruntee you might have a panic attack (or a nervous breakdown) because it will be alright soon enough! Stick to what you know about the subjects you are doing, make sure you and your friends support each other. Stay calm and just breathe, think of what you might do when you finish that exam but do answer the questions- try to stay positive and then soon, Year 11 will have finished and then summer's dedicated to whatever you do (until results day and September, but they're a different thing altogether!).
(edited 9 years ago)
1) How was year 11 for you?
Well it started just like any other year, then i learnt about what i am to do after year 11, in December and that's when i was getting worried if i were too late to change and come out with good grades. I became a real exam freak, wanting to know every last bit of science for the exam, it only got tired around April time, when i started properly revising, even then i still avoided every chance to study. In the end i think i have done relatively well, we'll have to wait and see to ensure that though!

2) How many exams did you sit?

23!!

3)What advice will you like to give to the upcoming year 11s?
realise soon that Year 11 will be the biggest deal of your life so far, not a big deal, but rather important, If you were careless and lackluster the last 4 years, just try this year, then once you have your results you can breeze pass the summer knowing you can do whatever you want next September......

Although class is important, don't take ****ty teacher's advice on how to revise, get the books, read through them, past papers, etc.,,........ make sure you've got everything in your head that you need to know, oh and don't what i did and spend a good 2 hours of sleep thinking about the exam the night before, just go into it with full confidence..
Original post by funkydee19
Thought I would make an 'advice' thread where Current Year 10s can ask questions about Year 11 and get any advice from me or other year 11s. To get things started:

If you are in year 10 going into year 11:
1) What GCSE's are you taking?

2) What are your expectations of year 11?

3)Are you looking forward to year 11?


1) Triple Science, Maths, Stats(done), Music, German, English Lit, English Lang, Computer Science, Geography, RE(half)

2) I feel that it will be harder than year 10, as my maths teacher needs to teach us over half the course since our year 9 teacher was so crap, and apparently the final science modules are the hardest? :frown:

3) Yes, mainly for a fresh start. At the beginning of year 10 I really didn't try as hard as I should have, but I've improved now. I even have aspirations of Oxbridge! :colondollar: (lol lol ol o lol ollo l loi000djowpf :frown:)

EDIT: Is the english lang speaking exam scary? :frown: :frown: :frown: :frown: lol
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 84
Original post by Strom
1) Triple Science, Maths, Stats(done), Music, German, English Lit, English Lang, Computer Science, Geography, RE(half)

2) I feel that it will be harder than year 10, as my maths teacher needs to teach us over half the course since our year 9 teacher was so crap, and apparently the final science modules are the hardest? :frown:

3) Yes, mainly for a fresh start. At the beginning of year 10 I really didn't try as hard as I should have, but I've improved now. I even have aspirations of Oxbridge! :colondollar: (lol lol ol o lol ollo l loi000djowpf :frown:)


You'll be surprised, there's not actually that much of a difference

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Original post by Steliata
If you are in year 10 going into year 11:
1) What GCSE's are you taking?
Maths, English Lang, English Lit, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, RS, IT, History, Mandarin Chinese, Philosophy and Ethics, Music. Quite varied!

2) What are your expectations of year 11?
I think it will be hard work but it will pay off in the end. Hopefully I won't have so many extra-curriculars this year because there were a lot of demands on my time this past year. At least I'll have an actual excuse lol

3)Are you looking forward to year 11?
Yes, in an odd way. I feel rather important. Although I know it's going to be hard work and I need to get my act together with revision strategies I think I'll enjoy it. :smile:

All the best :smile: Yeah they should allow you to leave those extra curricular activities. I know in my school they made everyone leave extra curricular before December I think and others were able to leave if they want.
Original post by Strom
1) Triple Science, Maths, Stats(done), Music, German, English Lit, English Lang, Computer Science, Geography, RE(half)

2) I feel that it will be harder than year 10, as my maths teacher needs to teach us over half the course since our year 9 teacher was so crap, and apparently the final science modules are the hardest? :frown:

3) Yes, mainly for a fresh start. At the beginning of year 10 I really didn't try as hard as I should have, but I've improved now. I even have aspirations of Oxbridge! :colondollar: (lol lol ol o lol ollo l loi000djowpf :frown:)

EDIT: Is the English lang speaking exam scary? :frown: :frown: :frown: :frown: lol

Honestly the final science modules seemed difficult to me while learning it in class but I found the exams so much more easier for triple than I did for Core and Additional. They don't make the exams too difficult because they know that Triple is extra and isn't considered as easy as core and additional.
I have never taken an English lang speaking exam before? Are you doing English as a second language or is this for the actual English lang GCSE? Because we never had to do that, just controlled assessments.
Yeah, I would deffo recommend trying hard, I was the same as you. I didn't really try hard in Year 10, but definitely do so in year 11, you don't want to later regret anything, make the most of all your lessons.
Reply 87
1) How was year 11 for you?
Year 11 was fairly chill for me. I believe that I put it much more work than I needed to in year 10 towards a lot of my options, so I felt like I had an easy ride there, but coursework for core subjects was a drain. The revision towards the beginning of my exams was maddening.

2) How many exams did you sit?

11

3)What advice will you like to give to the upcoming year 11s?

You don't have to go crazy and revise all year, but I do very much recommend that you create some sort of loose revision timetable for at least a month before your first exams. I did this and it definitely made me think as though I did better in my exams than if I hadn't, although results day hasn't come around yet so who knows!
1) How was year 11 for you?Boring if I'm honest. Started off calm like we had all the time in the world. By May, most of my subjects, especially Geography, Maths and Biology were cramming everything in because they went so slow over the year, so by then it got really boring. Biology, my favourite subject, was rubbish. Only because our teacher abandoned us and took the whole year off with 'stress' leaving us with supply teachers for the whole year, two of which quit after their first lesson with us. Nothing particularly good happened. So, in summary, year 11 was ****. 2) How many exams did you sit?16, more in year 10 and 9. 3) What advice will you like to give to the upcoming year 11s?Don't think you can mess about.Don't think its going to be anything special.Start with the end in sight.Be prepared to work hard.Don't be afraid to ask teachers something you don't understand!
Reply 89
1) How was year 11 for you?

It wasn't that different to previous year to be honest. The only difference was that everyone really had to start thinking about their future. It really began to dawn on us that the things that were happening later in the year could change our lives forever.
It was also quite boring because we spent a lot of time going over things we had already learnt and finishing coursework.

2) How many exams did you sit?

23

3) What advice will you like to give to the upcoming year 11s?

Take every exam, test and piece of coursework seriously because it all pays off in the end.
Put as much effort into your coursework as possible because it will make a big difference in the end.
Take your moc exams seriously so you can get a clear idea of how to improve.
Start revising early, The time goes really quickly, one minute you have six weeks and the next the exam is tomorrow.
Do sufficient revision for each subject before the exam period starts. It really tempting to just revise for the first few and revise for the rest later. You will find that you are really prepared for the first few and don't have enough time to do as much revision for the others as there is barely any time between exams.
Most importantly stay calm throughout the entire exam period. Worrying and panicking will lead to mistakes. Just remember the eleven week summer holiday afterwards.

Good luck!
:smile:
Reply 90
Advice... (I've finished year 11)....PAST PAPERS!!!!!!!!!!!! Go through ALL of them, you don't even need to answer questions at first, just familiarise yourself with the format. Once you get more confident, you can start attempting questions (after some revision of course). Once you've done that, go through the mark scheme and highlight the key words and phrases. Make sure you use them yourself in order to securely get the marks. This is general advise.

With maths, practice practice PRACTICE questions ALL the time!!! Practicing methods helps SO much! Don't give up, think of it as a puzzle you need to solve.

With English (my worst subject), make sure you look up essay techniques for the exams, and make sure you get top bands in coursework! Makes a huge difference. Mr Bruff on youtube is a fantastic help in English Lit and Lang; he got me from being a U grade english student to a B/A grade student xD

So yea, practice makes perfect. Also, don't listen to the targets your teachers give you. Make your own personal goals and make sure you get the grades needed to do your A level course. Basically, think ahead of GCSE's. I sooooooo regret not doing triple science as i'm thinking of doing medicine later on. Imma have to work my butt off. I'm talking too much. If you get to the end of this...well done! :tongue:




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Original post by funkydee19
All the best :smile: Yeah they should allow you to leave those extra curricular activities. I know in my school they made everyone leave extra curricular before December I think and others were able to leave if they want.


Well the thing is I really like doing extra curriculars... I do rowing, two instruments, Girlguiding and Youth Parliament among other things. But I really enjoy them all *facepalm*

Next year however I won't be fundraising for an International trip, volunteering or DofE. Fingers crossed lol. I said yes to too much last year haha
Original post by Steliata
Well the thing is I really like doing extra curriculars... I do rowing, two instruments, Girlguiding and Youth Parliament among other things. But I really enjoy them all *facepalm*

Next year however I won't be fundraising for an International trip, volunteering or DofE. Fingers crossed lol. I said yes to too much last year haha

Ohh okay. It may be difficult to give up the things you love, but honestly it's only for less than a year and it will be so worth it! They should be able to understand? You will have an extra long summer to be able to participate in these activities :smile: I had to give up a few things I love to do for revision, and although I haven't received my results yet, I feel like it was worth it, as for quite a few of my exams, a lot of what I revised over and over again came up and I was able to answer them confidently
Original post by funkydee19
Ohh okay. It may be difficult to give up the things you love, but honestly it's only for less than a year and it will be so worth it! They should be able to understand? You will have an extra long summer to be able to participate in these activities :smile: I had to give up a few things I love to do for revision, and although I haven't received my results yet, I feel like it was worth it, as for quite a few of my exams, a lot of what I revised over and over again came up and I was able to answer them confidently


I suppose the thing about the extra long summer is true... but I don't think I'll give the things up, perhaps just scale them back. There's no point giving them up entirely as I never have any motivation to revise when I haven't got anything to do, surprisingly. I work when I'm like: 'I have one hour and this work is due tomorrow! WORK!' lol. I'm not very good at revision, although at least I actually tried this year. In year 9 I just sailed along doing nothing. *sigh*
Original post by Steliata
I suppose the thing about the extra long summer is true... but I don't think I'll give the things up, perhaps just scale them back. There's no point giving them up entirely as I never have any motivation to revise when I haven't got anything to do, surprisingly. I work when I'm like: 'I have one hour and this work is due tomorrow! WORK!' lol. I'm not very good at revision, although at least I actually tried this year. In year 9 I just sailed along doing nothing. *sigh*

Yeah haha I've been on holiday since June 13th and I've actually run out of things to do.. But yeah if you work better that way carry on with the activities (but keeping them to a minimum). I wish you all the best in year 11.
Original post by funkydee19
Yeah haha I've been on holiday since June 13th and I've actually run out of things to do.. But yeah if you work better that way carry on with the activities (but keeping them to a minimum). I wish you all the best in year 11.


Thank you very much, good luck with your results! I'm sure they'll be fab. :smile:
Original post by Steliata
Thank you very much, good luck with your results! I'm sure they'll be fab. :smile:

Thank youu, I do hope so :smile:
Did anyone else start Year 11 in the second summer half term? I did.
1) How was year 11 for you?
Better than year 10.:wink: But it became very stressful after Christmas.
2) How many exams did you sit?
20. Great fun.:cool:
3) What advice will you like to give to the upcoming year 11s?
Do PLENTY of past papers in advance. Start revisions as EARLY as possible. Seriously. Cramming does work for GCSE exams but you would be exhausted.
Reply 99
Original post by WinterWind
1) How was year 11 for you?
Better than year 10.:wink: But it became very stressful after Christmas.
2) How many exams did you sit?
20. Great fun.:cool:
3) What advice will you like to give to the upcoming year 11s?
Do PLENTY of past papers in advance. Start revisions as EARLY as possible. Seriously. Cramming does work for GCSE exams but you would be exhausted.


Revision? Pah

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