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Amy's adventures to her aspirational A* grades

Hi! Welcome to my grow your grades blog :biggrin: I thought I would participate in this to motivate me with my studies and become more organised (and hopefully become less stressed). Hopefully, I manage to update this as I go through the next remaining weeks :smile:
This year, I'm doing my GCSEs, and the grades I would like to achieve are:

Maths: A*
Physics: A*
Biology: A*
English: A*
English Literature: A*
RS: A*
Geography: A*
Latin: A/A*
Drama: A
French: B
Music: B
Already achieved:
Chemistry - A*

I need at least 4 A*s to get into the sixth form I want to, with an A/A* grade for the subjects I want to study. I'm going to study: Maths, Chemistry, Physics and Geography at A Level, however I'm contemplating whether I should do Further Maths too

My revision techniques are:

•

Sum up notes on a notebook (normally after studying the topic learnt that day at school. Skip this step if already previously learnt)

•

After finishing entire topic, rewrite notes on a colourful mind map (however, I make mind maps closer to the actual exam) :smile:

•

OR

•

Rewrite notes onto flash cards, then use these flash cards later to read from to make more mind maps later on

•

Read, cover, write, check

•

I also use apps, such as Quizlet and Duolingo, which really help when I'm on the go :biggrin:. I make flashcards on Duolingo for vocabulary, e.g. for languages, the term on one side and the definition on the other. For sciences etc., I come up with questions and answers for the important bits

•

Studyblrs on tumblr are also very motivating

•

A cup of tea and a study playlist on Spotify will also get me motivated :smile:

In an exam that requires just speaking, e.g Drama/ French speaking, I would just read the content, say as much as I can, then read over what I missed/forgot, then repeat until I get it right :smile:
I like to hang up my mind maps on my wardrobe/wall etc., where I can look at whilst doing something :smile:

--------------------

Things I need to do: (Priority)
-Music: Appraisal, Solo and Ensemble piece
-English: Reread OMAM and AIC, and annotate for quotations
-French: Final CA
-Geography - Restless Earth revision, Human, Rivers flash cards
-Biology - 1B
-Physics - Core cards
(edited 8 years ago)

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Original post by vincentvangogh
Hi! I thought I would participate in this to motivate me with my studies (and hopefully become less stressed). Hopefully, I manage to update this as I go through the next remaining weeks :smile:
This year, I'm doing my GCSEs, and I hope to get:

Maths: A*
Physics: A*
Biology: A*
English: A*
English Literature: A*
RS: A*
Geography: A*
Latin: A/A*
Drama: A
French: B
Music: B

I wish you the best of luck! I'm also in Year 11 and I've started my revision, making resources and flash cards. What A Levels are you thinking of taking?
Original post by romansholiday
I wish you the best of luck! I'm also in Year 11 and I've started my revision, making resources and flash cards. What A Levels are you thinking of taking?


Thank you so much! Good luck to you too :smile:. That's really good, flash cards are really helpful - I think I'll try them out :smile:. My A-Level choices are Chemistry, Physics, Maths and Geography. How about you?
Friday 29th January

Today, we found out our results for our Maths biweekly exam (calculator), and I got 84 marks! :smile:
English lesson was on answering Q2 on the Language paper, and I got a bit confused, so I'm going to revise the structure for that paper soon.
I revised hydraulics in my free periods (hooray for no more PE!), the motor effect and electromagnetic induction, which I found extremely confusing.

Saturday 30th January

Aims-
-Answer the Physics 3 questions
-Do Physics 3 mind map
-Revise paragraph for French
(edited 8 years ago)
French... RIP you. Jking, all the best :h:
Original post by Imperion
French... RIP you. Jking, all the best :h:


Ahaha, thanks :smile:
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by vincentvangogh
Thank you so much! Good luck to you too :smile:. That's really good, flash cards are really helpful - I think I'll try them out :smile:. My A-Level choices are Chemistry, Physics, Maths and Geography. How about you?

Biology, Geography and Chemistry (I might swap Chem for Eng Lit, it really depends on how I do on the GCSE and how much a really like the subject).
Original post by romansholiday
Biology, Geography and Chemistry (I might swap Chem for Eng Lit, it really depends on how I do on the GCSE and how much a really like the subject).


Ahh, that's a good combo :smile: what were you thinking of doing at Uni?
Original post by vincentvangogh
Ahh, that's a good combo :smile: what were you thinking of doing at Uni?

I want to do something medical/health care related, so I've been looking at medicine (obvs need Chemistry so that's another dilemma..), nursing and operating department practitioner. You?
Original post by romansholiday
I want to do something medical/health care related, so I've been looking at medicine (obvs need Chemistry so that's another dilemma..), nursing and operating department practitioner. You?


Ah, that's really interesting :smile:, I want to go into Geology :smile:, good luck for everything :smile:
Saturday 30th January

So today I went out with my friend, but I managed to do 3 of 6 pages of Physics questions on the bus. When I was going home, I didn't realise I sat on a bin juice smelling, probably human piss pond on the bus home, until I reached my stop, with wet jeans as I left the bus. I was super furious so I didn't have any time to revise for my French and complete Physics. I did two topics in Duolingo of French, however :smile:

Sunday 31st January

How is it the last day of January tomorrow. Didn't January just start like, last week?

Aims:
-Revise French paragraph
-Revise and complete Physics homework (none of P3 part B is getting to my head :frown:)
-Possibly begin Geography project
(edited 8 years ago)
Sunday 31st January
-Completed revising French paragraph
-Completed some Physics homework, and added to Physics mind map, but I have the urge to write them onto flash cards now, so I can't finish watching Skins :frown:

Monday 1st February:

I have a class trip to a Sixth Form so I get to miss the Physics convention after school :smile:

Aims:
-Revise for Physics 3 (I think I have a test coming up soon)
-Begin Geography homework
Monday 1st February

I managed to complete a few more flashcards on Physics, revised over my French but I can't seem to be able to remember it so I'll do some more tomorrow. Didn't manage to start my Geography homework, though :/

Tuesday 2nd February

Two more days until my birthday :biggrin:

Aims:
-Revise Centripetal force
-Do Geog homework
-Revise French paragraph
Tuesday 2nd February

I managed to finish all of the things I hoped to do, but I still need to complete my Maths homework that I've just remembered oops

Wednesday 3rd February

One more day until my birthday!!

Aims:
-Make flash-cards for Geography
-Revise for French CA
Thursday 4th February
Ahh I didn't post yesterday, but today is my birthday and I've finally hit the ol' 16 :smile:
I had my French retake, and I did quite mediocre. I think I got maybe a B, or a low A, but I'm quite pleased to get it over and done with :biggrin:

Friday 5th February

I have a P3 part B mock tomorrow so I'm going to go over my flash cards and some topics tomorrow in my free period.
I think I find out if I got an interview for Harris Westminster also, so that'll be interesting to see :smile:

Aims:
-Revise P3
-Make Geography flashcards
Friday 5th February

I had Science after school, but I managed to do write some more Physics flashcards during my free :smile:. I also had an end of unit exam, and I think I did alright.. my teacher made the questions up himself and they're not like AQA's format but it really helps with the different styles. I also found out I have a Harris Westminster interview next Saturday, so I'm quite nervous but excited because it's on Geography which is my favourite subject :biggrin:. I also read some more of my book, 'The Planet in a Pebble' by Jan Zalasiewicz, and it's really interesting so far :smile:

Sunday 7th February

I'm going out with my friends on Saturday so I doubt I'll be able to revise :smile:, regardless, I hope to read more of my book. So, on Sunday, I have to:

-Make Geography flashcards
-Revise Physics 3 part 1
(edited 8 years ago)
Sunday 7th February

Need. To. Stop. Procrastinating. Literally my life. I managed to revise 1/3 of Geography and complete my flashcards, and do an almost complete Physics past paper, but I'm so unmotivated rn :frown:. Literally, this February half term I need to make so many flashcards!!

Monday 8th February

Woo! Last week of term.

To do
-Geography flashcards
-Music appraisal
Monday 8th February

Welcome to my daily update where I bring you! More boring stuff : )
We did a Physics exam and I already did the paper we did in class at home as a practice paper, so um that wasn't too fun. I managed to revise some more Geog and I did half of Osmosis and I got distracted and ended up on youtube then TSR oops. I'm already planning for my half term break, and tbh I'm quite excited for revising over half term :s

Tuesday 9th Feburary

It's honestly flying by and I feel like I have done crap all despite it only being Feb :frown:

To do:
-Final Geog flashcards and revise!!!
-If I have time, revise s'more Bio!!
Tuesday 9th February

Pancake day! How fun. Today I managed to complete my geography revision, just need to read over my flashcards again. I did half a page of biology before getting distracted again woo. I am also contemplating whether or not to do further maths at A level, but I have't done add. maths gcse so I don't want to feel super behind if I choose it :frown:

Wednesday 10th February

I have my geog end of unit exam tomorrow as well as Latin class, so that'll be fun. I don't really have any high priorities, but I'm just going to catch up with biology notes because I really do not get anything in class :frown:. And, I'll have to read some of my book too!
Monday 15th February

Wow I totally forgot to update, but I'll just quickly update the past week :smile:

I haven't revised much, as half term has began so I'll hopefully revise a lot of things. So far, I'm revising Biology core (which probably has the most boring topics sorry) so I can get that over and done with. My geog test went okay, though I realised I wrote the viscosity of lava of shield and composite volcanoes the wrong way round so that sucks.

On Saturday, I had an interview for Harris Westminster and I cannot reiterate how many times I stumbled and stuttered, I had to gather myself so many times it was awful. The interviewer asked me how geog affected my day and my reply began with how much I love physical geog, then she made me realise and I replied 'I went on the tube today which is underground' oh dear. Overall, despite the awful stuttering and mistakes I made, it probably went well, but that's probably just my optimistic view upon everything.

I'm going to try out the Cornell Method of note-taking so hopefully it will prove effective :biggrin:

For the following week, I'm going to try and make it as productive as I can, hopefully popping to the library every other day as my concentration is lacking. I will hopefully finish Biology core notes, doing some more flashcards for Latin vocab, rewrite French CA and practice for my Drama performance :smile:.
(edited 8 years ago)

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