The Student Room Group

Striving for the Best Possible Grades!

Get Good or Get Good Trying
Well, hopefully having one of these things will help me to keep motivated!

The general idea for me is that if I have to post what I've done to the merciless internet, I want to make sure I'm actually doing stuff to post about (ahah).
About Me
So, greetings! I'm roarchika, and I'm in the lower sixth at the moment. Due to an incomprehensible desire to do all of the things, I'm taking so many subjects that my teachers are giving me terrified looks, and I want to achieve over 90% in every exam I sit this year. My hobbies include bashing my head into a wall, contemplating the futility of my existence, and playing the ukulele. They also include debating (I co-coach my school's Year 8 group), playing video games, and cooking.

At the time of writing, I have 3 months and 10 days until my first exam. (also until my birthday!)
Things to Get Good At (Soon):
So, here are my subjects:
AS Latin
AS Classical Civilisations OCR (self-taught)
AS Critical Thinking (self-taught)
GCSE Japanese (self-taught)
GCSE Classical Civilisations (self-taught)
EPQ (due in next month)
A Level Economics (reformed)
A Level History (reformed)

I only have exams in the italicised ones this year, as my school hasn't entered me for non-compulsory exams (it's a little low on money right now, apparently).
As you can see, I uh. I do a bunch of those out of school.
(If anyone has GCSE ClassCiv Rome/Sparta/Odyssey notes or AS Rome/Odyssey notes please hit me up I'm quietly desperate!!!!)
Defining 'Good':
I'm predicted As in my AS Levels and A*s in my GCSEs so I feel a little sketchy entering this under grow your grades, but I really want an 'A+' in my AS Levels (so that I'll get predicted an A* next year in the ones I carry on) and I want to be comfortable in my GCSE A*s - so I hope it's still okay to call this a grow your grades thread!

I want these grades a) because I am a perfectionist, b) because if I could do it at GCSE I can do it now and c) because if I could get into Oxford that would be very very nice and I would be very very happy.

So. Here we go.
The Plan:
- Updates every 2 - 3 days with progress, talking about my revision methods, what I'm finding hard, and what I'm finding useful
- That's literally the entire plan oh God
The (Revision) Plan:
- I have a Latin lit mock on Monday so tomorrow will be devoted to revising my texts - I've learnt the relevant vocab already so it shouldn't be too bad
(update: done, dusted, and got an A (84%) on my first Latin mock! Waiting for the other one to be marked.)
- Use 3 days of half-term to finish my EPQ, 1 day to relax and de-stress, and the remaining 3 to do Critical Thinking and ClassCiv AS papers
(update: EPQ done, awaiting feedback. 1/3 papers completed.)
- My exam timetable says I have Latin AS, CritThink, and 1 ClassCiv AS (Odyssey) before summer half-term, so the majority of my spring half-term holiday revision will be on that. I'll decide what to do at Easter a little later.
- Do Japanese and Latin vocab practice every day on wanikani and memrise for at least 20 minutes (I've been doing this for the past 3 weeks already)
Most Recent Mock Results:
History: A* (90% exactly) and an A (82%)
Economics: A (84%)
Latin: A (84%)
Japanese: A* (overall 92%)

Conclusion:
So, I hope you guys can help me and I can help you and together we can all form a cohesive, helpful society! Here's to me not abandoning this thing super early because I have the attention span of a small child!

-roarchika
(edited 8 years ago)
Wow, that is a lot of subjects! I wish I would have considered self teaching a subject now! And there's nothing wrong with making a grow your grades thread if you are predicted outstanding results because this is still a great way to track your progress :smile:
Reply 2
Original post by jessyjellytot14
Wow, that is a lot of subjects! I wish I would have considered self teaching a subject now! And there's nothing wrong with making a grow your grades thread if you are predicted outstanding results because this is still a great way to track your progress :smile:


Ahah, I didn't think they were at the time but then I sort of sat down and listed them and swore profusely at myself! And hey, if you're in Year 12 it's really not too late! GCSE/AS subjects aren't too hard to self-study if they're essay based and you can get access to a textbook :biggrin:
Original post by roarchika
Ahah, I didn't think they were at the time but then I sort of sat down and listed them and swore profusely at myself! And hey, if you're in Year 12 it's really not too late! GCSE/AS subjects aren't too hard to self-study if they're essay based and you can get access to a textbook :biggrin:


I am self teaching myself AS Maths, A2 History and A2 Economics, it really isn't that hard, even more so when you learn via textbooks rather than presentations which was what sixth form was in my case.

Good luck
Reply 4
Original post by BradleyLawrence
I am self teaching myself AS Maths, A2 History and A2 Economics, it really isn't that hard, even more so when you learn via textbooks rather than presentations which was what sixth form was in my case.

Good luck


Maths?! See, now there's a subject I absolutely couldn't teach myself - I'm super impressed! Yeah, what with the internet nowadays, even if a textbook is lacking you'll probably be able to find out most things. I personally learn through discussion: so I'm very lucky that my Latin teacher is happy to discuss ClassCiv stuff with me.

Thank you, and good luck to you too!
Reply 5
OK, well, here's to the first update!
Since yesterday I have finished noting 1/3 units of ClassCiv GCSE. I only started like 5 days ago so I'm pretty pleased with that. I also finished roughly 1/3 of my history homework - gotta stay on top of it! It was to note 20 pages, read 30 pages, and write a speech. I've read the 30 pages and noted 10 pages so far. I've also done my Japanese revision this morning (did some grammar too!) and am about to do my Latin vocab. I would have been more productive but my mum called (my parents live abroad and I live with my sister) so I spent essentially all morning talking to her oops!
I'm planning to take a 2 hour break after that and then do my set text revision, after which I have some more Japanese to do (writing, this time), and then I'm done for the day!
Reply 6
Day 2! I felt weirdly lethargic today...

So I did a full Latin literature mock, which is good! I then did my usual Latin and Japanese revision. I also wrote two Japanese essays between yesterday and today.... does that count? :biggrin:
I'm going to make some history notes then go to bed, I have a debating competition tomorrow argh >-<
Reply 7
The last few days were hectic, so I didn't have time to update. But never fear!
I got my 1st Latin lit mock back - 42/50, which was 84%. My teacher said that one of the questions had been worded very strangely, and that the actual exam would probably be a little easier, so I'm glad! I'm only 3 marks off 90%!
Half term begins today - today is dedicated to homework, tomorrow morning to starting my EPQ reading, Sunday to finishing it, and then Monday and possibly Tuesday to writing up the last 1000 words or so that I need. The rest of half term will be ClassCiv revision, Japanese revision, and doing Critical Thinking papers!!
Reply 8
Breathes.
3 months minus 1 day till exams. Also my birthday. I'm turning 17. And then I'll almost be an adult. Good lord.

So: I finished all of my homework but a speech on Napoleon on Friday, and Saturday ended up being a vocab day - might have another of those tomorrow/later today. I had friends around in the evening for the first time in 6 months, and it was really refreshing to have the 'gang' back together again! My EPQ reading/writing was finished between Sunday and Monday - it's now 7600 words so I damn well hope my supervisor is happy with it! Today/yesterday (it's just passed midnight) was spent organising my history notes and updating my EPQ bibliography, as well as having my Japanese lesson. I got 47/50 on a listening exam and 49/50 on a reading exam so I'm feeling pretty good!
Tomorrow/today I want to a) do my Odyssey ClassCiv notes, b) check my Rome ClassCiv notes and c) try to do some extra vocab in Latin. If I can do that I'll be wayyy ahead of the google keep list I have for this half term, and can devote Thurs/Fri/the weekend to past paper practice.

Gotta keep it up!
Reply 9
Well, Thursday was devoted to vocab learning, and today I went through a Critical Thinking paper - I verbally answered questions or identified points I would make for longer questions and then checked them against the markscheme. I really like this method of revision - it's almost as efficient as doing the paper, and feels like a lot less effort. I'll definitely have to do an actual ClassCiv paper this weekend, but for the other CritThinking paper I'll probably do it the lazy way. Just doing 2 full papers in Easter should assure that I'll be fine for the actual exam.

For the rest of the day, I'm going to finish off my homework! It's just history; writing a speech defending Napoleon. And then... more vocab, I guess? :biggrin:
Reply 10
I changed the title of the thread because it's less than 3 months till exams now (shudders) and seeing the title keeps making me think I have more time than I actually do ahah!

After the last post I did do my history homework, but... I've just sort of hit a wall after. Memrise is well and good but it's so, so repetitive and I just can't seem to make myself do it? Does anyone have any ways they beat the studying stone wall of doom? Especially for vocab?

I've been feeling kinda down, so I think I'm just gonna play some video games and go to sleep. Tomorrow, I want to do a ClassCiv Odyssey paper - I'm also going to bike into town and then bike straight back, since that'll be 4 miles total and I want to see how quickly/well I manage it. I taught myself how to ride a bike with the help of a friend a few months ago, and soon I'll be using it to commute the 4 miles to school!

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