How long did you revise for GCSE and what were your grades?
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Original post by prosperousfuture
Thank You so much...this is just what I needed actually 
my mock grades were a real disappointment and I need to just forget about it. 11A*'s...thats amazing! Were you always achieving high grades like that?
my mock grades were a real disappointment and I need to just forget about it. 11A*'s...thats amazing! Were you always achieving high grades like that?Yes and no! My mocks were a real wake up call as I wanted to study medicine. Some subjects such as Maths & English were always high but my French, Biology, Chemistry were B's at mock. Getting to grips with real revision rather than messing about has helped my work ethic too. I have also learnt to listen to my teachers and focus in class etc...it can be done
good luckOriginal post by Wigwig
Put your mock grades behind you....you can easily raise your grades from now but you will have to revise! Ignore the comments which say 'I only read through the night before etc' they are either a genius or more likely lying. My dad is a secondary school teacher and he listens to loads of kids pretending that they are not working or playing revision down. Grades come with hard work, past papers go over and over, understand the mark scheme and ask your teachers. It can be done....I did it and ended up with 11A*s. I am now revising for my A levels
Postgraduate student here, so someone whose been in education a hell of a long time.
People aren't lying nor are they geniuses GCSEs are incredibly easy and A-A*s are doable with classwork/homework alone.
What this does do however is make you ill-prepared for a-levels
Original post by Oilfreak1
Postgraduate student here, so someone whose been in education a hell of a long time.
People aren't lying nor are they geniuses GCSEs are incredibly easy and A-A*s are doable with classwork/homework alone.
What this does do however is make you ill-prepared for a-levels
People aren't lying nor are they geniuses GCSEs are incredibly easy and A-A*s are doable with classwork/homework alone.
What this does do however is make you ill-prepared for a-levels
I beg to differ! Whilst I agree GCSE's are far easier than A levels to achieve the grades I did get at GCSE I would not have done on class work and homework alone (homework could be revision?). I achieved 5 A's at AS and aced the medical entrance exam last summer, I am on A* predictions for my A levels. You were fortunate if you thought GCSE's were incredibly easy but I am not sure many teachers would hold this view either. The message my school gives to the brightest students is to revise hard and practice past papers even at GCSE level.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by prosperousfuture
I'm aiming for as many A*'s and A's as I can get...so 11 A*'s and A's. My mock grades weren't the best but I didn't revise for them as much as I should've to be fair. I'd say that at an average the grades ranged from C/B's. My Year 10 mocks were better, in which I got a range of B's, A's and A*'s. My worry is that I'm going downhill in my grades!
I did fairly poorly in year 10, so you're already doing better than me :P I really needed to up my game from there, so here's what I did:
2 Hours of revision every weekday, 4 hours every saturday, and sundays off (it's more important than ever at this point to treat yourself well).
Write notes from books, lessons, whatever, then condense those notes down again and again; rewording notes is a brilliant way to get the information to actually stay in your brain. I never went in for flashcards but if you want its only a few more condensations of your notes. In the end, I recieved 2 A*'s, 2 A's, 6 B's and one C. But that being said as you did better than me in year 10, you will likely do better following the same fomula!
Good luck!
Just keep the momentum that you have after your gcses when you get to A-level; it's really easy to remain so buoyed up from your gcse results that you ignore warning signs that your work ethic is slipping at A-level.
But anyway, good luck!
Okay this might be a bit of a downer, and I don't want to dampen your spirit but I would have loved for someone to tell me this at the start of my GCSEs. I was very much like you.
Okay, here we go;
Don't be disappointed if you don't get the results you were looking for, the exam boards are making loads of changes this year and you can never know what question you're going to get. It doesn't matter how much revision you do, there will be a few curveballs in there. For example, I was predicted an A* in Sociology, and on the day they put a question on the paper that wasn't even in the course - it was on the A level course. That 5 marks was the difference between an A and an A*.
Another example of unfairness would be my French exam. The conditions were pretty poor for the French exam, to give you a forward to the picture; I'm hard of hearing and have tinnitus. I had gained an A* in all of my coursework and other exams, and the last one was the listening section. On the day, we were separated into groups and put into rooms that had thin walls, and the audio was loud and started at different times - so we weren't even sure which speaker was ours. The invigilators kept on coming in and whispering and giggling to each other - louder than the actual audio tape! Then to top it all off, a builder pulled the fire alarm, they didn't even stop the tape, when we got back in the invigilators couldn't remember where we were up to, so we just carried on!! The fire alarm messed up my already very bad hearing - and I couldn't hear anything over the ringing anyway. It was devastating - considering I wanted to do it for A Level
. I ended up getting a B by the way - but all the effort I put in - I deserved that A* (.
The moral of the long story is ; don't beat yourself up if you don't get the results you wanted or deserved. If you truly tried your best then you can walk away proud - knowing that there is nothing more you could have done.
That being said ; tips for revision (that helped me).Good luck, friend.
Okay, here we go;
Don't be disappointed if you don't get the results you were looking for, the exam boards are making loads of changes this year and you can never know what question you're going to get. It doesn't matter how much revision you do, there will be a few curveballs in there. For example, I was predicted an A* in Sociology, and on the day they put a question on the paper that wasn't even in the course - it was on the A level course. That 5 marks was the difference between an A and an A*.
Another example of unfairness would be my French exam. The conditions were pretty poor for the French exam, to give you a forward to the picture; I'm hard of hearing and have tinnitus. I had gained an A* in all of my coursework and other exams, and the last one was the listening section. On the day, we were separated into groups and put into rooms that had thin walls, and the audio was loud and started at different times - so we weren't even sure which speaker was ours. The invigilators kept on coming in and whispering and giggling to each other - louder than the actual audio tape! Then to top it all off, a builder pulled the fire alarm, they didn't even stop the tape, when we got back in the invigilators couldn't remember where we were up to, so we just carried on!! The fire alarm messed up my already very bad hearing - and I couldn't hear anything over the ringing anyway. It was devastating - considering I wanted to do it for A Level
. I ended up getting a B by the way - but all the effort I put in - I deserved that A* (. The moral of the long story is ; don't beat yourself up if you don't get the results you wanted or deserved. If you truly tried your best then you can walk away proud - knowing that there is nothing more you could have done.
That being said ; tips for revision (that helped me).
•
If you're basically copying information out of a textbook and memorizing it (which is what most of GCSEs really is), always re write it more concisely, and how you would understand it.
•
Do past papers!!!! I cannot stress this enough!!! Do one every week, get to know how to handle 'curveball' questions, don't just look at the textbooks and assume that because you have the knowledge that you will be able to get all the marks. Newsflash ; GCSEs are incredibly bizarre in what they might ask you - a lot of the questions in subjects like the sciences are just common sense answers - you wouldn't even need knowledge of the course to answer.
•
Just because a lot of the course is common sense doesn't mean that you don't need to memorize the course in detail. Something tiny in the textbook could be the subject of the big question with the bulk of the marks. Know everything there is to know about the course.
•
It doesn't matter how much revision you do - if you know the course; you know it. Simple as that. The only preparation you can do after the course has finished and you KNOW it is past papers.
•
Get your practice papers marked - see how teachers and examiners mark them.
Original post by golidlocks
Okay this might be a bit of a downer, and I don't want to dampen your spirit but I would have loved for someone to tell me this at the start of my GCSEs. I was very much like you.
Okay, here we go;
Don't be disappointed if you don't get the results you were looking for, the exam boards are making loads of changes this year and you can never know what question you're going to get. It doesn't matter how much revision you do, there will be a few curveballs in there. For example, I was predicted an A* in Sociology, and on the day they put a question on the paper that wasn't even in the course - it was on the A level course. That 5 marks was the difference between an A and an A*.
Another example of unfairness would be my French exam. The conditions were pretty poor for the French exam, to give you a forward to the picture; I'm hard of hearing and have tinnitus. I had gained an A* in all of my coursework and other exams, and the last one was the listening section. On the day, we were separated into groups and put into rooms that had thin walls, and the audio was loud and started at different times - so we weren't even sure which speaker was ours. The invigilators kept on coming in and whispering and giggling to each other - louder than the actual audio tape! Then to top it all off, a builder pulled the fire alarm, they didn't even stop the tape, when we got back in the invigilators couldn't remember where we were up to, so we just carried on!! The fire alarm messed up my already very bad hearing - and I couldn't hear anything over the ringing anyway. It was devastating - considering I wanted to do it for A Level. I ended up getting a B by the way - but all the effort I put in - I deserved that A* (.
The moral of the long story is ; don't beat yourself up if you don't get the results you wanted or deserved. If you truly tried your best then you can walk away proud - knowing that there is nothing more you could have done.
That being said ; tips for revision (that helped me).Good luck, friend.
Okay, here we go;
Don't be disappointed if you don't get the results you were looking for, the exam boards are making loads of changes this year and you can never know what question you're going to get. It doesn't matter how much revision you do, there will be a few curveballs in there. For example, I was predicted an A* in Sociology, and on the day they put a question on the paper that wasn't even in the course - it was on the A level course. That 5 marks was the difference between an A and an A*.
Another example of unfairness would be my French exam. The conditions were pretty poor for the French exam, to give you a forward to the picture; I'm hard of hearing and have tinnitus. I had gained an A* in all of my coursework and other exams, and the last one was the listening section. On the day, we were separated into groups and put into rooms that had thin walls, and the audio was loud and started at different times - so we weren't even sure which speaker was ours. The invigilators kept on coming in and whispering and giggling to each other - louder than the actual audio tape! Then to top it all off, a builder pulled the fire alarm, they didn't even stop the tape, when we got back in the invigilators couldn't remember where we were up to, so we just carried on!! The fire alarm messed up my already very bad hearing - and I couldn't hear anything over the ringing anyway. It was devastating - considering I wanted to do it for A Level
. I ended up getting a B by the way - but all the effort I put in - I deserved that A* (. The moral of the long story is ; don't beat yourself up if you don't get the results you wanted or deserved. If you truly tried your best then you can walk away proud - knowing that there is nothing more you could have done.
That being said ; tips for revision (that helped me).
•
If you're basically copying information out of a textbook and memorizing it (which is what most of GCSEs really is), always re write it more concisely, and how you would understand it.
•
Do past papers!!!! I cannot stress this enough!!! Do one every week, get to know how to handle 'curveball' questions, don't just look at the textbooks and assume that because you have the knowledge that you will be able to get all the marks. Newsflash ; GCSEs are incredibly bizarre in what they might ask you - a lot of the questions in subjects like the sciences are just common sense answers - you wouldn't even need knowledge of the course to answer.
•
Just because a lot of the course is common sense doesn't mean that you don't need to memorize the course in detail. Something tiny in the textbook could be the subject of the big question with the bulk of the marks. Know everything there is to know about the course.
•
It doesn't matter how much revision you do - if you know the course; you know it. Simple as that. The only preparation you can do after the course has finished and you KNOW it is past papers.
•
Get your practice papers marked - see how teachers and examiners mark them.
The gcse music exam board raised the grade boundaries for us in the time between us doing the exam and it being marked, so we all got one grade lower than we were predicted/rightfully attained from the work we'd put in. XD
Original post by Numbskull
The gcse music exam board raised the grade boundaries for us in the time between us doing the exam and it being marked, so we all got one grade lower than we were predicted/rightfully attained from the work we'd put in. XD
As if! What a joke. Sorry that happened to you.
Original post by golidlocks
As if! What a joke. Sorry that happened to you.
I'm not even angry it just makes me laugh how silly it is XD thanks though
Original post by Username3097486
How did you make your notes
For sciences and maths, I literally just went through the textbook and on a piece of paper either made bullet points or did questions and answers next to them (so my friends or parents could take my notes pages and ask me the questions and check).
Then to revise I'd just read through them.
For English I didn't really revise, just read through my class notes and familiarized myself with the book/poems.
I didn't do much revision but now I'm doing A Levels I've realised past papers and stuff are a lot more helpful.
Original post by Wigwig
I beg to differ! Whilst I agree GCSE's are far easier than A levels to achieve the grades I did get at GCSE I would not have done on class work and homework alone (homework could be revision?). I achieved 5 A's at AS and aced the medical entrance exam last summer, I am on A* predictions for my A levels. You were fortunate if you thought GCSE's were incredibly easy but I am not sure many teachers would hold this view either. The message my school gives to the brightest students is to revise hard and practice past papers even at GCSE level.
I went to a terrible secondary school in south london. Me and my group of friends instead of revising pulled pranks on friends who were already sitting their exams (best days of my life). Every single one of us had at minimum 10 A*-A grades at GCSE in a school where a B grade was considered an incredible achievement.
I don't think my exams were any easier than current GCSEs (I tutor GCSE Maths). I did struggle alot in a-levels though which is probably why teachers stress that their bright students study alot, not so much for the GCSEs (which are ridiculously easy) but for the coming A-levels.
For weaker students study is absolutely essential however. Tutored a D grade student to A* in less than 2 months.
Edit: by no revision I don't mean totally dossing off I mean paying attention and being actively involved in class and completing homework to the highest standard possible.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Macauley Ware
I didn't revise for my mocks and i achieved:
A*s: Chemistry, physics, biology, maths, history, astronomy, religious studies
A: English Lit and Lang, Geography, Geology,
C/D: French
- And now in the sense of being a decent human being, i aim to revise as much as possible over the next month or two so when results day comes, i can consul people who missed out on their grades, and not be that person who underachieved!
A*s: Chemistry, physics, biology, maths, history, astronomy, religious studies
A: English Lit and Lang, Geography, Geology,
C/D: French
- And now in the sense of being a decent human being, i aim to revise as much as possible over the next month or two so when results day comes, i can consul people who missed out on their grades, and not be that person who underachieved!
Wow! At least you're on track!
Original post by prosperousfuture
I'm aiming for as many A*'s and A's as I can get...so 11 A*'s and A's. My mock grades weren't the best but I didn't revise for them as much as I should've to be fair.
I actually started revising for them a few months before, so around Christmas. I highly recommend that you start revising as soon as possible, then you won't need to cram at the last time, which is never a good idea. Revising well in advance is also highly useful for the subjects that have a lot of content, for example History. Any spare time that you have at the moment - use it to revise. My Chemistry teacher always told us to do at least 15 mins a day in Year 10 and carry that over to Year 11, but I never did so. That is a really good piece of advice! And when it comes to revision, make sure that this isn't just reading over class notes - own notes, past papers, peers and flashcards must be involved. Trust me when I say it'll all be worth it in the end!!
As for my grades...
A* : English Language, English Literature, Maths, Chemistry, Physics, German, Spanish
A: Biology, Religious Studies
B: History, ICT and the OCR Maths FSMQ qualification (which is technically AS-level but meh)
All the best! and don't forget to use your time very wisely!
Christ I revised like mental for the 6 months between January until my exams in June and I didn't get one A even though I was predicted them. I left with 3 B's, 4 C's and 1 D in French and I tried as hard as I could so I think it depends on how much you enjoy the subject and also how smart you are. I'm clearly not as clever as my teachers built me up to be...
Ï önlee rivïzd fuhr uhraund a munth bifor thee ixamz and ï endid up with 11 A*s.
Original post by sue99
OCR Maths FSMQ qualification (which is technically AS-level but meh)
Unfortunately it doesn't count as an AS because it is not as hard as one, although I beg to differ after doing some Past Papers
Original post by D3VST4R
Unfortunately it doesn't count as an AS because it is not as hard as one, although I beg to differ after doing some Past Papers
Have you done any AS maths, C1, C2 or S1/M1?
In study leave I did about 6 hours 40 minutes a day, focusing on my weak/most important subjects the most, and I got 8 A*s and 2 As. Before study leave I did a bit here and there, but not a lot. I'd recommend starting revision earlier than I did, so then you don't have to do as much each day.
Original post by prosperousfuture
I'm aiming for as many A*'s and A's as I can get...so 11 A*'s and A's. My mock grades weren't the best but I didn't revise for them as much as I should've to be fair.
Original post by jakepds
Have you done any AS maths, C1, C2 or S1/M1?
Not really, no. I guess you're here to tell me that AS is a lot harder? I heard that FSMQ Ad Maths is similar in terms of content but harder so you are right if that's what you were going to say.
Original post by D3VST4R
Not really, no. I guess you're here to tell me that AS is a lot harder? I heard that FSMQ Ad Maths is similar in terms of content but harder so you are right if that's what you were going to say.
Well ad maths does, indeed include some things from the first two modules but by no means is it an AS.
There are people in my class that are geniuses (I'm talking 10A*s, year early entry to Cambridge etc etc) that did Ad maths and there are some people that haven't done it and they manage just the same.
Good on you that you're doing it, I'm just saying don't feel like that is as hard as it gets, because C4 looks absolutely terrifying!
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