The Student Room Group

Wish upon A*...

Scroll to see replies

Reply 40
Original post by Student403
:cry2: Awww <3


you're welcome :h:
Good luck with your French ca! Is it possible to ask someone who is really good at French or a native French speaker to read your paragraphs so you can record them and listen back to them? I did this for my last speaking and I managed to get an A*. It's quite awkward to ask but it's more than worth the trouble! :smile:
Reply 42
Original post by Ara8311a
Good luck with your French ca! Is it possible to ask someone who is really good at French or a native French speaker to read your paragraphs so you can record them and listen back to them? I did this for my last speaking and I managed to get an A*. It's quite awkward to ask but it's more than worth the trouble! :smile:


Thank you! I don't think I'm going to be able to do that since I'm quite disorganised and haven't cut the length of the paragraphs yet - and it's on Monday. There's someone who speaks French in my year but we're all busy with work so I doubt she'd be able to find the time to do it :frown: I'll try using one of those online text-to-speech things instead to work on my pronunciation.
Original post by glassriver
Thank you! I don't think I'm going to be able to do that since I'm quite disorganised and haven't cut the length of the paragraphs yet - and it's on Monday. There's someone who speaks French in my year but we're all busy with work so I doubt she'd be able to find the time to do it :frown: I'll try using one of those online text-to-speech things instead to work on my pronunciation.


My paragraphs are insanely long too but we can do one more French CA. This should be my last unless I do a writing. :smile: Oh no! I begged my teacher to do it for me and my pronunciation is so bad that he actually agreed!

Good luck with your speaking!
Reply 44
Original post by Ara8311a
My paragraphs are insanely long too but we can do one more French CA. This should be my last unless I do a writing. :smile: Oh no! I begged my teacher to do it for me and my pronunciation is so bad that he actually agreed!

Good luck with your speaking!


Thanks! :smile: I did it today, my voice was a bit scratchy. I think I might be going down with something. She said it was OK but I think I'll take a re-take if I'm offered one just to be safe. Have you done yours yet?
Reply 45
Tuesday 22.03.16

days until first exam: 42
FOR ONCE I'M NOT COUNTING DOWN TO ANOTHER TEST: six times nine
days until easter hols: 3

:fluffy: :fluffy: :fluffy:

I'm so happy because ALL of my recent coursework/controlled assessments are over! And the holidays are really soon so there is time to relax :smile: :smile: :smile: :smile: :smile: And how best to relax? By doing some fun past papers of course! :wink: I've printed out a load of science papers and language papers and tried to download the files for different listening papers onto an mp3 player, so I'm sort of ready to go.

I want to also fit in some cornet and walks and things so if we go anywhere as a family I guess I'll have to pack things for that as well. When I took textbooks and folders with me over Christmas they were quite heavy and filled up most of the boot so I'm going to see what I can scan and access online. I'll be recycling my hard copies of papers after they've been marked, so there'll be less of them to carry.

Don't know how much revision I'm actually going to do compared to what I'm planning, but I'm going to try and make a list this evening of specific things to work on (water and chemical testing in chemistry, with help from the trusty CGP, for example) and then highlight what's most important so that if I don't end up doing everything I intend to, I'll hopefully end up doing what I have to do.
Original post by glassriver
Thanks! :smile: I did it today, my voice was a bit scratchy. I think I might be going down with something. She said it was OK but I think I'll take a re-take if I'm offered one just to be safe. Have you done yours yet?


I did it yesterday. It was dizzy and the world felt like it was spinning so I don't have high hopes for it! :smile: Good luck with your revision over Easter! How are you organising your time? Are you going to give tasks time slots or just say what you want to achieve everyday?
Reply 47
Original post by Ara8311a
I did it yesterday. It was dizzy and the world felt like it was spinning so I don't have high hopes for it! :smile: Good luck with your revision over Easter! How are you organising your time? Are you going to give tasks time slots or just say what you want to achieve everyday?


Aaah, it's going okay... could be better at the moment. I've got past papers that I'm working through by doing them and then doing bits of revision whenever I trip up on a question. Ideally I would have already revised all my topics, then do the paper and revise any areas where there were mistakes, but I'm a bit behind and it's too late. I'm going to try to make a plan for the next few days though!
Original post by pseudonymegg


There is a certain irony when a person who takes seven attempts to do so calls someone else a nerd.
Reply 49
Original post by Good bloke
There is a certain irony when a person who takes seven attempts to do so calls someone else a nerd.


I'm impressed at their determination :smile:
Reply 50
Monday 25.04.16

days until first exam: 8 OH MY GOD
exams to go: 28
days until results day: 122 yay!

During Easter I did a stack of past papers - I still have some specimen papers still to go yet and I want to re-read and learn all of my set texts, especially for English which is a subject I'm a bit worried about. We did an anthology of poems for the poetry and prose paper but I only have good notes for a few of them and I'm always pushed for time when doing the essay questions. They work better if I have time to plan beforehand what I'm going to write, but as I can't predict the question that's getting to be kind of hard. Likewise with the prose section - we're doing a book but my analysis of the words never seems to be good enough as I can't find things to discuss as the language isn't as, well, poetic as the poetry. Anyway, I recently did an essay question on the Merchant of Venice, another set text, and got it handed in. Hopefully my teacher will give me some pointers on what I need to do to improve.

Wow, I'm a bit worried now. I've been acting pretty chill recently because I never really fully comprehended the closeness of my exams, but they are REALLY SUPER CLOSE so I'm going to revise now. I made a list of things to do as well (yay).

Re-re-read Northanger Abbey. I read fast by skipping words, so I haven't gone through the book yet word-by-word, which is not a good idea when you're doing language analysis. If this is the error that I've made in the past, hopefully I can correct it now so I actually know what happens in detail. I've also made a really great bookmark to help with this! As well, I'm going to make some quick notes on the different ideas/techniques used in the book.

Start to crack down on Product Design revision. We haven't learnt everything because we concentrated on the coursework aspect first (because it was worth 60% of the grade, probably) but since that's over I'm going to go over what we've already learnt (design movements, scales of production etc.) and then look at the textbook at other areas we've just touched on.

Find difficult vocabulary from French 'healthy living' topic. So we did this topic quite recently but I never really get that good a mark when we do vocabulary tests, so I'm going to do some sets on Quizlet.

(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 51
Wednesday 27.04.16

days until first exam: 6
exams to go: 28
days until results day: 120

Aaaargh! 6 days until my English Language exam! The coursework is done so this (single) paper will determine my grade (and life probably) from here on out. I've still got a past paper that I can do and I'm going to try running it past my teacher as a last-ditch attempt at nailing this one/finding out what I need to improve on. It's so soon, I'm so worried that the texts aren't going to be that easy to decipher and that I won't like them enough to perform well. One of my past papers had an interview that we had to make up and I found that awful, so I'm seriously hoping that we don't get that format in the exam as I just find it more difficult to do. Give me a journal entry any day.

I got my Merchant of Venice essay back really quickly and ended up getting a 23 (marked out of 25) which is kind of okay. Yes, people did do better than me and the mark might not represent my final grade, yes, I did use the notes that I've made in class and yes, I probably took longer than the allotted time to do the essay in. But yay, at least it wasn't a B (probably) and I now know what I need to do in the paper itself to push myself into those extra marks (that is, if I can read my teacher's handwriting...)

Re-re-read Northanger Abbey. I have not done this yet. I've gotten part of the way through though, so with luck I'll finish and pick up some useful info on the way.

Past paper for English Language. The less that's said, the better. This is something I have to do, and there's not much to it except knuckling down!

Revise organic chemistry. I'll have to get out the textbook and make notes on carboxylic acids and esters particularly, as we didn't spend much time on them in class and that scares me as I may not have learnt anything about them. I also need to go over my chemical tests since my last end-of-topic test on those was embarrassing (flame tests were okay, but I started making stuff up by the time we got to finding out the halides and also ended up with some rather interesting precipitates.)

Reply 52
the pomodoro technique
I've heard a lot of good things about this technique so my sister and I decided to try it out to see if it would work with our GCSE revision. We picked a topic which we share (population change in human geography) and grabbed our revision stuff (textbook, revision guide, folder and snazzy pens) to have a go at it.

what is it? Decide what you're going to do, then set a time that you're going to do it in (called a pomodoro, we picked 30 minutes). Set a timer for that pomodoro and then do what it is you decided. After your 30 minutes are up, take a little break (we took 5) and then repeat. After 4 of these cycles, take a longer break (20 minutes for us) and then start again. It's meant to stop you from burning out and getting bored of doing work.

what did we do? Since we didn't have a natty little tomato-shaped kitchen timer, we settled with writing down the time from the clock and then working out when all our breaks would be. At first, it seemed to be working really well - we were having fun and still doing revision - although that may have been just a side-effect of doing revision together. The first 30 seemed to go quite well so we took our first break and left the table as I thought that would stop us from thinking about work during the break. We just had a nice chat for the first one.

However, by the 3rd cycle I could tell that my sister was getting a bit disinterested as she kept getting distracted and asking when the next break would be, and by the time we reached our first longer break she'd decided to do something else instead, so I carried on by myself for a bit until I'd done everything I wanted to (revising case studies by condensing them and making other notes).

what do we think? Don't think my sister was that keen really, although that might just be on exams in general. It might be something that you're better off doing alone as you have your own determination to get you through. Whatever you do, try not to make a cup of tea during your break - I ended up either leaving mine and forgetting about it or spending too long during the break drinking it too. I'd probably try it again.

good for: people with true grit and determination who plan ahead, know what they want and have a list of things that they need to do in the time
bad for: more casual revisers who don't have these aims or if you get distracted easily or don't have much time to revise

It's definitely not the quickest of methods, but it seems to work pretty well if you prepare beforehand and know what you want, as well as having time to set aside.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 53
Thursday 28.04.16

days until first exam: 5
exams to go: 28
days until results day: 119

I sometimes feel really terrible about not revising, especially when I read about other people's dedicated revision. This is all your fault, TSR, how could you do this to me? Fortunately, it's been some use and spurred me on to do a bit more. Today I wanted to revise some case studies for the Coastal Zone (physical geography) so I condensed the information to make some revision notes. I've still got an English Language paper that I want to finish quickly and have not revised for my organic chemistry test. I haven't revised for my organic chemistry test. This is bad. I literally forgot about it until just a moment ago when looking at what my aims were yesterday, so I'm off to go over my notes and do some revision questions.

My English Language paper is on Tuesday next week. I'm not feeling super about it but if I get the past paper back to me then hopefully I will be OK and can work out what I need to do for it over the weekend and Monday bank holiday.
Reply 54
Friday 29.04.16

days until first exam: 4
exams to go: 28
days until results day: 118

Yay, Friday! Next stop is the weekend. I've written up some more case studies - the Restless Earth this time - and am now going to make mind-maps for B1 topics, starting with cells. I've not got A3 paper so I'm going to split each B1 section into smaller sections so that I can do it on A4. Mind-maps seem like a good plan, especially as I can use colour, which I find really useful when making revision materials as I can make things stand out!

I got my English speaking marks back - I'm really proud of myself but I guess there's a chance that we'll be taken down across the board, so I'm not counting on my grade as certain. But I'm still pleased! We did our organic chemistry tests and marked them in the lesson - got 85-90ish percent I think, although I won't know for sure until next week. I feel I could've done better but I was focusing on getting my English language paper done and handed in, so didn't put as much time aside for organic chemistry. So I brushed up on what I didn't do well in (there was a concentration calculation so I picked out some practice questions) and with some luck I'll be able to do pretty well in the actual exam.
Reply 55
Monday 03.05.16

days until first exam: 0
exams to go: 27
days until results day: 114

So my CIE English language paper was today, and I think it went okay, but I'm determined to put it out of my mind. I find it easier to concentrate on my other revision and exams if I just forget about the ones I've done before. I did some past papers during the weekend and worked on technique stuff like finding points from a passage. I think that there are things I could've done better but I'm not going to worry about that now.

Next up, French!
Reply 56
Saturday 21.05.16

exams to go: 21
days until final exam: 37
days until results day: 96

It's been ages since I last updated but I've been really busy revising (no, really). Today hasn't been such a great day for revising as my whole soul was telling me to just relax and look at studyblrs instead of working on my literature poetry anthology! Despite this, I've managed to go over my notes for some Northanger Abbey and do some analysis of quotes. I find literature exams tricky if I don't have the text with me (i.e. poetry and prose) because I either have to memorise quotes or go for the extract question. So I'm going to find some different quotes which I can get multiple points from and do plenty of analysis from so I don't have to remember as much :smile:

7 exams already! I'm riding on a wave of optimism but I've got to keep on track and knuckle down a bit, especially tomorrow. Next week is 100% of English literature, 50% of Latin, 50% of Applications of Maths, 37.5% of Geography (it's the physical paper) and 25% of Physics, so there's a lot ahead. I've got a plan though!

Find quotes for major characters in Northanger Abbey. I've already got some possibles lined up and I intend to have more quotes for the central characters (Catherine, Henry and Isabella) because they're the ones that I'm going to want to discuss. I'll still get some for the more minor characters though.

Memorise Pliny texts. 'A Day in the Life of Pliny the Elder', 'Death of Pliny the Elder' and 'Arria'. I'm most confident with the first and the third ones because they're shorter and I find some of the vocabulary a bit less tricky but the Death one is the longest so it's really the most major and the one I want to focus on.

Applications 1 past paper(s). I've got last year's paper because I think that using the previous year's paper is one of the most useful things to do because it'll be the closest in format to what you're actually going to be doing. I'll then mark that and if I have time I'll do another one from a while back.

Go over case studies for Geography and make sure that you're up to date with the question words. Even when I think that I've revised, I trip up on some questions just because I don't know the question words, e.g. 'illustrate' and 'outline' and don't know exactly what I have to write.

(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 57
Monday 23.05.16

exams to go: 20
days until final exam: 35
days until results day: 94

50% of my English Literature done now! I think it went OK but I got a bit pressed for time at the end. For each of the poetry and prose, I'd intended to have 10 minutes planning, 30 minutes of writing and 5 minutes of checking, but it was quite difficult keeping to those times, especially when I was trying to plan for the prose section. I'm going to just prepare for Tuesday's exams now (Latin prose and Geography).

Geography question words again and also recapping 'The Restless Earth' case studies. It's carrying on what I did yesterday mainly. Although what you really need for case studies are the effects or responses of the thing in question, it's nice to throw in a few facts which I'll try to pick up by going over my case studies.

Memorise Pliny texts. I've got a past paper for the Latin prose which I'll check my understanding of the texts with. My best tip for doing these Latin pieces where you have to translate is to write out the translation you've got and then get a blank copy of the Latin text and try to write your translation with only the Latin, making sure you've got the tenses right especially. Sometimes it sounds better in a slightly different tense than what it's written in when you translate into English (e.g. some imperfects need to be perfects in order for it to be good English.)

Original post by glassriver
... because all your dreams will come true! :wink:

Hello and welcome, I'm glassriver!

Aspirational grades

Spoiler

Mock grades

Spoiler

Who am I? I’m a Y11 kid who wants to find some balance, both by earning some grades and by making time for everything else.

What am I going to do? To be honest, I ask this question of myself most of the time, particularly now that my deadlines are getting closer and closer. I want to achieve my predicted grades (preferably without turning into a zombie) and I’m going to try to branch out and try out some new, non work-related things. At the moment, I like the cornet, cadets and ice cream.

How am I going to do it? I guess we’ll see!

Study break!

Spoiler

:work:


Hi,

Yay! So excited to have finally found someone who does the same subjects as me except I do History instead of Product Design. I hope you get the grades you want. Good luck with everything.
Reply 59
Original post by niv1234
Hi,

Yay! So excited to have finally found someone who does the same subjects as me except I do History instead of Product Design. I hope you get the grades you want. Good luck with everything.


Thanks! I hope all yours are going well too :smile: I don't envy you for picking History, it seems really complicated with all those timed essays.

Quick Reply

Latest

Trending

Trending