_gcx's GCSE Journey :D

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Reply 60

Workangel_24

Original post by sunshine774

Oh ok so how did you find results day? :smile:

It was good actually. I was really nervous but once I got the envelope and read my results I was so relieved.

Reply 61

sunshine774

Original post by Workangel_24

It was good actually. I was really nervous but once I got the envelope and read my results I was so relieved.

That's good! :smile:

I wasn't worried about results day at first but now with less than month to go I keep worrying. :s-smilie:

I found all my exams went really well, but I didn't work hard so I keep thinking I am going to get bad grades now. :frown:

Spoiler

Reply 62

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by Workangel_24

Hey don't worry too much about your anxiety because if you think about it then you're going to get more anxious. Why don't you practice some deep relaxing techniques or meditation or even try listening to some calm or zen music while revising? It's proven to work for a lot of people.

It wasn't when revising, I was completely calm while revising. Outside the exam room I practiced with my friend, and I spoke far too fast, but I knew the content. I walked into the exam room, did the first three-four paragraphs, then I forgot a sentence, and that was it, I just went to pieces and started panicking, all my good adjectives, conjunctions, just flew out of my head, and I started using pretty basic vocabulary. My confidence was absolutely shattered and I choked mentally a few times. The teacher said because of my choking and stress I missed a B by like a mark or two. I was hoping for an A :frown:

A friend who did absolutely perfectly in practice, full marks worthy, suffered from anxiety and got a low B too :frown:

I felt like crying inside and I walked out of the room feeling like absolute ****.

I haven't tried meditation, or zen music, no. I just listen to the music I normally listen to, and it seems just fine, in other subjects. It's hard to do when you're in the moment, since your mind is racing to such extreme proportions. In other subjects, since it's written, mind-blanks are recoverable, that's just not the case when you're doing speaking, and I dislike that. It's hard not to worry about my anxiety, although it seems foolish since I'm essentially fearing my own mind.

Reply 63

Workangel_24

Original post by sunshine774

That's good! :smile:

I wasn't worried about results day at first but now with less than month to go I keep worrying. :s-smilie:

I found all my exams went really well, but I didn't work hard so I keep thinking I am going to get bad grades now. :frown:

Spoiler

Don't think like that. Maybe a miracle could happen. In my case it happened! I was dreading getting C's and D's or even E's but in the end it turned out well and didn't get a single C or D or even E :smile:

Plus I'm a Roman Catholic Christian and I daily said the rosary and chaplet of divine mercy and it really helped. I also send out prayer requests in websites.

Reply 64

Hirondelle127

Original post by _gcx

About Me:

I'm currently 15, from a grammar school, having just left Year 10 on Friday, and will be sitting my exams next year, being kind of a guinea pig for the new 9-1 spec in Maths and English. I'm going to keep this as a log of my progress, and to keep me motivated to chase these targets :smile:

I have the aspiration to do CompSci at an RG Uni, or even Oxbridge, if I can get the A-Level grades I aim for. As such, I'm aiming for 7-8A*s at GCSE. I just did my mocks, with medium effort.

At A-Level I'm taking: Maths, Further Maths, Computer Science (if it's available at my school, if not I'll look around for a bit. If I can't find a place to do it, I'll probably go with Physics, Chemistry or Electronics), AS IT (just because it's a subject that should be a pretty safe A), my aspiration would be A*AA (+), but I would be happy with an AAA. I bet if I told my teachers that at the beginning of the year they'd have laughed :redface:

My story of progression has been slow but sure:

My first Year 10 report:

Spoiler

I don't remember being particularly disappointed either, which baffles me.

I pulled everything around and started giving a **** mid-Year 10, apparently coming in the top 10% of my year, but I couldn't care less, it's personal achievement that matters!

What I got in my mocks (self-set targets. Got targeted all As, and I decided to push myself a bit more)

Spoiler

(*1: 1 UMS off a B, our teacher converted our mock grades into UMS for correct scaling)

(*2: Should have really been an A*, our teacher used ridiculously high grade boundaries [90% being an A*, 80% being an A] o.o)

Colour coding is self-explanatory :wink:

(green: on track to achieve target, orange: slightly under target, some work needed, red: severely under target)

A Bit of Commentary:

I already regret taking French. It's the only subject I am in no way capable of getting an A*, or probably even an A, in. Considering I was **** in Year 9, I think I got like a D or a C at the end of the year, I have no idea what I was thinking :/ Looking back, I should've taken Further Maths/Stats too, but I wasn't so interested in Maths back in Year 9. Anyways, I'm going to be (kind of) self-teaching it alongside my other GCSEs (just so I'm not at a disadvantage for A-Level [Further] Maths). My target grades set by my school are all As, even in Maths D:, so I've just disregarded them.

What I'm seeking to improve:

I'm going to mainly be working on the subjects marked with an [*], French, especially. I ****ed up my French speaking, while getting a high B/low A in my writing. Anxiety got the best of me, and I amassed a C, dragging everything down. In my mock reading and listening, I believe I got around B/C in both, while most people I know got Us ^_^

Over the summer, I'm going to be looking at French vocab, hopefully to retake my Writing and Speaking to get the average up to a B or an A. Physics it was a matter of P1, getting a pretty poor mark, for me, (considering I got a B in Year 9), C, in P1 (meanwhile getting an A* in P2). With some revision, I'm hoping to get it up to an A* by my Year 11 mocks early next year. English it's really just exam technique. English is overall one of the hardest GCSEs, due to how harshly marked the questions are.

What I'm aiming to do:

•

Familiarise myself with my English exam technique, and to read questions thoroughly. I think I lost ~30 marks in my English exam, dragging me down several grades, from misreading the questions.

•

Physics - Revise P1 thoroughly, doing past papers on the way, identifying my weaknesses within P1, and P2. This is especially important if I decide to do Physics instead of CompSci at A-Level, if it's not available at my school.

•

French - This is a hard subject to improve in. MFLs are probably the only GCSEs you can't cram for, unfortunately, so I'm going to look into French vocab a bit over the holidays.

•

Maths - To learn the important Further Maths concepts (although I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, practicing with C1/S1 work XD).

Problems I'll likely encounter:

I have dyspraxia, and I have difficulties with accidentally procrastinating, doing it without intention. This is only usually a problem when I'm not engaged in the subjects. Which is fine for pretty much everything except from French. I will have to work hard to actually achieve my goals in French, otherwise it'll continue to stand out like a sore thumb. If anyone has any advice of dealing with this, I'd be happy to hear it :smile:

Also, as a consequence, my handwriting is incomprehensible, much of the time. I have exam concessions to use a laptop during exams, which allows me to finish exams relatively quicker, although many say that gives me an unfair advantage.
(sorry for the poor formatting :wink:

)

Hey - I'm a fluent French speaker (half french/half english), and remember how daunting GCSEs were. I've helped friends through their French GCSE and learning the language in general, so if you need any help or free tutoring, do message me!

Otherwise, good luck!

Reply 65

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by Hirondelle127

Hey - I'm a fluent French speaker (half french/half english), and remember how daunting GCSEs were. I've helped friends through their French GCSE and learning the language in general, so if you need any help or free tutoring, do message me!

Otherwise, good luck!

I'll keep that in mind! Thanks a lot for the offer, and the good luck :h:

Reply 66

username2312801

Original post by sunshine774

Snap! I'm doing the same as you and starting year 12 next year! :smile:

Do you have any idea what career you are interested in?

OMG wow. What boards ? Medicine you ?

Reply 67

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Day 7: (291 days until first exam, RS. :afraid:

)

Chill day, again, spent most of the time playing zombies, and going shopping XD

I did more calculus practice, and I'm pretty sure I've got it down to what's required in C1/FM, so I am content with that. I'm going to start factor theorems, sequences and S1, later. I am visiting a relative tomorrow, so expect this sort of lack of progress tomorrow too. Still putting of circle theorems and vectors, but it is on my to-do list, so I will get to them eventually. I have made a ton of progress this week, and I'm really happy with it. If I can replicate this throughout August, I will be super happy! I might start some more science notes tomorrow, but its safe to say I've done way more work than I really should bother to do. It'll all pay off in the end, luckily. Time spent making notes now will make revision less painless early next year when I start serious (100%) revision. Right now, I'd say I'm at 30%ish, I can really try-hard if I wanted to, but now is not the time.

:banana:

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 68

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Day 8 - 290 days until first exam (I am somehow staying positive in light of this :banana:

)

I didn't do a whole lot today, I visited a relative and didn't really want to bring any work, but I have a clear plan of what I am to do over the week-end note-compiling-wise.

•

Maths - I've familiarised myself with a decent amount of C1 material, although I know that's child's play compared to the later modules. Even C2 is looking pretty daunting, to say the least, at first glance, but I guess I had the same feeling when I first saw C1 material. I have been reading through an S1 revision document, but I am in nowhere near the position to start doing any practice yet. Today, I did a lot of work on surds, which may help me with GCSE, although I'm unaware if they'll throw them into the exam, it's good to know them regardless. It was one of the things on my first test, which I think I may have got that C on, but now they seem simple. If anyone wants me to make some notes on them, I'll do so and post them here. I will start doing that with various Maths topics. If they help just one person, I will be content. :smile: It is also revision for me, so it's mutually beneficial. I am aware I will be doing the linear spec at A-Level, but the basic principles, and what you learn overall, will remain mostly the same, so this time is still extremely valuable. Doing A-Level Maths, essentially, goes far further than GCSE into getting a good grasp into the concepts and topics, which I love, and I find really interesting. This has only enforced my desire to take it at A-Level!

My plans:

•

Maths - Learn the cosine rule and its applications. Learn circle theorems and vectors, although I've said that several trillion times, I haven't forgotten about them, they're just on my TODO list. I will also do some S1 work, and maybe some FP1 [Further Maths AS] work, if I feel like diminishing my confidence in Maths.

•

Biology - Compile B2 and B3 notes [so far].

•

Physics - Compile P2 notes and start learning P3 topics slowly, particularly the ones I have an interest in, if there are any. I haven't really looked!

•

Chemistry - Compile C1 and C2 notes, and start making notes on fermentation and ethanol production, which I have started, from C3.

•

French - Probably very little.

•

English - As above. I am going to practice a bit of analysation of unseen texts, since that seems to be my downfall.

•

Religious Studies - There's a new one! I'm going to start making notes on Judaism and Christian Ethics, especially Judaism because my teacher wasn't really an RS teacher, but rather a general Sociology, Psychology teacher. He relied on notes, and couldn't really help us outside of that. We have a new teacher, who will hopefully bridge the gaps in what we've learnt. They seemed pretty nice in their trial lesson, which is very hopeful! :biggrin:

Reply 69

chemistrynerd13

https://revisionworld.com/gcse-revision/french/past-papers

I found a website that has the 2012 French paper if you were still looking it for Corrections or extra revision.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 70

B_9710

Original post by _gcx

Good idea making notes for others. Some people say it helping others helps them consolidate concepts in their own mind.
When you learn things like cosine rule, make sure you look at the proofs so that you can get a full appreciation of where these results come from.
Good luck.

Reply 71

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by chemistrynerd13

https://revisionworld.com/gcse-revision/french/past-papers

I found a website that has the 2012 French paper if you were still looking it for Corrections or extra revision.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Thanks! I will certainly start making notes, on pretty much everything I got wrong, which is a lot! XD Apparently it is one of the hardest listening papers o.o

Original post by B_9710

Thanks! I certainly will look into the proof of the theorems, since it is quite interesting how they were derived. Sometimes I just think it must've been trial and error! (trigonometric functions and pi especially). I've made some notes on surds, and I've tried to make them as clear as I can. Can anyone check them to see if they a) make sense, b) explain the concepts clearly? (link)

Reply 72

username1440355

love the underdog stories, you got this

Reply 73

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by MeeranB

love the underdog stories, you got this

Thanks!

Reply 74

B_9710

Original post by _gcx

Thanks! I will certainly start making notes, on pretty much everything I got wrong, which is a lot! XD Apparently it is one of the hardest listening papers o.o

Thanks! I certainly will look into the proof of the theorems, since it is quite interesting how they were derived. Sometimes I just think it must've been trial and error! (trigonometric functions and pi especially). I've made some notes on surds, and I've tried to make them as clear as I can. Can anyone check them to see if they a) make sense, b) explain the concepts clearly? (link)

I've had a quick look at the notes and discovered a few small mistakes.
You say that surds are infinite, but I think you mean that the number of digits after the decimal point is infinite, all surds are finite numbers.
Also you say that you rationalise

\sqrt 8

2\sqrt 2

, but

\sqrt 8

is irrational - so you cannot make it rational - I believe you may have the terminology slightly mixed up with rationalising the denominator.
Good work though.

Reply 75

B_9710

Original post by _gcx

Sometimes I just think it must've been trial and error! (trigonometric functions and pi especially).

Not trial and error with pi.
In fact you can use that

\displaystyle \frac{\pi} {4}=1-\frac{1}{3}+\frac{1}{5} -\frac{1}{7} + \frac{1}{9} +...

.
You can use this to work out the digits of pi (although you need many many terms in the expansion for it to be accurate).

Reply 76

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by B_9710

\sqrt 8

2\sqrt 2

, but

\sqrt 8

is irrational - so you cannot make it rational - I believe you may have the terminology slightly mixed up with rationalising the denominator.
Good work though.

That's what I meant, I'm not very clear at explaining things :P I have corected that.

Yeah, I confused simplification and rationalisation, thanks for catching that! :biggrin:

Reply 77

umar39

Hey _gcx!
You certainly seem to be more proactive than me! I've done nothing for two days now! :biggrin:

I have so many new teachers for my subjects next year and I have no idea what they will be like! They may be very good or bad and that worries me, particularly as it is the GCSE year! I will need to start some more independent work rather than relying on my new teachers if I want to achieve my aspiration grades.

By the way, I've found a great app called Evernote (I'm sure you've heard of it!) that allows you to type, plan and organise notes with a very clean and easy-to-use interface! I would definitely advice using this particularly if you are disorganised like me!

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 78

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by B_9710

Not trial and error with pi.
In fact you can use that

\displaystyle \frac{\pi} {4}=1-\frac{1}{3}+\frac{1}{5} -\frac{1}{7} + \frac{1}{9} +...

.
You can use this to work out the digits of pi (although you need many many terms in the expansion for it to be accurate).

That's interesting, I had never looked into how to actually calculate pi. (never really occured to me to consider how it was actually calculated)

Reply 79

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by umar39

Hey _gcx!
You certainly seem to be more proactive than me! I've done nothing for two days now! :biggrin:

I can credit that to this thread. Normally, I'd just forget, but this thread is helping me stay organised and on track! My productivity has seen a dramatic increase, and an actual interest in my subjects now that there's no pressure. This work might be considered obsessive, but it's really because I didn't pay attention most of this year, and now I'm making up for it, because I don't have many useful notes for B1/C1/P1, and maybe bits of B2/C2/P2. I was a slacker until I realised how crap I was doing compared to where I aspired to be. Thus, I was only targeted As, the default for my school. The lowest you can be predicted is a B, maybe a C (if you got Es and Us o.o), luckily I didn't fall that much.

The new teachers may not be, necessarily terrible either. You may find some to be better than your old ones. If you feel, however, they are spending too many lessons off task, progressing slowly, or are not teaching you important concepts, I would a) complain to your school and b) start getting ahead yourself! I sometimes find it easier to learn things independently, as there are less distractions, and there is overall less pressure. You can take breaks whenever you want, and it's all nice and calm. :biggrin:

Topics that previously made absolutely no sense, now seem so simple in an independant environment.

I shall check out that app, although I'm pretty ok with my organisation at the moment. Might come in handy when I come to serious revision early next year -- even for the final thing I'm planning on starting early.