Currently and year 11 and have no hope

I really want to go sixth form to go and study medicine at uni but my grades have slipped down massively . I am a C/D student in nearly all my subjects except science which I am actually A and B . I try really hard to study the other subjects but I always end up failing them or getting C minimum which annoys me because I really try hard . I do not want to disappoint my family as they believe I am a top student just because I got A in my sciences but they do not acknowledge my other subjects. I am feeling depressed because I feel I want get the GCSEs I need to become a doctor or medical engineer. I am currently struggling at maths and English lit ! Maths for me is a pain I revise and revise but in the mocks completly different questions come up and English literature I am good at interpreting like an A student but my grades goes down to a D for usually failing at analysing if not at the other . Any tips ? Because I feel like hell. I am always predicted the lowest in the class even do my coursework in every subject is up to standards .I would be happy with few A and B in GCSE

Hi there! I think you have every chance of achieving your desired results, you got this!

I'll try not to go into to much detail here but these are my tips.

Maths: I'm assuming that you already do past questions as your revision but if not, practice practice practice! When you see a question you don't understand, instead of just feeling overwhelmed about what you don't know, look it up and find some questions to practice. I also really valued my revision guide when I did my GCSE Maths last year, it was a great alternative to writing notes which isn't very productive for GCSE Maths - it meant that I had a reference of all the methods without mindlessly copying out loads of stuff. And they have exam tips too which might help with your mocks problem?
Maths isn't really my speciality so sorry if you already do all of this

English: Yup, close analysis of the text is the thing most people find hardest (including myself :P). Luckily, that means you're not alone. So many people I knew when doing my GCSEs would say they were bad at English but then go on to say that they just ' can't ' revise for it. Fortunately, you seem aware that you can improve at and revise for it. For Literature I took really good notes when in class which basically enabled me to take everyone else's work bouncing ideas off each other is essential for English - for example one person might spot a device like alliteration, metaphor etc and then another might suggest its meaning and a third person may provide another interpretation. I personally used to pick a quote (usually our teacher would recommend them) and create my interpretation around that; maybe you're more suited to coming up with a more general interpretation and then finding a quote that fits eg. you might find a piece of dialogue that has lots of single syllable words and hard sounds and fit that to a character with lots of pent-up anger. Text can be interpreted in lots of different ways. Another thing my teacher used to drill into me was to say "3 things about one word" eg. the word "stop" is monosyllabic, hard-sounding and an imperative, among other things. These 3 devices can then inform your interpretation.

Also - important! Your teachers should be here to help - if you haven't spoken to them about your concerns, DO! Their job is to help you. If you have a bad teacher for a particular subject, go to a different teacher in the department.

Hope that helped, I never know whether I'm actually doing any good with these long posts! Good luck with Year 11 and remember to stay positive feel free to message me if there's anything else I can do to help

PS. disclaimer - I may be on different exam boards to you and may have done a different 'style' of GCSE, so these tips may not all be relevant to you. Soz.

PPS. Just saw a thread about yr 11 maths: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4163321
maybe have a lil look at that? Probably more helpful than me!

Just make sure you create a revision timetable and write down all the subjects you find challenging
To make it better write down all the topics you find even more challenging and spend half and hour or 45 minutes on them
And then print off past papers that have all those topics and do them
Then check the mark shemes for those questions and keep revising if you fail them
Hope that helped


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It's not the end of the world, I got C/Bs in my last assessment which I'm not happy with but let's accept that there's still time to improve these grades and it is YOU that need to believe you can do so to get the grades you want. If you want help, you can follow the Year 11 thread that I run here: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=67043152#post6704315 .

I really want to go sixth form to go and study medicine at uni but my grades have slipped down massively . I am a C/D student in nearly all my subjects except science which I am actually A and B . I try really hard to study the other subjects but I always end up failing them or getting C minimum which annoys me because I really try hard . I do not want to disappoint my family as they believe I am a top student just because I got A in my sciences but they do not acknowledge my other subjects. I am feeling depressed because I feel I want get the GCSEs I need to become a doctor or medical engineer. I am currently struggling at maths and English lit ! Maths for me is a pain I revise and revise but in the mocks completly different questions come up and English literature I am good at interpreting like an A student but my grades goes down to a D for usually failing at analysing if not at the other . Any tips ? Because I feel like hell. I am always predicted the lowest in the class even do my coursework in every subject is up to standards .I would be happy with few A and B in GCSE

Use different revision techniques ask other people don't just use one method which won't help you.

yes you are right I always study the same way however i do not know any other way I hate doing flash cards and highlighting stuff

I really want to go sixth form to go and study medicine at uni but my grades have slipped down massively . I am a C/D student in nearly all my subjects except science which I am actually A and B . I try really hard to study the other subjects but I always end up failing them or getting C minimum which annoys me because I really try hard . I do not want to disappoint my family as they believe I am a top student just because I got A in my sciences but they do not acknowledge my other subjects. I am feeling depressed because I feel I want get the GCSEs I need to become a doctor or medical engineer. I am currently struggling at maths and English lit ! Maths for me is a pain I revise and revise but in the mocks completly different questions come up and English literature I am good at interpreting like an A student but my grades goes down to a D for usually failing at analysing if not at the other . Any tips ? Because I feel like hell. I am always predicted the lowest in the class even do my coursework in every subject is up to standards .I would be happy with few A and B in GCSE

I really want to go sixth form to go and study medicine at uni but my grades have slipped down massively . I am a C/D student in nearly all my subjects except science which I am actually A and B . I try really hard to study the other subjects but I always end up failing them or getting C minimum which annoys me because I really try hard . I do not want to disappoint my family as they believe I am a top student just because I got A in my sciences but they do not acknowledge my other subjects. I am feeling depressed because I feel I want get the GCSEs I need to become a doctor or medical engineer. I am currently struggling at maths and English lit ! Maths for me is a pain I revise and revise but in the mocks completly different questions come up and English literature I am good at interpreting like an A student but my grades goes down to a D for usually failing at analysing if not at the other . Any tips ? Because I feel like hell. I am always predicted the lowest in the class even do my coursework in every subject is up to standards .I would be happy with few A and B in GCSE

Hi there, for revision advice this thread should help.

It's good that Science is working out for you. Have a look at why you think you're satisfied in Science and try and apply that to your other subjects

My best advice is to follow a quote by Samuel Beckett:
"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter... try again, fail better!"
In other words, do a past paper, or an essay and fail (don't fear that). Now here's the important bit: MARK IT YOURSELF. So that you can recognise how to improve. That put that into practice and fail better next time.

Forget about your family they're not important, neither are the other members of the class. Be selfish.

Hi There Bud,

I tend to find that the best way to solve this issue is to learn your learning style first. Revision can help but the truth is that the method of reading/re-reading then writing down things doesn't suit everyone. The more you know about how you work the easier things like this are. For example, revision doesn't suit me because I'm poor from leaning in a physical reading sense. However, where my learning is strongest is at a conversational level, meaning that I am more likely to remember something when it feels like someone has taken me through it. This is why audiobooks/podcasts work well for me, it suits my learning style. I also think its worth considering whether what your trying to learn actually interests you. If it doesn't then you won't learn it, no matter how much you want to. However, there is a way of working around this and it starts with associating the thing your learning with an interest and then clarifying what you'll get by learning what you're studying. On a side note I'd highly recommend listening to a recent Tim Ferriss podcast episode (#191 I think) where he discusses the best ways to learn, try that, it's brilliant. On a side note, I do find it interesting that in many ways that learning styles aren't really discussed until college and even then its brief. Hope that helps bud!

GCSEs are very easy. If you're not getting the grades you're simply not revising enough or not revising the right way. And even if you are revising right and putting in the effort, it's only October, so you still have lots of time to get a full set of A*s. Don't be disheartened now, it requires some time learn the material well enough.

yeah you are right but can lie that I still feel like I'm going to fail since in English lit I literally revised a week before for my favourite play we are studying and I was sure I would get at least a B but no I got a high D which lowered my confidence in trying

For English as in other subjects it's not about having knowledge, it's about the application of that knowledge. So practice your exam technique. This will come with time in English. And time is on your side right now.

Yeah you are right but to be honest I don't know how to start and how to apply it and the worse thing is that the mark schemes are so hard to interpret at least for me but I will start doing that

I really want to go sixth form to go and study medicine at uni but my grades have slipped down massively . I am a C/D student in nearly all my subjects except science which I am actually A and B . I try really hard to study the other subjects but I always end up failing them or getting C minimum which annoys me because I rea