Scroll to see replies
Hiiii this is my advice:
https://quizlet.com/class/5159741/]Spaniards
https://quizlet.com/class/1842991/]Germans
Your next step is to get your grammar in check, and I’m talking everything: tenses, irregulars, endings, the whole lot. There’s really no way around the fact that you’ll just have to do it again and again, and a good ol’ workbook is probably the answer here. in the beginning of year 10, I stuck pieces of paper onto my roof with the irregular endings to common irregulars such as être and avoir, and a few of them are still there because I moved my bedroom around and couldn’t take them down again.
Something I think is pretty handy to know, espeically if you want those higher gardes, is to learn a few fancy phrases and idioms to stick in your wirintg and speaking. These examples are all gonna be in French, but leanring a cheeky 'si j'étais riche', 'après avoir mangé' or 'quand j'étais jeune' to throw in there bumps up your marks a little, and is it even a french exam if you don't throw in a quick 'quel dommage!' at the end of your wiritng? Non.
Here's the usual speil about listening to French music, reading Italian articles and watching Spanish films because it does help you to get acccustomed with the langauge. I read somewere that reading your favourite childhood book from when you were 8-11 is supposed to really help with learning a langauge, so now I have a copy of the Hunger Games in French just chilling on my bookshelf
Here's a French spotify playlist I was particulary fond of, seeing as I can't link my own because my username is legit my full name lmao
History:
Spoiler:
Show
History is such a hard subject because there’s so much content to learn. And out of that content, it’s inevitable that only a fraction will be actually assessed, which is just lovely.
For the content, I made a mindmap for literally every single topic of every single unit and stuck it on my wall. I found it really useful because I was able to paraphrase my unnecessarily detailed notes into something that was easy to understand, and rewording it made it a lot easier to remember. In the centre of each mindmap, I’d have the topic and then I’d have smaller subtitles with information around each of them. For example, I might have written The Fall of Wolsey in the centre, then I’d write stuff like ‘the failed Annulment’ and ‘failed foreign policy’ and ‘failed domestic policies’ around it, with information on each coming out of it.
From mindmaps, I’d make flashcards, in which were basically each sub-topic of a mindmap, but condensed enough to fit only the key points on there. These were what I’d mainly use for revision, so I’d take them to school, have people test me and stuff like that. For each of my unit, I’d also make date flashcards. Dates aren’t actually necessary in any of the units apart from the second question of the depth study (the narrative account) where you have to put stuff in order. However, knowing dates is really important in getting marks for your specific factual detail, so I would advise you learn the key ones at the very minimum. There’s really no fun way around learning dates apart from standing in a circle and chanting them with your friends like you’re in a Galen-worshipping cult, but if you go over them enough times they really do stick. The stuff I remember now from GCSE are the things I learnt over a long period of time instead of cramming the night before (guilty as charged), and I do still remember a good chunk of the dates now, so start leaning them as you go along.
Something that I actually only did around half way through year 11 was make timelines because I thought they were pointless and a waste of wall space (wall space was something I’d rationed by february lmao). Yikes, was I wrong. Timelines are really helpful with your thematic study because you can clearly see the evolution of medicine (in my case), but also the sequence of events within each period. But I found them particularly helpful with units that aren’t taught completely in order and where there’s some overlap in dates, such as the American West and Henry VIII because then you can cleary see what happened when. For your depth studies like this, it’s even more helpful to colour code each topic- so I had a colour each for the Mormons, the Homesteaders, the Indian Wars etc. Putting your timeline somewhere you see every day will encourage you to actively look at it and test yourself frequently, which is going to help you not just learn the order things come in but also the dates themselves.
The other element to history is the exam technique, which is often underestimated in its importance, but it’s honestly crucial to a good grade. You can have all the fun facts about Stressemann you want, but if you don’t know how to answer the question, you’re not going to get any marks, and you’ve worked hard to do yourself the injustice of missing easy marks.
For a source question, you’re going to need to include both content (the source itself) and the provenance (where the source comes from). A lot of my source marks were lost because I’d said the source wasn’t useful because it didn’t include something, but then I’d failed to say what it didn’t include. For example, if the source was a picture of a motor ambulance and asked you the usefulness of this source for an inquiry into modes of transport during WW1, you could say that it wasn’t useful because it doesn’t show the other methods of transport. What’s really important in these questions is that you include your own knowledge, so here you’ll need to specify the other methods of transport before ultimately deciding on your judgement.
For 16 markers, you’re going to need both an introduction and a conclusion, and for 12 markers you’ll also need a conclusion (I think this is correct..?), and in the conclusion you need to give your own opinion and evaluate using the evidence you’ve just talked about. It’s really imporatnt you land on a judgement, and you can do this by saying which out of the three/four things you’ve talked about are the most important or significant.
After every piece of evidence you give, you need to say why this is important/ significant. If you write a sentence about the buffalo being shot off of trains as a factor of the Indians’ lifestyle being destroyed, you need to explain why this is a big deal. I used to never do this because I thought it sounded clunky, but literally just write something along the lines of, ‘this is important because the Indians used the buffalo for everything, including food, so the decline in buffalo numbers would also lead to Indians dying from a lack of food’
At the end of each paragraph, refer back to the question. This was where most of my marks were dropped, and it’s so easy to gain these. You’ve made your point, you’ve used your evidence, you’ve explained it’s importance and now all you need to do is refer it back to the original question. a simple ‘This ultimately shows how the white people were destroying the Indian lifestyle because they were actively targeting their main food source, which would mean the Indians either had to adopt the white lifestyle or die’ ties up your point so you can move onto your next paragraph. In the words of my current history teacher, ‘answer the bloody question’.
For questions where you’re already given information to use, you need to include at least one of your own points or your marks get capped at around half, I think, even if your evidence is fantastic. If you’re given a point you’ve literally never heard of before or you’re not that confident on, you don’t have to write about it, but you now have to have two of your own points, because you still have to include your own info as if you used that point. If you get me.
If you turn the page to a question and you’ve got absolutely no idea, don’t panic, because your exam technique could still save you. It’s easy to just scribble down any old thing and move on, or worse, not answer it at all, but make sure you still have an introduction and a conclusion (if that essay requires one) and the evidence you do use, however tenuous, is still back up by ‘this is significant because..’ and ‘this meant that…’ and you still answer the question.
Literally my biggest tip for history is do the paper backwards. Start with the question worth the most amount of marks and finish the question worth the least. You don’t have enough time to be spending twenty minutes on an eight mark question, and it’s so important that you at least have a go at every question because it’s not fair on yourself if you miss out a twelve mark question because you didn’t time it well enough. In my march mock, I got a 6 in history because i messed up my timings by doing the papers chronologically, which meant my big sixteen markers really suffered.
If you’re really, really short on time and you know you’re not going to finish a question (especially if it’s big one), you can write in bullet points, but be aware that you won’t get as many marks here as you would had you written in full sentences. If you’re got a few minutes of a 16/12 marker left, it’s better to write your conclusion in full sentences, and your last paragraph in bullet points, but still make sure you say why the evidence is important, no matter how succinct.
What merges both your content and your exam technique together is, you guessed it, exam questions. We got a big booklet of these and I did try to do about one of these a week, but if you’re short on time essay plans are always useful. What’s really important, though, is that you get your teacher to mark them, because there’s no point having a pile of essays at home that haven’t been corrected, so you know where you’re going wrong.
Geography:
Aiming for grade 5/6+:
Not gonna lie, geography was my least priority subject. I didn't want to take it for a-level and I never found it particularly difficult, either, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time revising geography. However, my teacher was great and set us a load of homework every week, so I did do quite a lot of geography in year 11, but not a lot of it was actual revision. If you get me.
Geography is another one of those ’swallow a textbook whole and regurgitate it in the exam hall subjects’, so I went for the classic Meghan approach of making mindmaps, then flashcards
. i especially put emphasis on the case studies- you need to know these upside down inside out, particularly the big two practical ones on your paper 3 exam. for these ones, our teacher made us put together two a3 sheets with hypothesis, results, evaluation etc. on it, and i made each section into, you guessed it, a flashcard, and put the a3 sheets above my bed.
my number one geography tip in two words: case studies. Learn these badboys like they’re you’re own family.
exam technique is also quite crucial in the higher mark questions, and the best tip is to just practice. our teacher was great at giving us exam question after exam question until we were all constantly hitting the higher band, but i also bought a workbook to use. geography is another subject where it’s hard to mark the longer questions yourself, so i was always getting my teacher to mark question after question, but she didn’t seem to mind. shoutout to Vicky B- you were awesome.
apart from that, there’s not much else i can say about geography apart from use past papers as often as you can. geography is a subject where you an really revise any way that works best for you, so definitely try out a few methods and maybe combine them.
Aiming for grade 4/5: (the 5 steps to getting a 5)
Spoiler:
Show
Unless you want to take a level geography or it’s your favourite subject, geography always seems to get cast aside and not very many people revise for it. personally, i did, though i can understand why some people didn’t when their main priorities are english and maths.
so this part is for you: the comprehensive guide to getting a 4/5 in geography the night/ week/ month before the exam:
step 1: case studies
the case study questions are probably going to be between 4-9 marks, so if you’ve got these nailed you’ll quickly wrack up marks, so learn them. and i’m not just talking knowing what a hurricane katrina is, i’m talking you need to specifically know the impacts and responses. these are more likely to be asked in a question, so make sure you can not only name at least three, but you can also categorise them into long term and short term, and social, environmental and economical. facts are also good. for example, if we refer back to hurricane katrina, you want to learn between 3-5 facts. here, the date, death/ injury toll, wind speed, cost and direction of the storm would be very useful, not just to answer specific questions, but to throw into the bigger questions, to show the examiner you know what you’re on about. case studies are especially important for paper 3; if you’ve only got time to revise a few, learn the big ones for your paper 3 exam (these are the ones where you actually went on a trip and did an investigation, like the beach or the city). Paper 3 is about 50% case study, so if you don’t know your big case studies, you’re pretty much screwed. if you have a revision guide, it will help you greatly here, for all 3 papers because they have all the case studies you’ll ever need ready to go.
step 2: the mark schemes of the case studies
the new gcse geography mark scheme for the longer questions are broken down into tiers before individual marks are given: simple, clear and detailed. look at examiners reports or mark schemes to learn what you need to do to get into the top band, and make sure you can replicate it. To hit those 7-9 marks, you’ll need to be able to frequently link between your own knowledge and the question, as well as using key terminology.
step 3: grammar
for the 9 markers specifically, you get awarded 3 points on SPaG, so if you’re naturally good at grammar, you’re covered here and these should be easy marks. You’re probably not going to be able to correct every inch of your bad grammar in one night, so focus on long words that you could spell wrong, and getting those right in the exam might excuse a missing comma. If you’re not, perhaps brush up on spelling key words or using the actual paper to help you. if you’re stuck spelling “Philippines” the paper might already have it written down somewhere. i’m pretty sure SPaG marks are also awarded for technical vocabulary (don’t quote me on that), so if you can use words like “desertification” or something when talking about your case study, you might be able to compensate for a few spellings here and there.
step 4: maths skills
you don’t need to be a mathematical genius for this. you need to know how to read and then talk about graphs and occasionally how to plot them. basic map skills also come under this, such as being able to read coordinates or cholorpleth maps (sounds a lot more complicated than there are) and things like that. knowing these will hopefully get you a few more marks under you belt and push you closer towards the passing grade boundary.
step 5: general knowledge
i always think geography is easier than history, and i think that’s mainly because you can apply common sense to a geography exam which you can’t really do in history. put it this way: you’re more likely to talk about climate change with someone than you are Thomas Wolsey, so can probably pick up a few marks on what you know already. There’s little bits of geography that crop up in the sciences, so you probably know a few bits about deforestation or urbanisation from either your other lessons or just from listening to the news, and you can probably coast (haha, gettit?) your way through the rest. Geography papers aren’t tiered anymore, which means that the questions need to be accessible for all abilities. they’ll definitely be some easy one markers to pick up, which, coupled with the case studies and practical questions, should help to bag you a C. maybe. don’t quote me on that one.
Motivation:
I’ve put this at the end because it’s the one thing i can’t give you. i can help you to find it, but i can’t hand you a burning desire to study on a silver platter; you have to find that yourself. and it’s hard, i know it’s hard when everyone’s screaming at you to revise and you barely have the motivation to breathe, but i’m living proof you can find your motivation and crawl out the deep dark hole of netflix binges.
i think motivation is the hardest part of revision that no one talks about. it doesn’t matter if you’re in all top sets, it doesn’t matter if you can access abundance of revision resources, because if you don’t have motivation, you’re not going to perform as well as you hoped. and it’s the hardest part because it comes from within- you either have it or you don’t and it’s hard to suddenly gain motivation when you’ve lived for so long in the dark.
i guess the obvious would be to think long term- do you want to go to university? college? dream job?- and work towards your goal of having a degree, being able to support a family etc in ten years or so. If you want to get into Cambridge (or is it Oxford that are really snobby about GCSEs? I’m pretty sure both want A*s anyway), print out a nice big colour picture of Cambridge uni and slap it above your desk.
The whole uni/careers thing wasn’t such a motivator because i think i want to be an author and you don’t need any qualifications for that. But, honestly, this rarely worked for me, because i knew i would pass- and it seems arrogant which it is, but i knew that with minimal revision i could pass with 5s and 6s. And that was where my motivation came from, because i didn’t need to get all 9s or whatever, but i wanted them, just to prove that, yeah, i could do it.
although some would argue that short term motivation is pointless, sometimes you just need a reward to get you through that gruelling session, day, week… (year)
gcses didn’t make me feel half as good as i thought they would, but that’s just my personal experience. i didn’t mean for this to become a sob story, but this is how i felt, and i feel like it would be dishonest to not include it.
there are people who are adamant that the secret to doing well is to find a way to enjoy the content you’re learning, while i disagree. You just have to do it, man. You just have to dedicate three months of your life to learning a bunch of facts you’ll never need again before you can enjoy a summer equal in length. there is no secret: there’s just motivation and determination. There’s just you, your notes and the internet, and you need to choose which one you’re gonna go for.
And, finally, we come reach the end. I hope it wasn't too overwhelming and i wacked in a load of spoiler tabs so you can only read the bits that are relevenat to you.
Thank you for your time, and i hope i was able to help, even in the slightest. All the best, good luck, bonne chance, you got this!
please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions; i’m always happy to help. also i don’t have much of a life (as you can probably tell) so i’ll almost definitely reply.
also huge props to @Joshiee for not only inspiring this, but for making the original and helping loads of people. you can find it here.
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4298480
Big post
https://quizlet.com/class/5159741/]Spaniards
https://quizlet.com/class/1842991/]Germans
Your next step is to get your grammar in check, and I’m talking everything: tenses, irregulars, endings, the whole lot. There’s really no way around the fact that you’ll just have to do it again and again, and a good ol’ workbook is probably the answer here. in the beginning of year 10, I stuck pieces of paper onto my roof with the irregular endings to common irregulars such as être and avoir, and a few of them are still there because I moved my bedroom around and couldn’t take them down again.
Something I think is pretty handy to know, espeically if you want those higher gardes, is to learn a few fancy phrases and idioms to stick in your wirintg and speaking. These examples are all gonna be in French, but leanring a cheeky 'si j'étais riche', 'après avoir mangé' or 'quand j'étais jeune' to throw in there bumps up your marks a little, and is it even a french exam if you don't throw in a quick 'quel dommage!' at the end of your wiritng? Non.
Here's the usual speil about listening to French music, reading Italian articles and watching Spanish films because it does help you to get acccustomed with the langauge. I read somewere that reading your favourite childhood book from when you were 8-11 is supposed to really help with learning a langauge, so now I have a copy of the Hunger Games in French just chilling on my bookshelf
Here's a French spotify playlist I was particulary fond of, seeing as I can't link my own because my username is legit my full name lmao
History:
Spoiler:
Show
History is such a hard subject because there’s so much content to learn. And out of that content, it’s inevitable that only a fraction will be actually assessed, which is just lovely.
For the content, I made a mindmap for literally every single topic of every single unit and stuck it on my wall. I found it really useful because I was able to paraphrase my unnecessarily detailed notes into something that was easy to understand, and rewording it made it a lot easier to remember. In the centre of each mindmap, I’d have the topic and then I’d have smaller subtitles with information around each of them. For example, I might have written The Fall of Wolsey in the centre, then I’d write stuff like ‘the failed Annulment’ and ‘failed foreign policy’ and ‘failed domestic policies’ around it, with information on each coming out of it.
From mindmaps, I’d make flashcards, in which were basically each sub-topic of a mindmap, but condensed enough to fit only the key points on there. These were what I’d mainly use for revision, so I’d take them to school, have people test me and stuff like that. For each of my unit, I’d also make date flashcards. Dates aren’t actually necessary in any of the units apart from the second question of the depth study (the narrative account) where you have to put stuff in order. However, knowing dates is really important in getting marks for your specific factual detail, so I would advise you learn the key ones at the very minimum. There’s really no fun way around learning dates apart from standing in a circle and chanting them with your friends like you’re in a Galen-worshipping cult, but if you go over them enough times they really do stick. The stuff I remember now from GCSE are the things I learnt over a long period of time instead of cramming the night before (guilty as charged), and I do still remember a good chunk of the dates now, so start leaning them as you go along.
Something that I actually only did around half way through year 11 was make timelines because I thought they were pointless and a waste of wall space (wall space was something I’d rationed by february lmao). Yikes, was I wrong. Timelines are really helpful with your thematic study because you can clearly see the evolution of medicine (in my case), but also the sequence of events within each period. But I found them particularly helpful with units that aren’t taught completely in order and where there’s some overlap in dates, such as the American West and Henry VIII because then you can cleary see what happened when. For your depth studies like this, it’s even more helpful to colour code each topic- so I had a colour each for the Mormons, the Homesteaders, the Indian Wars etc. Putting your timeline somewhere you see every day will encourage you to actively look at it and test yourself frequently, which is going to help you not just learn the order things come in but also the dates themselves.
The other element to history is the exam technique, which is often underestimated in its importance, but it’s honestly crucial to a good grade. You can have all the fun facts about Stressemann you want, but if you don’t know how to answer the question, you’re not going to get any marks, and you’ve worked hard to do yourself the injustice of missing easy marks.
For a source question, you’re going to need to include both content (the source itself) and the provenance (where the source comes from). A lot of my source marks were lost because I’d said the source wasn’t useful because it didn’t include something, but then I’d failed to say what it didn’t include. For example, if the source was a picture of a motor ambulance and asked you the usefulness of this source for an inquiry into modes of transport during WW1, you could say that it wasn’t useful because it doesn’t show the other methods of transport. What’s really important in these questions is that you include your own knowledge, so here you’ll need to specify the other methods of transport before ultimately deciding on your judgement.
For 16 markers, you’re going to need both an introduction and a conclusion, and for 12 markers you’ll also need a conclusion (I think this is correct..?), and in the conclusion you need to give your own opinion and evaluate using the evidence you’ve just talked about. It’s really imporatnt you land on a judgement, and you can do this by saying which out of the three/four things you’ve talked about are the most important or significant.
After every piece of evidence you give, you need to say why this is important/ significant. If you write a sentence about the buffalo being shot off of trains as a factor of the Indians’ lifestyle being destroyed, you need to explain why this is a big deal. I used to never do this because I thought it sounded clunky, but literally just write something along the lines of, ‘this is important because the Indians used the buffalo for everything, including food, so the decline in buffalo numbers would also lead to Indians dying from a lack of food’
At the end of each paragraph, refer back to the question. This was where most of my marks were dropped, and it’s so easy to gain these. You’ve made your point, you’ve used your evidence, you’ve explained it’s importance and now all you need to do is refer it back to the original question. a simple ‘This ultimately shows how the white people were destroying the Indian lifestyle because they were actively targeting their main food source, which would mean the Indians either had to adopt the white lifestyle or die’ ties up your point so you can move onto your next paragraph. In the words of my current history teacher, ‘answer the bloody question’.
For questions where you’re already given information to use, you need to include at least one of your own points or your marks get capped at around half, I think, even if your evidence is fantastic. If you’re given a point you’ve literally never heard of before or you’re not that confident on, you don’t have to write about it, but you now have to have two of your own points, because you still have to include your own info as if you used that point. If you get me.
If you turn the page to a question and you’ve got absolutely no idea, don’t panic, because your exam technique could still save you. It’s easy to just scribble down any old thing and move on, or worse, not answer it at all, but make sure you still have an introduction and a conclusion (if that essay requires one) and the evidence you do use, however tenuous, is still back up by ‘this is significant because..’ and ‘this meant that…’ and you still answer the question.
Literally my biggest tip for history is do the paper backwards. Start with the question worth the most amount of marks and finish the question worth the least. You don’t have enough time to be spending twenty minutes on an eight mark question, and it’s so important that you at least have a go at every question because it’s not fair on yourself if you miss out a twelve mark question because you didn’t time it well enough. In my march mock, I got a 6 in history because i messed up my timings by doing the papers chronologically, which meant my big sixteen markers really suffered.
If you’re really, really short on time and you know you’re not going to finish a question (especially if it’s big one), you can write in bullet points, but be aware that you won’t get as many marks here as you would had you written in full sentences. If you’re got a few minutes of a 16/12 marker left, it’s better to write your conclusion in full sentences, and your last paragraph in bullet points, but still make sure you say why the evidence is important, no matter how succinct.
What merges both your content and your exam technique together is, you guessed it, exam questions. We got a big booklet of these and I did try to do about one of these a week, but if you’re short on time essay plans are always useful. What’s really important, though, is that you get your teacher to mark them, because there’s no point having a pile of essays at home that haven’t been corrected, so you know where you’re going wrong.
Geography:
Aiming for grade 5/6+:
Not gonna lie, geography was my least priority subject. I didn't want to take it for a-level and I never found it particularly difficult, either, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time revising geography. However, my teacher was great and set us a load of homework every week, so I did do quite a lot of geography in year 11, but not a lot of it was actual revision. If you get me.
Geography is another one of those ’swallow a textbook whole and regurgitate it in the exam hall subjects’, so I went for the classic Meghan approach of making mindmaps, then flashcards
. i especially put emphasis on the case studies- you need to know these upside down inside out, particularly the big two practical ones on your paper 3 exam. for these ones, our teacher made us put together two a3 sheets with hypothesis, results, evaluation etc. on it, and i made each section into, you guessed it, a flashcard, and put the a3 sheets above my bed.
my number one geography tip in two words: case studies. Learn these badboys like they’re you’re own family.
exam technique is also quite crucial in the higher mark questions, and the best tip is to just practice. our teacher was great at giving us exam question after exam question until we were all constantly hitting the higher band, but i also bought a workbook to use. geography is another subject where it’s hard to mark the longer questions yourself, so i was always getting my teacher to mark question after question, but she didn’t seem to mind. shoutout to Vicky B- you were awesome.
apart from that, there’s not much else i can say about geography apart from use past papers as often as you can. geography is a subject where you an really revise any way that works best for you, so definitely try out a few methods and maybe combine them.
Aiming for grade 4/5: (the 5 steps to getting a 5)
Spoiler:
Show
Unless you want to take a level geography or it’s your favourite subject, geography always seems to get cast aside and not very many people revise for it. personally, i did, though i can understand why some people didn’t when their main priorities are english and maths.
so this part is for you: the comprehensive guide to getting a 4/5 in geography the night/ week/ month before the exam:
step 1: case studies
the case study questions are probably going to be between 4-9 marks, so if you’ve got these nailed you’ll quickly wrack up marks, so learn them. and i’m not just talking knowing what a hurricane katrina is, i’m talking you need to specifically know the impacts and responses. these are more likely to be asked in a question, so make sure you can not only name at least three, but you can also categorise them into long term and short term, and social, environmental and economical. facts are also good. for example, if we refer back to hurricane katrina, you want to learn between 3-5 facts. here, the date, death/ injury toll, wind speed, cost and direction of the storm would be very useful, not just to answer specific questions, but to throw into the bigger questions, to show the examiner you know what you’re on about. case studies are especially important for paper 3; if you’ve only got time to revise a few, learn the big ones for your paper 3 exam (these are the ones where you actually went on a trip and did an investigation, like the beach or the city). Paper 3 is about 50% case study, so if you don’t know your big case studies, you’re pretty much screwed. if you have a revision guide, it will help you greatly here, for all 3 papers because they have all the case studies you’ll ever need ready to go.
step 2: the mark schemes of the case studies
the new gcse geography mark scheme for the longer questions are broken down into tiers before individual marks are given: simple, clear and detailed. look at examiners reports or mark schemes to learn what you need to do to get into the top band, and make sure you can replicate it. To hit those 7-9 marks, you’ll need to be able to frequently link between your own knowledge and the question, as well as using key terminology.
step 3: grammar
for the 9 markers specifically, you get awarded 3 points on SPaG, so if you’re naturally good at grammar, you’re covered here and these should be easy marks. You’re probably not going to be able to correct every inch of your bad grammar in one night, so focus on long words that you could spell wrong, and getting those right in the exam might excuse a missing comma. If you’re not, perhaps brush up on spelling key words or using the actual paper to help you. if you’re stuck spelling “Philippines” the paper might already have it written down somewhere. i’m pretty sure SPaG marks are also awarded for technical vocabulary (don’t quote me on that), so if you can use words like “desertification” or something when talking about your case study, you might be able to compensate for a few spellings here and there.
step 4: maths skills
you don’t need to be a mathematical genius for this. you need to know how to read and then talk about graphs and occasionally how to plot them. basic map skills also come under this, such as being able to read coordinates or cholorpleth maps (sounds a lot more complicated than there are) and things like that. knowing these will hopefully get you a few more marks under you belt and push you closer towards the passing grade boundary.
step 5: general knowledge
i always think geography is easier than history, and i think that’s mainly because you can apply common sense to a geography exam which you can’t really do in history. put it this way: you’re more likely to talk about climate change with someone than you are Thomas Wolsey, so can probably pick up a few marks on what you know already. There’s little bits of geography that crop up in the sciences, so you probably know a few bits about deforestation or urbanisation from either your other lessons or just from listening to the news, and you can probably coast (haha, gettit?) your way through the rest. Geography papers aren’t tiered anymore, which means that the questions need to be accessible for all abilities. they’ll definitely be some easy one markers to pick up, which, coupled with the case studies and practical questions, should help to bag you a C. maybe. don’t quote me on that one.
Motivation:
I’ve put this at the end because it’s the one thing i can’t give you. i can help you to find it, but i can’t hand you a burning desire to study on a silver platter; you have to find that yourself. and it’s hard, i know it’s hard when everyone’s screaming at you to revise and you barely have the motivation to breathe, but i’m living proof you can find your motivation and crawl out the deep dark hole of netflix binges.
i think motivation is the hardest part of revision that no one talks about. it doesn’t matter if you’re in all top sets, it doesn’t matter if you can access abundance of revision resources, because if you don’t have motivation, you’re not going to perform as well as you hoped. and it’s the hardest part because it comes from within- you either have it or you don’t and it’s hard to suddenly gain motivation when you’ve lived for so long in the dark.
i guess the obvious would be to think long term- do you want to go to university? college? dream job?- and work towards your goal of having a degree, being able to support a family etc in ten years or so. If you want to get into Cambridge (or is it Oxford that are really snobby about GCSEs? I’m pretty sure both want A*s anyway), print out a nice big colour picture of Cambridge uni and slap it above your desk.
The whole uni/careers thing wasn’t such a motivator because i think i want to be an author and you don’t need any qualifications for that. But, honestly, this rarely worked for me, because i knew i would pass- and it seems arrogant which it is, but i knew that with minimal revision i could pass with 5s and 6s. And that was where my motivation came from, because i didn’t need to get all 9s or whatever, but i wanted them, just to prove that, yeah, i could do it.
although some would argue that short term motivation is pointless, sometimes you just need a reward to get you through that gruelling session, day, week… (year)
gcses didn’t make me feel half as good as i thought they would, but that’s just my personal experience. i didn’t mean for this to become a sob story, but this is how i felt, and i feel like it would be dishonest to not include it.
there are people who are adamant that the secret to doing well is to find a way to enjoy the content you’re learning, while i disagree. You just have to do it, man. You just have to dedicate three months of your life to learning a bunch of facts you’ll never need again before you can enjoy a summer equal in length. there is no secret: there’s just motivation and determination. There’s just you, your notes and the internet, and you need to choose which one you’re gonna go for.
And, finally, we come reach the end. I hope it wasn't too overwhelming and i wacked in a load of spoiler tabs so you can only read the bits that are relevenat to you.
Thank you for your time, and i hope i was able to help, even in the slightest. All the best, good luck, bonne chance, you got this!
please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions; i’m always happy to help. also i don’t have much of a life (as you can probably tell) so i’ll almost definitely reply.
also huge props to @Joshiee for not only inspiring this, but for making the original and helping loads of people. you can find it here.
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4298480
(edited 4 years ago)
Sorry its very long u might wanna get a cup of tea and a seat lol...
Thank you so muchhhh must of took u agesssss x , Ah lol its okay no worriessss x Are you Year 12 ?
Original post by won.of.a.kind
Sorry its very long u might wanna get a cup of tea and a seat lol...
Yeah hi sorry no i'm am not I am year 11. Umm yeah so I only wrote the first part the massive chunk was written by troubletracking so most of the credit goes to her and she is in year 12. Glad it could help you !!! 
Good luck ! 
Good luck ! Original post by xperix
Thank you so muchhhh must of took u agesssss x , Ah lol its okay no worriessss x Are you Year 12 ?
Oh oopsies x , Thank you still , How is revision going ?
Original post by won.of.a.kind
Yeah hi sorry no i'm am not I am year 11. Umm yeah so I only wrote the first part the massive chunk was written by troubletracking so most of the credit goes to her and she is in year 12. Glad it could help you !!! Good luck !
Good luck ! Haha lol its going ok 
I guess I'm still doing really well - but procrastination is a problem lol I procrastinate a lot even though I am motivated to do well and revise I just never quite get round to it 
......
I guess I'm still doing really well - but procrastination is a problem lol I procrastinate a lot even though I am motivated to do well and revise I just never quite get round to it ......Original post by xperix
Oh oopsies x , Thank you still , How is revision going ?
That’s exactly like me mate
Original post by won.of.a.kind
Haha lol its going ok I guess I'm still doing really well - but procrastination is a problem lol I procrastinate a lot even though I am motivated to do well and revise I just never quite get round to it ......
I guess I'm still doing really well - but procrastination is a problem lol I procrastinate a lot even though I am motivated to do well and revise I just never quite get round to it ......lmao
Original post by Lilllyyyy3
That’s exactly like me mate
We have a thread here for Business Studies GCSE Edexcel - https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=5719966
I created quite a few resources too (which is also linked to in the thread above) -
From March onwards, here are 5 questions daily on Theme 1 and Theme 2 until the date of the Paper 2 exam - https://getrevising.co.uk/files/documents/business-5-a-day-march-june-theme-1-and-theme-2/Business%20all%205%20a%20day.pdf
Practice paper 1: https://getrevising.co.uk/files/documents/business-studies-gcse-9-1-edexcel-paper-1-practice/Business%20p1%20prac..pdf
Practice paper 2: https://getrevising.co.uk/files/documents/business-studies-gcse-9-1-edexcel-paper-2-practice/Business%20paper%202.pdf
Theme 1 revision guide: https://getrevising.co.uk/files/documents/business-studies-theme-1-investigating-small-business-revision-notes/Business%20Theme%201.pdf
I'm also in Year 11, doing Edexcel BS. Even after creating all of these resources I'm procrastinating and feeling like I'm going to do badly.
I created quite a few resources too (which is also linked to in the thread above) -
From March onwards, here are 5 questions daily on Theme 1 and Theme 2 until the date of the Paper 2 exam - https://getrevising.co.uk/files/documents/business-5-a-day-march-june-theme-1-and-theme-2/Business%20all%205%20a%20day.pdf
Practice paper 1: https://getrevising.co.uk/files/documents/business-studies-gcse-9-1-edexcel-paper-1-practice/Business%20p1%20prac..pdf
Practice paper 2: https://getrevising.co.uk/files/documents/business-studies-gcse-9-1-edexcel-paper-2-practice/Business%20paper%202.pdf
Theme 1 revision guide: https://getrevising.co.uk/files/documents/business-studies-theme-1-investigating-small-business-revision-notes/Business%20Theme%201.pdf
I'm also in Year 11, doing Edexcel BS. Even after creating all of these resources I'm procrastinating and feeling like I'm going to do badly.
HAHAHAHA everyone literally procasinating which is awful but you know always be positive
Original post by won.of.a.kind
Sorry its very long u might wanna get a cup of tea and a seat lol...
Hey, are you troubletracking?
Guys I got a grade 6 in my recent mocks but when it was January mocks I got a high 7
No sorry - only wrote the first half I have given a lot of revision information on other forums but this (linked ) is troubletracking she takes most of the credit - @troubletracking
) is troubletracking she takes most of the credit - @troubletracking Original post by Tolgarda
Hey, are you troubletracking?
(edited 5 years ago)
the link isn't working
https://quizlet.com/class/1842991/]Germans
Your next step is to get your grammar in check, and I’m talking everything: tenses, irregulars, endings, the whole lot. There’s really no way around the fact that you’ll just have to do it again and again, and a good ol’ workbook is probably the answer here. in the beginning of year 10, I stuck pieces of paper onto my roof with the irregular endings to common irregulars such as être and avoir, and a few of them are still there because I moved my bedroom around and couldn’t take them down again.
Something I think is pretty handy to know, espeically if you want those higher gardes, is to learn a few fancy phrases and idioms to stick in your wirintg and speaking. These examples are all gonna be in French, but leanring a cheeky 'si j'étais riche', 'après avoir mangé' or 'quand j'étais jeune' to throw in there bumps up your marks a little, and is it even a french exam if you don't throw in a quick 'quel dommage!' at the end of your wiritng? Non.
Here's the usual speil about listening to French music, reading Italian articles and watching Spanish films because it does help you to get acccustomed with the langauge. I read somewere that reading your favourite childhood book from when you were 8-11 is supposed to really help with learning a langauge, so now I have a copy of the Hunger Games in French just chilling on my bookshelf
Here's a French spotify playlist I was particulary fond of, seeing as I can't link my own because my username is legit my full name lmao
History:
Spoiler:
Show
History is such a hard subject because there’s so much content to learn. And out of that content, it’s inevitable that only a fraction will be actually assessed, which is just lovely.
For the content, I made a mindmap for literally every single topic of every single unit and stuck it on my wall. I found it really useful because I was able to paraphrase my unnecessarily detailed notes into something that was easy to understand, and rewording it made it a lot easier to remember. In the centre of each mindmap, I’d have the topic and then I’d have smaller subtitles with information around each of them. For example, I might have written The Fall of Wolsey in the centre, then I’d write stuff like ‘the failed Annulment’ and ‘failed foreign policy’ and ‘failed domestic policies’ around it, with information on each coming out of it.
From mindmaps, I’d make flashcards, in which were basically each sub-topic of a mindmap, but condensed enough to fit only the key points on there. These were what I’d mainly use for revision, so I’d take them to school, have people test me and stuff like that. For each of my unit, I’d also make date flashcards. Dates aren’t actually necessary in any of the units apart from the second question of the depth study (the narrative account) where you have to put stuff in order. However, knowing dates is really important in getting marks for your specific factual detail, so I would advise you learn the key ones at the very minimum. There’s really no fun way around learning dates apart from standing in a circle and chanting them with your friends like you’re in a Galen-worshipping cult, but if you go over them enough times they really do stick. The stuff I remember now from GCSE are the things I learnt over a long period of time instead of cramming the night before (guilty as charged), and I do still remember a good chunk of the dates now, so start leaning them as you go along.
Something that I actually only did around half way through year 11 was make timelines because I thought they were pointless and a waste of wall space (wall space was something I’d rationed by february lmao). Yikes, was I wrong. Timelines are really helpful with your thematic study because you can clearly see the evolution of medicine (in my case), but also the sequence of events within each period. But I found them particularly helpful with units that aren’t taught completely in order and where there’s some overlap in dates, such as the American West and Henry VIII because then you can cleary see what happened when. For your depth studies like this, it’s even more helpful to colour code each topic- so I had a colour each for the Mormons, the Homesteaders, the Indian Wars etc. Putting your timeline somewhere you see every day will encourage you to actively look at it and test yourself frequently, which is going to help you not just learn the order things come in but also the dates themselves.
The other element to history is the exam technique, which is often underestimated in its importance, but it’s honestly crucial to a good grade. You can have all the fun facts about Stressemann you want, but if you don’t know how to answer the question, you’re not going to get any marks, and you’ve worked hard to do yourself the injustice of missing easy marks.
For a source question, you’re going to need to include both content (the source itself) and the provenance (where the source comes from). A lot of my source marks were lost because I’d said the source wasn’t useful because it didn’t include something, but then I’d failed to say what it didn’t include. For example, if the source was a picture of a motor ambulance and asked you the usefulness of this source for an inquiry into modes of transport during WW1, you could say that it wasn’t useful because it doesn’t show the other methods of transport. What’s really important in these questions is that you include your own knowledge, so here you’ll need to specify the other methods of transport before ultimately deciding on your judgement.
For 16 markers, you’re going to need both an introduction and a conclusion, and for 12 markers you’ll also need a conclusion (I think this is correct..?), and in the conclusion you need to give your own opinion and evaluate using the evidence you’ve just talked about. It’s really imporatnt you land on a judgement, and you can do this by saying which out of the three/four things you’ve talked about are the most important or significant.
After every piece of evidence you give, you need to say why this is important/ significant. If you write a sentence about the buffalo being shot off of trains as a factor of the Indians’ lifestyle being destroyed, you need to explain why this is a big deal. I used to never do this because I thought it sounded clunky, but literally just write something along the lines of, ‘this is important because the Indians used the buffalo for everything, including food, so the decline in buffalo numbers would also lead to Indians dying from a lack of food’
At the end of each paragraph, refer back to the question. This was where most of my marks were dropped, and it’s so easy to gain these. You’ve made your point, you’ve used your evidence, you’ve explained it’s importance and now all you need to do is refer it back to the original question. a simple ‘This ultimately shows how the white people were destroying the Indian lifestyle because they were actively targeting their main food source, which would mean the Indians either had to adopt the white lifestyle or die’ ties up your point so you can move onto your next paragraph. In the words of my current history teacher, ‘answer the bloody question’.
For questions where you’re already given information to use, you need to include at least one of your own points or your marks get capped at around half, I think, even if your evidence is fantastic. If you’re given a point you’ve literally never heard of before or you’re not that confident on, you don’t have to write about it, but you now have to have two of your own points, because you still have to include your own info as if you used that point. If you get me.
If you turn the page to a question and you’ve got absolutely no idea, don’t panic, because your exam technique could still save you. It’s easy to just scribble down any old thing and move on, or worse, not answer it at all, but make sure you still have an introduction and a conclusion (if that essay requires one) and the evidence you do use, however tenuous, is still back up by ‘this is significant because..’ and ‘this meant that…’ and you still answer the question.
Literally my biggest tip for history is do the paper backwards. Start with the question worth the most amount of marks and finish the question worth the least. You don’t have enough time to be spending twenty minutes on an eight mark question, and it’s so important that you at least have a go at every question because it’s not fair on yourself if you miss out a twelve mark question because you didn’t time it well enough. In my march mock, I got a 6 in history because i messed up my timings by doing the papers chronologically, which meant my big sixteen markers really suffered.
If you’re really, really short on time and you know you’re not going to finish a question (especially if it’s big one), you can write in bullet points, but be aware that you won’t get as many marks here as you would had you written in full sentences. If you’re got a few minutes of a 16/12 marker left, it’s better to write your conclusion in full sentences, and your last paragraph in bullet points, but still make sure you say why the evidence is important, no matter how succinct.
What merges both your content and your exam technique together is, you guessed it, exam questions. We got a big booklet of these and I did try to do about one of these a week, but if you’re short on time essay plans are always useful. What’s really important, though, is that you get your teacher to mark them, because there’s no point having a pile of essays at home that haven’t been corrected, so you know where you’re going wrong.
Geography:
Aiming for grade 5/6+:
Not gonna lie, geography was my least priority subject. I didn't want to take it for a-level and I never found it particularly difficult, either, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time revising geography. However, my teacher was great and set us a load of homework every week, so I did do quite a lot of geography in year 11, but not a lot of it was actual revision. If you get me.
Geography is another one of those ’swallow a textbook whole and regurgitate it in the exam hall subjects’, so I went for the classic Meghan approach of making mindmaps, then flashcards
. i especially put emphasis on the case studies- you need to know these upside down inside out, particularly the big two practical ones on your paper 3 exam. for these ones, our teacher made us put together two a3 sheets with hypothesis, results, evaluation etc. on it, and i made each section into, you guessed it, a flashcard, and put the a3 sheets above my bed.
my number one geography tip in two words: case studies. Learn these badboys like they’re you’re own family.
exam technique is also quite crucial in the higher mark questions, and the best tip is to just practice. our teacher was great at giving us exam question after exam question until we were all constantly hitting the higher band, but i also bought a workbook to use. geography is another subject where it’s hard to mark the longer questions yourself, so i was always getting my teacher to mark question after question, but she didn’t seem to mind. shoutout to Vicky B- you were awesome.
apart from that, there’s not much else i can say about geography apart from use past papers as often as you can. geography is a subject where you an really revise any way that works best for you, so definitely try out a few methods and maybe combine them.
Aiming for grade 4/5: (the 5 steps to getting a 5)
Spoiler:
Show
Unless you want to take a level geography or it’s your favourite subject, geography always seems to get cast aside and not very many people revise for it. personally, i did, though i can understand why some people didn’t when their main priorities are english and maths.
so this part is for you: the comprehensive guide to getting a 4/5 in geography the night/ week/ month before the exam:
step 1: case studies
the case study questions are probably going to be between 4-9 marks, so if you’ve got these nailed you’ll quickly wrack up marks, so learn them. and i’m not just talking knowing what a hurricane katrina is, i’m talking you need to specifically know the impacts and responses. these are more likely to be asked in a question, so make sure you can not only name at least three, but you can also categorise them into long term and short term, and social, environmental and economical. facts are also good. for example, if we refer back to hurricane katrina, you want to learn between 3-5 facts. here, the date, death/ injury toll, wind speed, cost and direction of the storm would be very useful, not just to answer specific questions, but to throw into the bigger questions, to show the examiner you know what you’re on about. case studies are especially important for paper 3; if you’ve only got time to revise a few, learn the big ones for your paper 3 exam (these are the ones where you actually went on a trip and did an investigation, like the beach or the city). Paper 3 is about 50% case study, so if you don’t know your big case studies, you’re pretty much screwed. if you have a revision guide, it will help you greatly here, for all 3 papers because they have all the case studies you’ll ever need ready to go.
step 2: the mark schemes of the case studies
the new gcse geography mark scheme for the longer questions are broken down into tiers before individual marks are given: simple, clear and detailed. look at examiners reports or mark schemes to learn what you need to do to get into the top band, and make sure you can replicate it. To hit those 7-9 marks, you’ll need to be able to frequently link between your own knowledge and the question, as well as using key terminology.
step 3: grammar
for the 9 markers specifically, you get awarded 3 points on SPaG, so if you’re naturally good at grammar, you’re covered here and these should be easy marks. You’re probably not going to be able to correct every inch of your bad grammar in one night, so focus on long words that you could spell wrong, and getting those right in the exam might excuse a missing comma. If you’re not, perhaps brush up on spelling key words or using the actual paper to help you. if you’re stuck spelling “Philippines” the paper might already have it written down somewhere. i’m pretty sure SPaG marks are also awarded for technical vocabulary (don’t quote me on that), so if you can use words like “desertification” or something when talking about your case study, you might be able to compensate for a few spellings here and there.
step 4: maths skills
you don’t need to be a mathematical genius for this. you need to know how to read and then talk about graphs and occasionally how to plot them. basic map skills also come under this, such as being able to read coordinates or cholorpleth maps (sounds a lot more complicated than there are) and things like that. knowing these will hopefully get you a few more marks under you belt and push you closer towards the passing grade boundary.
step 5: general knowledge
i always think geography is easier than history, and i think that’s mainly because you can apply common sense to a geography exam which you can’t really do in history. put it this way: you’re more likely to talk about climate change with someone than you are Thomas Wolsey, so can probably pick up a few marks on what you know already. There’s little bits of geography that crop up in the sciences, so you probably know a few bits about deforestation or urbanisation from either your other lessons or just from listening to the news, and you can probably coast (haha, gettit?) your way through the rest. Geography papers aren’t tiered anymore, which means that the questions need to be accessible for all abilities. they’ll definitely be some easy one markers to pick up, which, coupled with the case studies and practical questions, should help to bag you a C. maybe. don’t quote me on that one.
Motivation:
I’ve put this at the end because it’s the one thing i can’t give you. i can help you to find it, but i can’t hand you a burning desire to study on a silver platter; you have to find that yourself. and it’s hard, i know it’s hard when everyone’s screaming at you to revise and you barely have the motivation to breathe, but i’m living proof you can find your motivation and crawl out the deep dark hole of netflix binges.
i think motivation is the hardest part of revision that no one talks about. it doesn’t matter if you’re in all top sets, it doesn’t matter if you can access abundance of revision resources, because if you don’t have motivation, you’re not going to perform as well as you hoped. and it’s the hardest part because it comes from within- you either have it or you don’t and it’s hard to suddenly gain motivation when you’ve lived for so long in the dark.
i guess the obvious would be to think long term- do you want to go to university? college? dream job?- and work towards your goal of having a degree, being able to support a family etc in ten years or so. If you want to get into Cambridge (or is it Oxford that are really snobby about GCSEs? I’m pretty sure both want A*s anyway), print out a nice big colour picture of Cambridge uni and slap it above your desk.
The whole uni/careers thing wasn’t such a motivator because i think i want to be an author and you don’t need any qualifications for that. But, honestly, this rarely worked for me, because i knew i would pass- and it seems arrogant which it is, but i knew that with minimal revision i could pass with 5s and 6s. And that was where my motivation came from, because i didn’t need to get all 9s or whatever, but i wanted them, just to prove that, yeah, i could do it.
although some would argue that short term motivation is pointless, sometimes you just need a reward to get you through that gruelling session, day, week… (year)
gcses didn’t make me feel half as good as i thought they would, but that’s just my personal experience. i didn’t mean for this to become a sob story, but this is how i felt, and i feel like it would be dishonest to not include it.
there are people who are adamant that the secret to doing well is to find a way to enjoy the content you’re learning, while i disagree. You just have to do it, man. You just have to dedicate three months of your life to learning a bunch of facts you’ll never need again before you can enjoy a summer equal in length. there is no secret: there’s just motivation and determination. There’s just you, your notes and the internet, and you need to choose which one you’re gonna go for.
And, finally, we come reach the end. I hope it wasn't too overwhelming and i wacked in a load of spoiler tabs so you can only read the bits that are relevenat to you.
Thank you for your time, and i hope i was able to help, even in the slightest. All the best, good luck, bonne chance, you got this!
please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions; i’m always happy to help. also i don’t have much of a life (as you can probably tell) so i’ll almost definitely reply.
also huge props to @Joshiee for not only inspiring this, but for making the original and helping loads of people. you can find it here.
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/sho....php?t=4298480
Last edited by troubletracking; 3 months ago
Original post by won.of.a.kind
Hiiii this is my advice:
https://quizlet.com/class/5159741/]Spaniards
Big post
https://quizlet.com/class/5159741/]Spaniards
https://quizlet.com/class/1842991/]Germans
Your next step is to get your grammar in check, and I’m talking everything: tenses, irregulars, endings, the whole lot. There’s really no way around the fact that you’ll just have to do it again and again, and a good ol’ workbook is probably the answer here. in the beginning of year 10, I stuck pieces of paper onto my roof with the irregular endings to common irregulars such as être and avoir, and a few of them are still there because I moved my bedroom around and couldn’t take them down again.
Something I think is pretty handy to know, espeically if you want those higher gardes, is to learn a few fancy phrases and idioms to stick in your wirintg and speaking. These examples are all gonna be in French, but leanring a cheeky 'si j'étais riche', 'après avoir mangé' or 'quand j'étais jeune' to throw in there bumps up your marks a little, and is it even a french exam if you don't throw in a quick 'quel dommage!' at the end of your wiritng? Non.
Here's the usual speil about listening to French music, reading Italian articles and watching Spanish films because it does help you to get acccustomed with the langauge. I read somewere that reading your favourite childhood book from when you were 8-11 is supposed to really help with learning a langauge, so now I have a copy of the Hunger Games in French just chilling on my bookshelf
Here's a French spotify playlist I was particulary fond of, seeing as I can't link my own because my username is legit my full name lmao
History:
Spoiler:
Show
History is such a hard subject because there’s so much content to learn. And out of that content, it’s inevitable that only a fraction will be actually assessed, which is just lovely.
For the content, I made a mindmap for literally every single topic of every single unit and stuck it on my wall. I found it really useful because I was able to paraphrase my unnecessarily detailed notes into something that was easy to understand, and rewording it made it a lot easier to remember. In the centre of each mindmap, I’d have the topic and then I’d have smaller subtitles with information around each of them. For example, I might have written The Fall of Wolsey in the centre, then I’d write stuff like ‘the failed Annulment’ and ‘failed foreign policy’ and ‘failed domestic policies’ around it, with information on each coming out of it.
From mindmaps, I’d make flashcards, in which were basically each sub-topic of a mindmap, but condensed enough to fit only the key points on there. These were what I’d mainly use for revision, so I’d take them to school, have people test me and stuff like that. For each of my unit, I’d also make date flashcards. Dates aren’t actually necessary in any of the units apart from the second question of the depth study (the narrative account) where you have to put stuff in order. However, knowing dates is really important in getting marks for your specific factual detail, so I would advise you learn the key ones at the very minimum. There’s really no fun way around learning dates apart from standing in a circle and chanting them with your friends like you’re in a Galen-worshipping cult, but if you go over them enough times they really do stick. The stuff I remember now from GCSE are the things I learnt over a long period of time instead of cramming the night before (guilty as charged), and I do still remember a good chunk of the dates now, so start leaning them as you go along.
Something that I actually only did around half way through year 11 was make timelines because I thought they were pointless and a waste of wall space (wall space was something I’d rationed by february lmao). Yikes, was I wrong. Timelines are really helpful with your thematic study because you can clearly see the evolution of medicine (in my case), but also the sequence of events within each period. But I found them particularly helpful with units that aren’t taught completely in order and where there’s some overlap in dates, such as the American West and Henry VIII because then you can cleary see what happened when. For your depth studies like this, it’s even more helpful to colour code each topic- so I had a colour each for the Mormons, the Homesteaders, the Indian Wars etc. Putting your timeline somewhere you see every day will encourage you to actively look at it and test yourself frequently, which is going to help you not just learn the order things come in but also the dates themselves.
The other element to history is the exam technique, which is often underestimated in its importance, but it’s honestly crucial to a good grade. You can have all the fun facts about Stressemann you want, but if you don’t know how to answer the question, you’re not going to get any marks, and you’ve worked hard to do yourself the injustice of missing easy marks.
For a source question, you’re going to need to include both content (the source itself) and the provenance (where the source comes from). A lot of my source marks were lost because I’d said the source wasn’t useful because it didn’t include something, but then I’d failed to say what it didn’t include. For example, if the source was a picture of a motor ambulance and asked you the usefulness of this source for an inquiry into modes of transport during WW1, you could say that it wasn’t useful because it doesn’t show the other methods of transport. What’s really important in these questions is that you include your own knowledge, so here you’ll need to specify the other methods of transport before ultimately deciding on your judgement.
For 16 markers, you’re going to need both an introduction and a conclusion, and for 12 markers you’ll also need a conclusion (I think this is correct..?), and in the conclusion you need to give your own opinion and evaluate using the evidence you’ve just talked about. It’s really imporatnt you land on a judgement, and you can do this by saying which out of the three/four things you’ve talked about are the most important or significant.
After every piece of evidence you give, you need to say why this is important/ significant. If you write a sentence about the buffalo being shot off of trains as a factor of the Indians’ lifestyle being destroyed, you need to explain why this is a big deal. I used to never do this because I thought it sounded clunky, but literally just write something along the lines of, ‘this is important because the Indians used the buffalo for everything, including food, so the decline in buffalo numbers would also lead to Indians dying from a lack of food’
At the end of each paragraph, refer back to the question. This was where most of my marks were dropped, and it’s so easy to gain these. You’ve made your point, you’ve used your evidence, you’ve explained it’s importance and now all you need to do is refer it back to the original question. a simple ‘This ultimately shows how the white people were destroying the Indian lifestyle because they were actively targeting their main food source, which would mean the Indians either had to adopt the white lifestyle or die’ ties up your point so you can move onto your next paragraph. In the words of my current history teacher, ‘answer the bloody question’.
For questions where you’re already given information to use, you need to include at least one of your own points or your marks get capped at around half, I think, even if your evidence is fantastic. If you’re given a point you’ve literally never heard of before or you’re not that confident on, you don’t have to write about it, but you now have to have two of your own points, because you still have to include your own info as if you used that point. If you get me.
If you turn the page to a question and you’ve got absolutely no idea, don’t panic, because your exam technique could still save you. It’s easy to just scribble down any old thing and move on, or worse, not answer it at all, but make sure you still have an introduction and a conclusion (if that essay requires one) and the evidence you do use, however tenuous, is still back up by ‘this is significant because..’ and ‘this meant that…’ and you still answer the question.
Literally my biggest tip for history is do the paper backwards. Start with the question worth the most amount of marks and finish the question worth the least. You don’t have enough time to be spending twenty minutes on an eight mark question, and it’s so important that you at least have a go at every question because it’s not fair on yourself if you miss out a twelve mark question because you didn’t time it well enough. In my march mock, I got a 6 in history because i messed up my timings by doing the papers chronologically, which meant my big sixteen markers really suffered.
If you’re really, really short on time and you know you’re not going to finish a question (especially if it’s big one), you can write in bullet points, but be aware that you won’t get as many marks here as you would had you written in full sentences. If you’re got a few minutes of a 16/12 marker left, it’s better to write your conclusion in full sentences, and your last paragraph in bullet points, but still make sure you say why the evidence is important, no matter how succinct.
What merges both your content and your exam technique together is, you guessed it, exam questions. We got a big booklet of these and I did try to do about one of these a week, but if you’re short on time essay plans are always useful. What’s really important, though, is that you get your teacher to mark them, because there’s no point having a pile of essays at home that haven’t been corrected, so you know where you’re going wrong.
Geography:
Aiming for grade 5/6+:
Not gonna lie, geography was my least priority subject. I didn't want to take it for a-level and I never found it particularly difficult, either, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time revising geography. However, my teacher was great and set us a load of homework every week, so I did do quite a lot of geography in year 11, but not a lot of it was actual revision. If you get me.
Geography is another one of those ’swallow a textbook whole and regurgitate it in the exam hall subjects’, so I went for the classic Meghan approach of making mindmaps, then flashcards
. i especially put emphasis on the case studies- you need to know these upside down inside out, particularly the big two practical ones on your paper 3 exam. for these ones, our teacher made us put together two a3 sheets with hypothesis, results, evaluation etc. on it, and i made each section into, you guessed it, a flashcard, and put the a3 sheets above my bed.
my number one geography tip in two words: case studies. Learn these badboys like they’re you’re own family.
exam technique is also quite crucial in the higher mark questions, and the best tip is to just practice. our teacher was great at giving us exam question after exam question until we were all constantly hitting the higher band, but i also bought a workbook to use. geography is another subject where it’s hard to mark the longer questions yourself, so i was always getting my teacher to mark question after question, but she didn’t seem to mind. shoutout to Vicky B- you were awesome.
apart from that, there’s not much else i can say about geography apart from use past papers as often as you can. geography is a subject where you an really revise any way that works best for you, so definitely try out a few methods and maybe combine them.
Aiming for grade 4/5: (the 5 steps to getting a 5)
Spoiler:
Show
Unless you want to take a level geography or it’s your favourite subject, geography always seems to get cast aside and not very many people revise for it. personally, i did, though i can understand why some people didn’t when their main priorities are english and maths.
so this part is for you: the comprehensive guide to getting a 4/5 in geography the night/ week/ month before the exam:
step 1: case studies
the case study questions are probably going to be between 4-9 marks, so if you’ve got these nailed you’ll quickly wrack up marks, so learn them. and i’m not just talking knowing what a hurricane katrina is, i’m talking you need to specifically know the impacts and responses. these are more likely to be asked in a question, so make sure you can not only name at least three, but you can also categorise them into long term and short term, and social, environmental and economical. facts are also good. for example, if we refer back to hurricane katrina, you want to learn between 3-5 facts. here, the date, death/ injury toll, wind speed, cost and direction of the storm would be very useful, not just to answer specific questions, but to throw into the bigger questions, to show the examiner you know what you’re on about. case studies are especially important for paper 3; if you’ve only got time to revise a few, learn the big ones for your paper 3 exam (these are the ones where you actually went on a trip and did an investigation, like the beach or the city). Paper 3 is about 50% case study, so if you don’t know your big case studies, you’re pretty much screwed. if you have a revision guide, it will help you greatly here, for all 3 papers because they have all the case studies you’ll ever need ready to go.
step 2: the mark schemes of the case studies
the new gcse geography mark scheme for the longer questions are broken down into tiers before individual marks are given: simple, clear and detailed. look at examiners reports or mark schemes to learn what you need to do to get into the top band, and make sure you can replicate it. To hit those 7-9 marks, you’ll need to be able to frequently link between your own knowledge and the question, as well as using key terminology.
step 3: grammar
for the 9 markers specifically, you get awarded 3 points on SPaG, so if you’re naturally good at grammar, you’re covered here and these should be easy marks. You’re probably not going to be able to correct every inch of your bad grammar in one night, so focus on long words that you could spell wrong, and getting those right in the exam might excuse a missing comma. If you’re not, perhaps brush up on spelling key words or using the actual paper to help you. if you’re stuck spelling “Philippines” the paper might already have it written down somewhere. i’m pretty sure SPaG marks are also awarded for technical vocabulary (don’t quote me on that), so if you can use words like “desertification” or something when talking about your case study, you might be able to compensate for a few spellings here and there.
step 4: maths skills
you don’t need to be a mathematical genius for this. you need to know how to read and then talk about graphs and occasionally how to plot them. basic map skills also come under this, such as being able to read coordinates or cholorpleth maps (sounds a lot more complicated than there are) and things like that. knowing these will hopefully get you a few more marks under you belt and push you closer towards the passing grade boundary.
step 5: general knowledge
i always think geography is easier than history, and i think that’s mainly because you can apply common sense to a geography exam which you can’t really do in history. put it this way: you’re more likely to talk about climate change with someone than you are Thomas Wolsey, so can probably pick up a few marks on what you know already. There’s little bits of geography that crop up in the sciences, so you probably know a few bits about deforestation or urbanisation from either your other lessons or just from listening to the news, and you can probably coast (haha, gettit?) your way through the rest. Geography papers aren’t tiered anymore, which means that the questions need to be accessible for all abilities. they’ll definitely be some easy one markers to pick up, which, coupled with the case studies and practical questions, should help to bag you a C. maybe. don’t quote me on that one.
Motivation:
I’ve put this at the end because it’s the one thing i can’t give you. i can help you to find it, but i can’t hand you a burning desire to study on a silver platter; you have to find that yourself. and it’s hard, i know it’s hard when everyone’s screaming at you to revise and you barely have the motivation to breathe, but i’m living proof you can find your motivation and crawl out the deep dark hole of netflix binges.
i think motivation is the hardest part of revision that no one talks about. it doesn’t matter if you’re in all top sets, it doesn’t matter if you can access abundance of revision resources, because if you don’t have motivation, you’re not going to perform as well as you hoped. and it’s the hardest part because it comes from within- you either have it or you don’t and it’s hard to suddenly gain motivation when you’ve lived for so long in the dark.
i guess the obvious would be to think long term- do you want to go to university? college? dream job?- and work towards your goal of having a degree, being able to support a family etc in ten years or so. If you want to get into Cambridge (or is it Oxford that are really snobby about GCSEs? I’m pretty sure both want A*s anyway), print out a nice big colour picture of Cambridge uni and slap it above your desk.
The whole uni/careers thing wasn’t such a motivator because i think i want to be an author and you don’t need any qualifications for that. But, honestly, this rarely worked for me, because i knew i would pass- and it seems arrogant which it is, but i knew that with minimal revision i could pass with 5s and 6s. And that was where my motivation came from, because i didn’t need to get all 9s or whatever, but i wanted them, just to prove that, yeah, i could do it.
although some would argue that short term motivation is pointless, sometimes you just need a reward to get you through that gruelling session, day, week… (year)
gcses didn’t make me feel half as good as i thought they would, but that’s just my personal experience. i didn’t mean for this to become a sob story, but this is how i felt, and i feel like it would be dishonest to not include it.
there are people who are adamant that the secret to doing well is to find a way to enjoy the content you’re learning, while i disagree. You just have to do it, man. You just have to dedicate three months of your life to learning a bunch of facts you’ll never need again before you can enjoy a summer equal in length. there is no secret: there’s just motivation and determination. There’s just you, your notes and the internet, and you need to choose which one you’re gonna go for.
And, finally, we come reach the end. I hope it wasn't too overwhelming and i wacked in a load of spoiler tabs so you can only read the bits that are relevenat to you.
Thank you for your time, and i hope i was able to help, even in the slightest. All the best, good luck, bonne chance, you got this!
please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions; i’m always happy to help. also i don’t have much of a life (as you can probably tell) so i’ll almost definitely reply.
also huge props to @Joshiee for not only inspiring this, but for making the original and helping loads of people. you can find it here.
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/sho....php?t=4298480
Last edited by troubletracking; 3 months ago
sorry it's not my original post so I cannot change it but this is the person mentioned @Joshiee and this is who it was written by @troubletracking
Original post by kri123
the link isn't working
How can I find it?
Original post by won.of.a.kind
sorry it's not my original post so I cannot change it but this is the person mentioned @Joshiee and this is who it was written by @troubletracking
Go to the original thread by @troubletracking ( how I got grade 8's and 9's in all my subjects) then contact her
Original post by kri123
How can I find it?
Business is easy but when it comes to exams I dont get the best grades because the mark schemes are so specific.
I would suggest knowing the structure for each question.
I would suggest knowing the structure for each question.
Quick Reply
Related discussions
- A-level Exam Discussions 2024
- GCSE Exam Discussions 2024
- A Level Exam Discussions 2023
- GCSE Exam Discussions 2023
- Edexcel GCSE HISTORY PAPER 2 (1HI0 2A-2W) - 4th JUNE [Exam Chat]
- Edexcel GCSE Statistics Paper 2 Foundation Tier 1ST0 2F - 24 Jun 2022 [Exam Chat]
- Edexcel A Level Further Mathematics Paper 4A (9FM0 4A) - 24th June 2024 [Exam Chat]
- Edexcel GCSE French Writing Higher (1FR0 4H) - 24th May 2024 [Exam Chat]
- Go ahead in time as far as possible
- Edexcel IAL Business Studies Notes
- Edexcel A Level English Literature 2023
- GCSE Biology Study Group 2022-2023
- Edexcel A Level Biology B Paper 3: 9BI0 03 - 24 Jun 2022 [Exam Chat]
- A-level History Study Group 2022-2023
- AQA A-level Physics Paper 1 (7408/1) - 24th May 2024 [Exam Chat]
- Edexcel GCSE Music : Listening and Appraising (1MU0 03) - 17th June 2024 [Exam Chat]
- A-level English Literature Study Group 2022-2023
- Edexcel GCSE Combined Sci Paper 2 Foundation (1SC0 2CF) - 13th June 2023 [Exam Chat]
- Edexcel GCSE Geography A Paper 2 (1GA0/02) - 5th June 2024 [Exam Chat]
- Edexcel GCSE Biology Paper 2 (Higher)(1B10/2H) - 7th June 2024 [Exam Chat]
Latest
Trending
Last reply 2 hours ago
A-Level Business Study Group 2023-2024Last reply 2 days ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 1 (9BS0 01) - 14th May 2024 [Exam Chat]Last reply 2 days ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 3 (9BS0 03) - 6th June 2024 [Exam Chat]Last reply 6 days ago
Business a-level 2024 predictions helpLast reply 1 week ago
How I get an A in A-Level Business StudiesPosted 2 weeks ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 2 (9BS0 02) - 21st May 2024 [Exam Chat]Posted 2 weeks ago
AQA A Level Business Paper 1 (7132/1) - 14th May 2024 [Exam Chat]Last reply 1 month ago
AQA A Level Business Paper 3 (7132/3) - 14th June 2023 [Exam Chat]Last reply 1 month ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 1 (9BS0 01) - 23rd May 2023 [Exam Chat]Last reply 2 months ago
AQA GCSE Business Paper 1 (8132/1) - 18th May [Exam Chat]Last reply 2 months ago
Edexcel Business GCSE Paper 1 (1BS0/01) - 18th May 2023 [Exam Chat]Last reply 4 months ago
How to Structure 20 marker Business Edexcel A- levelPosted 7 months ago
Topic Questions for business studies As LEVEL EdexcelLast reply 7 months ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 3 (9BS0 03) - 14th June 2023 [Exam Chat]Last reply 7 months ago
Edexcel AS level unit-1 and unit-2 business notesLast reply 10 months ago
AQA A Level Business Paper 1 (7132/1) - 23rd May 2023Last reply 10 months ago
how to answer a 9 marker qurstionTrending
Last reply 2 hours ago
A-Level Business Study Group 2023-2024Last reply 2 days ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 1 (9BS0 01) - 14th May 2024 [Exam Chat]Last reply 2 days ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 3 (9BS0 03) - 6th June 2024 [Exam Chat]Last reply 6 days ago
Business a-level 2024 predictions helpLast reply 1 week ago
How I get an A in A-Level Business StudiesPosted 2 weeks ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 2 (9BS0 02) - 21st May 2024 [Exam Chat]Posted 2 weeks ago
AQA A Level Business Paper 1 (7132/1) - 14th May 2024 [Exam Chat]Last reply 1 month ago
AQA A Level Business Paper 3 (7132/3) - 14th June 2023 [Exam Chat]Last reply 1 month ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 1 (9BS0 01) - 23rd May 2023 [Exam Chat]Last reply 2 months ago
AQA GCSE Business Paper 1 (8132/1) - 18th May [Exam Chat]Last reply 2 months ago
Edexcel Business GCSE Paper 1 (1BS0/01) - 18th May 2023 [Exam Chat]Last reply 4 months ago
How to Structure 20 marker Business Edexcel A- levelPosted 7 months ago
Topic Questions for business studies As LEVEL EdexcelLast reply 7 months ago
Edexcel A Level Business Paper 3 (9BS0 03) - 14th June 2023 [Exam Chat]Last reply 7 months ago
Edexcel AS level unit-1 and unit-2 business notesLast reply 10 months ago
AQA A Level Business Paper 1 (7132/1) - 23rd May 2023Last reply 10 months ago
how to answer a 9 marker qurstion
