What have Grade 9 students done to revise?

If you achieved a grade 8/9/A* in GCSE, what subject was it in and how did you revise that subject(e.g revision cards/mind maps) and how did you format these revision techniques. Also how long before GCSEs you’d started revision and if you’d done any revision prior in year 10. Thanks.

Perhaps not the best question to ask, as you'll actually see (particularly towards the top end of grade 9) a negative correlation.
Many of the highest ability students just simply do not do much revision at all. On the other hand, the rest of the students with those marks will do insane amounts of revision- the split will become pretty extreme between no revision and intense revision

Perhaps not the best question to ask, as you'll actually see (particularly towards the top end of grade 9) a negative correlation.
Many of the highest ability students just simply do not do much revision at all. On the other hand, the rest of the students with those marks will do insane amounts of revision- the split will become pretty extreme between no revision and intense revision

this is true, i think the purpose of the grade 9 was to distinguish the 'cleverest' and often (having seen students in my school and the amount of revision they did vs their grades) the best do the least and aren't the most hardworking (myself). so my advice probably isn't the most helpful!

i got six 9s (bio, chem, physics, rs, geog, history), one A* (business) and four 8s (maths, french, english lit and lang) when i did my gcses last year.

i would say you need to be aware of your own UNIQUE method of learning and how you best remember information, and put this to practice when you take your mocks so that you can alter your techniques for your real gcses and hopefully finesse them.

as a guide, here are my tips based on my experience and what i would have done if i could go back.

1) gcses are a MEMORY GAME: learn the bare minimum required and you WILL get the top grades, it is as simple as this. this is especially true in the content based subjects like the sciences and humanities (the ones i did best in), so LEARN THE SPECIFICATION (this is your bible) and nothing else.

2) use ACTIVE RECALL in as much revision as you can: you need to be actively trying to recall the information and not be passively taking it in by reading, as this is not what you would be doing in the exam. try the technique of blurting, google it. i didn’t do exam questions (ran out of time and there were few past papers at the time) but DEFINITELY do practice questions as this is the best way to test yourself.

3) for ME (i am not endorsing this at all but this worked for me, as i have a v good memory naturally), i would wake up at 4am on the morning of my content heavy exams and just go through all the information (for AM exams), and wake up normal time for pm exams and do the same. if you KNOW cramming works for you, do it.

4) don’t be lazy: I was lazy in maths, I could’ve easily gotten a 9 if I had bothered with practicising skills but I focussed on my other subjects because I knew I would be fine even if I didn’t revise. but TRUST ME, it feels pretty bad to get a grade back that is lower than you wanted because you didn’t put the work in, same goes for English lit/ lang. you need to push yourself because it will be worth it in the end.

I can’t think of anything else rn but good luck! just work as hard as you can and there’ll be no way that you’ll feel unhappy with whatever grades you end up with.

this is true, i think the purpose of the grade 9 was to distinguish the 'cleverest' and often (having seen students in my school and the amount of revision they did vs their grades) the best do the least and aren't the most hardworking (myself). so my advice probably isn't the most helpful!

Yeah me too, I went through GCSE's with no revision and came out with a set of 9s and A*s (and one 8 because I hate English lit).
I took the same approach to A levels, though might not have been wise since further maths didn't go great and I need it for my cam offer (waiting for results now...). So my advice- if you're like this, don't be too overconfident!

Yeah, were you the first to do the new GCSEs? I’m also worried because the grade boundaries seem to be quite low now and that by the time I go to take my GCSEs, (2020), the government will have finished “experimenting” with the harder GCSEs and push the grade boundaries really high

Yeah, I was the year they first introduced them to some subjects. Maths and English were 1-9, the rest were still letter grades.
And the grade boundaries are ridiculously low yeah. The percentage of students getting each grade does not change significantly though, so the grade boundaries will not rise significantly unless the papers get easier

As much as I’d like the papers to be easier, I think I’d be more confident with a harder paper and lower grade boundaries for sciences and for humanities an easier paper but higher grade boundaries. I wish the exam boards used the same difficulty of paper each year so there wouldn’t be a massive gap in raw marks between mocks and the actual exam!

Thanks, this was really helpful. Can I also ask because I’ve looked at the specification for AQA Chemistry (specifically) and there are certain things not in the specification (such as the colours of transition metals) but appear in the textbook and exams. This has led me to draw away from using specifications because it seems to lack some knowledge required. Do you recommend using specifications for all subjects, even if not all content is covered in it. Furthermore, my history specification is vague in terms of what you have to know. Whereas things like maths and science specifically will tell you “You must know how to rearrange an equation to find a subject”, the history specification only gives subtitles for content, such as for medicine, “Galen and The Theory of the 4 Humours”, which is not specific in terms of what you need to revise, so how do you reccommend going about learning that without a spec. I’ve just been following the textbook, but in exam questions, have been getting questions which the textbook only briefly touches on or is in very fine print.

Also, in terms of active recall, I’ve tried this technique but am slightly confused as to how to go about recalling it. Should I be recalling it at intervals and how often should I go about doing so. And when I try to recall the information, should I purely just be testing myself with flash cards. I’ve heard of the blurting technique so will definitley try that.

I’ve tried cramming aswell, which seems to only work for the subjects like sciences, but not so much with humanities, which I’ve found interesting aswell.

Thanks for your help, and sorry for so many questions!