Aiming for A*

Definitely - I started making resources in like April of y11 up until the night before/ day of my exam. DO NOT RECOMMEND I HAD BARE STRESS and have learnt since then - I made all of my a level notes before February y13 (including topics we hadn’t covered - I’d take them to class and add to them when we went through content) it’s a shame I can’t use them THANKS CORONA. I revised literally the night before each GCSE exam and sometimes I wouldn’t revise at all (maths AGAIN wouldn’t recommend I scraped a 9 by 2 marks) NEVER AGAIN WILL I REVISE THE NIGHT BEFORE it’s the worst thing to do - revise well in advance kid. You’re in a good position at the end of year 10 to get ‘your **** together’ so to speak and begin knuckling down. Definitely start making your notes/ other resources NOW. Although I did pretty decently for GCSE I learnt from my mistakes and didn’t do any of the bad habits for A-Levels as they didn’t work (revising the night before got me a C, revising 5 weeks in advance, doing a bit by bit and pacing myself, got me an A*).

Wow. So what did you end up getting. I’ll revise in advance

I got A*9999888776 for GCSE, and I just finished college this year, so I'm waiting for results day (I've got an A at AS and a B in EPQ - still salty about this because I was one mark off A* when it was internally moderated, so I'm just waiting on my A-Level results now).

When did you guys start making resources for GCSE and when did you guys start revising. I’m currently in y10 but I’ve been falling behind in online school but I know I’m capable of 8s and 9s. Do you guys think there’s still hope for next year?

Definitely - I started making resources in like April of y11 up until the night before/ day of my exam. DO NOT RECOMMEND I HAD BARE STRESS and have learnt since then - I made all of my a level notes before February y13 (including topics we hadn’t covered - I’d take them to class and add to them when we went through content) it’s a shame I can’t use them THANKS CORONA. I revised literally the night before each GCSE exam and sometimes I wouldn’t revise at all (maths AGAIN wouldn’t recommend I scraped a 9 by 2 marks) NEVER AGAIN WILL I REVISE THE NIGHT BEFORE it’s the worst thing to do - revise well in advance kid. You’re in a good position at the end of year 10 to get ‘your **** together’ so to speak and begin knuckling down. Definitely start making your notes/ other resources NOW. Although I did pretty decently for GCSE I learnt from my mistakes and didn’t do any of the bad habits for A-Levels as they didn’t work (revising the night before got me a C, revising 5 weeks in advance, doing a bit by bit and pacing myself, got me an A*).

i'd say to catch up with online school, and then start making revision material - cue cards specifically. i think they'll help you massively and the summer is a great time to make them - you'll enter year 11 with more than enough material and if you use it well, you'll do amazing in your mocks. you're in a good position right now so try not to stress too much. i promise you there is still LOTS of hope! at the end of year 10 i was getting 4s and 5s in english lit (for example) and only lost 1 mark in my actual gcse exam. the right revision can do wonders and you have tonnes of time. during summer, i don't think you need to do any more than make cue cards. once year 11 begins and you start preparing for mocks, start using the cue cards regularly and do practise exam questions and you'll be good to go!

How did you revise for English lit?

first i made mindmaps for each of the poems, made sure to include all sorts of evaluations and touch on the themes. i did similar things with the books too, and i used mr salles for top level interpretations. i also read a bunch of articles around each of the poems and books so that i would know a LOT about each of them and i'd be able to apply that knowledge. when making resources, try to get points and interpretations from all sorts of sources and it'll really set you apart from everyone else - lots of people rely on one or two youtubers or blogs and that's it. i also made cue cards with quotes so that i wouldn't forget anything. closer to the exam i recorded myself reading the poems from my anthology and would listen to them on the way to school and on the way back just to really get it into my head. my last step was essays essays essays. write millions of essays and get your teacher to mark them. ideally, you want to plan for every single possible topic - however, many of them overlap so it's easier than you think. and that's about it!

How many quotes did you remember per theme/character/ poem etc.

Hey there - I'm not sure what books you do but hopefully this should be helpful! This was originally advice for Jane Eyre but it should apply to most books. The user above also has really solid advice!! (I got a 9 as well)

- Make sure you've read the book twice before starting your revision, the first time I just read it, the second time was when we went through it in class so I made annotations. This gave me a really good understanding of the plot, the main themes and structure, as well as some annotations to form a basis for my ideas.
- Using as many online resources as I could find (Cliffsnotes, MrBruff's book, Mr Salles etc) and my class notes, I created a massive sheet about symbolism, motifs, pathetic fallacy and how each setting related to structure. Compiling all of this information and developing a lot of this further with my own ideas provided a really strong foundation for my revision and displayed a critical approach to the text in my essays.
- I created some revision cards to organise my ideas on context and the characters. Each revision card was divided into subheadings around a particular idea which relates to the character (eg passion vs restraint for St John), I would then use a selection of quotations to illustrate how the character relates to the idea. I would also provide some brief notes/trigger words for myself so I had an idea about what I could talk about for the quotation. (I hope this makes sense!)
- I compiled all of the quotations and learnt them using Memrise (I think it's a lot better for quotations than Quizlet). Here's the quotations that I learnt - I only put a basic meaning by each quotation since I had my in-depth analysis in my notes.
https://www.memrise.com/course/5417829/jane-eyre/
- I made as many essay plans as possible in a small notebook. Lots of the questions were made up by myself and there are a range of questions available from past papers and sample questions teachers have made. I watched a lot of MrBruff and Mr Salles videos to get an idea about what I had to include in an essay. I also wrote a few essays and got them marked by my teacher.
- In terms of the time-frame for all of this, I wasn't the most organised person at GCSE so I made all of my revision resources at Easter, learned quotations from Easter till my exam and I made the essay plans 2 days before my exam, with some teacher-marked essays throughout. I wouldn't recommend leaving all of this too late, but don't worry if it gets to this point because you can still get a top grade! Since you're in Year 10 now, I'd recommend that you get your revision resources done so you don't need to worry about making them when exam season comes round.

i honestly can't tell you exactly how many - but there was a LOT. i can't give you advice on this but if you have a little search on youtube i'm sure you'll find a recommended number of quotes for each theme/character. i'm hesitant to even give you an estimate because i'm simply not sure, i'm sorry. just try to learn as much as you can?

Would you say 3 or 4 GOOD quotes are good because I don’t think I’ll be able to remember a huge amount of quotes

i think that you're underestimating yourself. you might end up being very disadvantaged in your exam if you can't use quotes that are tailored to the question - your answer will be limited. different quotes are good for different things. i promise you it isn't as hard as you think! once you start revision and if you follow my advice, you'll be reading articles about your book or poem and watching videos and by repeatedly hearing quotes, you'll find that you might remember them without any actual conscious effort. i am certain that if you put the effort in you can learn more quotes than you think!

I got A*9999888776 for GCSE, and I just finished college this year, so I'm waiting for results day (I've got an A at AS and a B in EPQ - still salty about this because I was one mark off A* when it was internally moderated, so I'm just waiting on my A-Level results now).

Thank you so much for the support. I’ll try my hardest. And hopefully I get my A* next year

im doing the epq im struggling a lot can u advice me plz ? how do u begin the research ? i really dont understand what to do ? any tips? i started my research and have written once sentence only. did u start writing as soon you started your research? how did u end up getting a B