Haven't revised. Help

I am doing a levels and I haven't properly revised yet. What should I do to get good marks still. How many hours a day etc. I'm stressing ngl

Reply 1

Zeroderma1

My first is on 25 and that's business. Then it starts from 7th onwards
I do maths, business and computer science

Reply 2

JT_888

Original post by Zeroderma1

I am doing a levels and I haven't properly revised yet. What should I do to get good marks still. How many hours a day etc. I'm stressing ngl

Try not to stress despite the situation you're currently in. Make sure you get a good night's sleep and make productive use of the time you have left - revising/studying for exams isn't necessarily about how many hours of work you put in. I would focus on prioritising going over things where you have gaps in your knowledge and honestly just aim to do your best given the situation you're in. Don't be too hard on yourself at the same time - everything will be ok. :smile:

Reply 3

hollym137

Original post by Zeroderma1

I am doing a levels and I haven't properly revised yet. What should I do to get good marks still. How many hours a day etc. I'm stressing ngl

I'm in the same boat, already feeling burnt out but my first one is on the 23rd

Reply 4

kaorimiyazono

Do practice papers (try to finish them under timed conditions but if you run out of time just switch to a different colour pen so you can track how much you can do in the expected time frame). Mark them using the mark schemes and get teachers to mark any essays. Identify your weaker areas. Revise those areas by doing targeted exam style style questions on them (or writing exam style essays on the topics you were weaker on). Mark them/get teachers to mark essays. Repeat (do another practice test).

That's the quickest way for you to get exam technique practice while still revising and improving on your weaker topics. Good luck.

Reply 5

Qrki

Hey, I've always been a crammer and it's always worked for me so I've never really stopped doing it.

What I do is read through the entire course first, I don't know what subjects you do but I do three essay-based subjects so I guess my advice is limited if you don't do essay subjects.

I read through the entire course briefly, not memorising or testing yet, just reading to make sure I understand the material. If there's anything I see and I have no recognition of learning it, or understand it, I'll make a note of it, and then it will be the first topic I look at in depth. After I read through the course, I start to look at any topics I know I'm particularly weaker in. I write essay plans, memorise them and the information, put my hand over the information and say it out loud to make sure It's going in. You unfortunately can't spend too long doing this as there is a lot to cover still. Do this for every topic, if you have time. Topics you are already confident in, just gloss over them and look at them if you have time at the end. Again, not ideal, but it's not like there's time.

Do past paper questions, try do them from your own memory, but don't be afraid to use your notes if you need to. Although you can try to do it by memory then use your notes after to add any information you missed. You'll actively learn by using the information in a question-setting. If I find myself not remembering something about a topic, I reread the entire topic, before trying to memorise the key facts.

You don't have time to learn every single fact in depth, so pick things. Pick a couple of statistics, or people, dates, events, etc and just learn them. Preferably information that you can reuse across the entire exam paper. Ultimately, you need to make it look like you know your stuff.

Make sure you have at least a BRIEF understanding of everything first. Then start to learn in depth, starting with things you're weaker in. It's possible, it will require a lot of work, a lot of hours a day, but it's a sacrifice you have to make if you still wanna do well.

Good luck though, try not to stress, exams aren't the end of the world ngl :smile:

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 6

amhick18

Ello, Im in the exact same position as you are. Almost through year 12 without a clue how to study. I feel the stress and tension man. Honestly, best thing you can do rn is to take yourself away from other people and study in your free periods. Make flashcards, quizlet, try and make blurt notes (how much you can remember) and stuff you don’t fully know/know at all you highlight and revise them and then at the end of the session come back to it.
All I’m gonna say is, the more you stress and leave it because of stress, the harder it’ll be for you.

I wish you much luck.

Amber

Reply 7

CA_5713

Original post by Qrki

Congrats! A few questions about your experience if you don’t mind me asking:

- How last minute did you leave things?
- How much did you have to cover, and how much did you cover?
- Which a levels did you do and were you in year 13?
- Do you believe it’s ever too late to get good grades?

Reply 8

Qrki

Original post by CA_5713

Hey! Happy to answer.

Currently in year 13, and although I was the "covid year" for GCSEs, I crammed for my y10 mocks, y11 mocks as well as my AS examinations which still happened. (I'm in Northern Ireland, so we have formal examinations for y12 to gain AS qualifications.) My school is known for giving mocks harder than the actual exams to act as motivation to study more, so I don't believe me doing well was because of that, either.

For everything, I wish I was joking when I said at MOST 2 days before. For my y11 GCSE mocks, it was the two years worth of content for each subject, studying the night before and morning of the exam. Came out with 3A*s, 5AS and a B. Although I don't recommend it, when I say studying the day before, I would start at about 12pm and study the entire day, and night. I would sleep for 2 hours, study an hour before my exam and then go.

I did the same thing for my AS (Y12) examinations which happened last year, and achieved AAAB.

My A-level mocks this year I got AAB doing the same technique, although my teachers gave me predicted grades of A*AA because as aforementioned, my school like to make mocks harder.

I've always managed to cover every topic briefly. I aim to read over everything, and understand and know a bit about it before I go into depth. I then study in depth based on difficulty, I typically end up knowing everything at medium depth at least. I never completely omit a topic, because it's better to get 4 marks out of 10 for knowing a bit than 0 out of 10 for knowing absolutely nothing.

My a levels are; history, sociology and english lit. For y12 I also did French, but I dropped it after I got my AS. Totally essay based, hence why my advice centres around essays.

I think it truly depends on a lot of factors if it's too late or not. First is your general intellect/memory. I've always tended to have a good memory, teachers as well as people in my life generally point it out to me a lot. It probably gives me an advantage in cramming as things tend to go in my mind quickly, meaning I can cover a lot of content last minute if that makes sense. As well as this, if something in the exam comes up that I happened to not remember, I'm generally pretty good at using something else I know and trying to apply it/make it relevant and at least get a few marks from the question. These skills will undoubtedly make cramming easier I think.

For A-levels, I actually started studying last week. My first exam is the 23rd. This is the earliest I've started studying ever and I'm aiming to do 4 hours a day. I'm pretty confident for my first exam already.

It's difficult to say whether it's too late to get good grades. I think if you have at least a week, and you're dedicated to studying, you can get an A. Depends if you already understand the content though. Because memorising and learning are completely different. You can definitely memorise enough to get an A in a week or even a couple of days, but if you don't already understand the content and have to teach it to yourself, you're going to struggle a lot more to get a good grade.

Cramming comes down to luck, if the topic you glossed over is worth 30 marks in your exam, its undoubtedly going to leave a negative impact. Whereas if the topic you looked at in depth is your 30 mark, you hit the jackpot. So a lot of cramming is undoubtedly luck based alongside just general ability to quickly absorb information.

So to answer the final question, I'm not sure. I think it depends on the person.