GCSE - My Journey To Success (2019)

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Day#7 and 8

Turns out that I jinxed myself again! I am the most indecisive person so evidently I didn't follow my plan. I've made about 5 different timetables and scrapped them all because I didn't like them in the end. I find it hard to follow plans so what I've done is "decided" for the time being I shall decide what I want to do there and then. My books are coming Thursday (I'm pretty sure), so once they've come I will be in complete hardcore study mode (hopefully) and will be able to update you guys on what I've actually achieved instead of ranting on about how demotivated I feel. :lol:

I may not update you tomorrow because the anticipation for my books will be real. I've ordered 11 to come for Thursday... so that's quite a lot, aha. I still have roughly 5-6 more to get as well but I won't worry about them right now. I'm definitely going to be creating my study tools first e.g. flashcards on Quizlet (I literally made 9 accounts for each of my subjects), so once I've completed flashcards for every topic in a book I will just review them every now and then are I'm pretty damn sure my neurons will have found connections if I repeat them enough times. Anyway, let me talk about today. I'm so DONE with Maths now. I used to absolutely love it, but I've gone over the content for GCSE 9-1 Maths so many times it gets boring now. In class we were doing Indices, and I almost fell asleep because I found it that "easy" (trying not to sound cocky here aha :giggle:

). I did ask if I could do some Surds or something more difficult, but my teacher wouldn't let me. :l Tomorrow is a very exciting day because it's probably the best day of my whole entire timetable. I have Chemistry, Physics, English (meh), French and Geography. I also have Badminton club after-school so that will be something to look forward to. Right, I've ranted on enough about random stuff, I shall go now, maybe update you tomorrow, most likely Thursday though once I've gotten my books. Bye! :h:

~ JourneyToSuccess

Reply 21

1jonam16

Original post by JourneyToSuccess

Hello and welcome to my Journey To Success thread!

I am currently moving to Year 9 (we're starting our GCSEs early :h:

), meaning that I will be one of the first people to have a complete GCSE reform. :colondollar:

This consequently means that all my exams that I'll be taking will be a lot more difficult - which of course is worrying :ashamed2:

. That's why I have created this thread - to make sure I am successful when it comes to the new GCSEs! You may think I'm taking this a bit too seriously, and shouldn't even be thinking about studying till Year 11, but my plan is to take some subjects early in Year 10, consequently leaving me with less work for Year 11. The subjects I am taking and the grades I would like to achieve are:

Mathematics - Grade 9 / A** (going to try take in Year 10)

Further Maths - A* (not sure if the grading system is changing for this or not)

Biology - Grade 8 / A*

Chemistry - Grade 8 / A*

Physics - Grade 8 / A*

French - Grade 8 / A* (going to try take in Year 10)

English Language - Grade 7 / A

English Literature - Grade 7 / A

Computer Science - Grade 7 / A

Geography - Grade 7 / A (going to try take in Year 10)

Religious Studies - Grade 7 / A (going to try take in Year 10)

For A-Levels, right now, I think I'm going to take Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. However, this may change.

Starting from Monday September 5th, I'll be updating EVERYDAY (hopefully), telling you guys what I've studied (or revised) that day - plus any test results I get.

Any advice, feel free to leave below. It will be very much appreciated. :h:

And yes, this is going to be a three year thread! :colondollar:

Don't mean to dishearten, but isn't this an overkill. You're best of revising for mocks and then revising like a month beofre exams. Also, revise for end of unit exams and you should be able to get better grades than you want. Though, feel free to revise everyday just try to do extracurriculars too to really improve your chance of success for university.

Reply 22

1jonam16

Original post by ThatGuyGeorge

I'm a Y13 student now so I'm slightly ahead but I have a keen interest in education reform which is why this is interesting for me to hear - your concerns are apparent but even more so is your desire to overcome these new challenges.

Documenting your daily acactivity on here probably isn't productive but will be cool to look back on.

This is a tough balancing act for a current Y9. On the one hand, you're going to be facing some seriously tough exams and you will have to be very well prepared. On the other, from Y10 onwards it's going to be constant work and that'll leave literally no time to enjoy yourself.I've been working flat out since September 2015, including the summer holiday because I represent the UK in international geography competitions, and I must admit I feel tired. Having said that, the daily efforts have definitely improved me as a student and made my results better.If I were you, I would take a keen interest from now on but lay off the workload a little. You need the enthusiasm more for later on than you do for now and this is your only chance for a meaningful social life if you want to do exceptionally.I wish you well in your ambitions. If you need any help in Geography work - just DM me - I'm the World No.22, so I'll probably be able to assist :smile:

Were you directing this at me? Either way congratulations and subtle way of telling us you're amazing!

Reply 23

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by ThatGuyGeorge

That is certainly not true.

Reply 24

FaisalNaeem03

Bruvv this thread is makin me feel old already.

Reply 25

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by ThatGuyGeorge

Which part do you disagree with?
(I completely get that some people will not have to sacrifice their social life to succeed but I feel with the educational reforms, if you want to guarantee success, you almost have to because the new a levels and GCSEs are insane.)

Posted from TSR Mobile

On the other, from Y10 onwards it's going to be constant work and that'll leave literally no time to enjoy yourself

GCSEs aren't as time consuming as you suggest above, nor are they that demanding. I see no reason why the 9-1/linear reforms would change anything to that extent. If you're going as far to sacrifice your social life in Year 10, you're doing too much work.

Reply 26

JourneyToSuccess

Day#9, 10 and 11

Eek. I'm posting this a bit late, but whatever. Sorry I haven't updated for a while, it's because it was my birthday but I did a bunch of stuff today which honestly I'm quite proud of, aha. It seems like I started a bit of a fight up in the comments :s-smilie:

yet I just want to say, I'm not "revising" or even "studying" properly at the moment. Now I've got my books, I will be making a bunch of flash cards on Quizlet for all my topics so I can use them in the future. I believe that it's good to have all your notes way before the exams so you can go over them thoroughly. Mostly I've been creating flashcards on the topics I've learnt that day at school, so theoretically I surely can't be doing that much harm by consolidating my knowledge! Right, I've seemed to have digressed a little. As I didn't have all my books before, I couldn't make flashcards for my lessons straight away, so today, I've worked really hard to make sure I can catch up. These are the topics I've done:

Biology: Cell Structure, Microscopy
Chemistry: States of Matter, Atoms, Elements, Compounds, Chemical Reactions
Physics: Energy Stores and Transfers, Kinetic and Potential Energy Stores, Specific Heat Capacity
Maths: Indices, Surds, LCM and HCF, Prime Numbers and Factors
Geography: Natural Hazards, Tectonic Plates, Plate Margins, Earthquakes and Volcanoes
Computer Science: Algorithms

I also caught up on all my homework too. :h:

If you're interested, here are the CGP books I've got (my other books I couldn't get a picture of):
I also have workbooks for all my sciences too.

~ JourneyToSuccess

(edited 7 years ago)

CGP Books.jpg141.0KB

Reply 27

JourneyToSuccess

Day#12 and 13

Right, so the other day I only reviewed my flashcards, so I didn't think it was worth saying. Today I bought the two Mr Bruff guides to English Language and English Literature and my god, they are amazing. I've made notes on Paper 1: Section A - Question 1 and 2 and the overview of English Language so far, but that took up most my evening. If you haven't got those guides yet, you must be crazy, aha :lol:

. I think tomorrow I will carry on making notes on the English Language guide, and hopefully complete Questions 3 and 4, and that would mean I would've finished Paper 1: Section A. From a person who almost loathes English, I actually find these guides enjoyable to take notes from. They're brilliant indeed. Don't think I'll ever be picking up my CGP one ever again :giggle:

! I also did my friends MyMaths homework for him, which we (or should I say I) were supposed to do tomorrow but I want to carry on taking notes on English Language at school to give me a boost when I get home, so I don't want to be spending my time on doing maths homework. Hope to update you guys tomorrow. :h: