The Student Room Group

Giving it my best shot!

Hi guys and welcome to my study blog!

The purpose of this thread is to keep me motivated and on top of what i say i am going to be doing, and not just procrastinate the hours away doing something else (like sleeping).

I need to get A*A*AA to meet my offer for Natural Sciences at Pembroke, Cambridge. But i'd really like to get 4A*s since it's a personal goal of mine plus the picture in the local newspaper is quite enticing. I'm also sitting STEP and have set myself the outrageous target of 111 in the respective 1 to 3 papers.

The plan is to post daily: with revision plans, interesting science i found out and revision strategies.

Here are my stats:
AS grades

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University destinations:

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Predicted grades:

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Current plans:

Since half-term is running to an end, I've set myself the tasks of:

Making flashcards on all topics from unit 4 and 5 of Chemistry and Physics

Create past paper sheets for all my subjects, such that i will do a past paper per subject every two days

To not cry every time i see a STEP III or M5 past paper (I'm getting better at this)

Memorise the reaction conditions and equation for Chemistry

Trying to go running in the morning, implying i need to start waking up before 10 am (1 day down)

(edited 8 years ago)

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Wow, I only know of one other person doing Additional Further Maths and she is crazy good (like top 10 in the country good) so good luck to you! What are your current working grades?
I can't pretend to know much about A2 but congrats on your offer from Cambridge! I struggle against procrastination too but we will win this never ending battle!
Looking forward to hearing what you get up to. :smile:
Original post by BryonyG98
Wow, I only know of one other person doing Additional Further Maths and she is crazy good (like top 10 in the country good) so good luck to you! What are your current working grades?


I'll post my mock results soon, but i'm currently on track to getting my predicted grades. I haven't really gotten a full grasp on the AFM modules yet, so i've got my work cut of for me. (I don't know anyone besides people on tsr who're doing AFM)

Also good luck to you and your study thread!
Original post by Ara8311a
I can't pretend to know much about A2 but congrats on your offer from Cambridge! I struggle against procrastination too but we will win this never ending battle!
Looking forward to hearing what you get up to. :smile:


Thank you :h:, i hope i'll be able to stick to this!
Original post by Joshthemathmo
I'll post my mock results soon, but i'm currently on track to getting my predicted grades. I haven't really gotten a full grasp on the AFM modules yet, so i've got my work cut of for me. (I don't know anyone besides people on tsr who're doing AFM)

Also good luck to you and your study thread!


As far as I am aware the person in question is not on TSR; but then she is insanely good at maths.

I look forward to seeing your mock results and keeping up to date with your thread

Thanks (:
Update #1

So far today i've done an S2 past paper to ease myself into work today. I've got 3 and a half hours until i have to go to work, in this time i'm going to be making colourful flashcards for transition metals, Thermodynamics and redox potentials.

Evenings work:
I've finished flashcards on Thermodynamics, and i've done my one STEP question for the day. Overall quite an unproductive day, but hey it's a start. I'm going to spend the next hour making notes on transition metals and catalysis.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Joshthemathmo
Update #1

So far today i've done an S2 past paper to ease myself into work today. I've got 3 and a half hours until i have to go to work, in this time i'm going to be making colourful flashcards for transition metals, Thermodynamics and redox potentials.

Evenings work:
I've finished flashcards on Thermodynamics, and i've done my one STEP question for the day. Overall quite an unproductive day, but hey it's a start. I'm going to spend the next hour making notes on transition metals and catalysis.


Love the blog, made an account just to comment!

You should upload some examples of the structure of your physics flash cards!

looking forward to hearing more man. Keep to your targets :wink:
Original post by AdamThePhysicsMo
Love the blog, made an account just to comment!

You should upload some examples of the structure of your physics flash cards!

looking forward to hearing more man. Keep to your targets :wink:

Glad to hear! You should really start your own blog as a source of motivation

I'm going to be working on being more specific in what i'm doing, tomorrows task is to create a revision agenda. I'll post some pictures of my flash cards tomorrow.
Reply 9
Original post by Joshthemathmo
...


Did you originally want to do maths? It's just that your username... y'know. :lol:

Awesome blog, though.
Snaaaap AFM A*

Damn son you must be good

Wish you the best of luck :biggrin:
Original post by Zacken
Did you originally want to do maths? It's just that your username... y'know. :lol:

Awesome blog, though.


Yeah i wanted to do maths for a while, but then STEP scared me... But i quite like doing experiments so i went for Chem :biggrin:

Thanks!

Original post by Student403
Snaaaap AFM A*

Damn son you must be good

Wish you the best of luck :biggrin:


I'm alright i suppose. But M4 relative motion is the bane of my life atm.
Original post by Joshthemathmo
Yeah i wanted to do maths for a while, but then STEP scared me... But i quite like doing experiments so i went for Chem :biggrin:

Thanks!



I'm alright i suppose. But M4 relative motion is the bane of my life atm.

OMG same!! It is killing me right now :cry2:
Update #2

Today's accomplishments:

1.

I finished a unit 4&5 Physics past paper

2.

Completed flashcards on Periodicity, Particle Physics, Redox Potentials and something else. (woo!)

3.

Finishing my work shift and going for a run

4.

Practicing a new revision technique (Where i spend 10 minutes of intense work, followed by 5 minute breaks. Repeating 4 times and having a 15 minute break after the hour)

Further work:
Recap Kinetics since the ISA is on Monday, look into some FP3 papers to start targeting what i'm finding difficult and deliver my thermodynamics test to my peers.

Also i got my mark for the Chemistry Olympiad paper today, i scored 68/100, i'm pretty chuffed by this since i thought it went badly (not disastrous by any means). Hoping this is enough for a gold or possibly qualifying for round 2. This has motivated me to start looking into some more advanced Chemistry!
(edited 8 years ago)
Update #2.1

I had a spare 3 hours, so i thought i'd give a STEP III paper a go. Long behold 3 hours later i've managed 5 full solutions in the 2014 paper. (looking over my solutions again they don't seem to be as concise as the TSR solutions)

The questions i attempted were:
2. I found this to be rather straightforward, nothing went wrong and my solution matched the one on tsr
5. Nice use of complex numbers, solution similar to tsr one
10.Very straighforward once the original expressions were found relating x and y. This is a very nice question for someone studying M3 who's wanting to stretch themselves
11. This seems to be similar to an A-level question but it has an interesting geometric twist, this was my favourite question on the paper. (which is unusual since i don't regularly attempt mechanics questions)
12. This was quite tricky, but once i thought about it for a while it became quite clear. Upon reflecting on this question it's very simple, and seems to be a nice

i'd say i got 20,17, 20,20, 16 respectively giving a score of 93/120.

I'm a bit tired of STEP for now, so i'm going to spend this next week working on S3 and S4. Stats week woo! I've already finished S3, so i'll practice it by doing some questions from the review exercise. And i suppose that it's time to start S4...
(edited 8 years ago)
Update #3

I've been at work most of the day today, so not much work has been done. But i'm still feeding of my happiness from the STEP result yesterday, which kind of helped fend off the guilt. I did the Jan 09 M3 paper to make up for my guilt of not doing anything, and it went rather well (71/75 raw if anyone is interested).

As i mentioned yesterday i'm going to spend the week learning S4 and practicing S3. I'm going to do this by making notes on the chapters then attempting questions i feel are necessary to do.

My Chemistry ISA practical is tomorrow, so i've briefly looked over my notes on rates in preparation.

No more work for today, since i'm back to school tomorrow. So i need to get my **** together.
Dude you honestly have such productive days it's mad :lol:
Original post by Student403
Dude you honestly have such productive days it's mad :lol:


If i don't keep myself busy i'll just watch films for hours.

Thanks! My inspiration is Casey Neistat, the guy is mad.
Original post by Joshthemathmo
If i don't keep myself busy i'll just watch films for hours.

Thanks! My inspiration is Casey Neistat, the guy is mad.

Fair enough xD

Ooooh I love that guy! Also his music taste is brill :yep:
Goals for this week

Key:
Completed-green
Incomplete-Red
Maths goals:

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Chemistry goals:

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Physics goals:

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(edited 8 years ago)

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