The Student Room Group

Bring A LEVELS on!! A ReadySalted Revision Blog...

Ladies and Gents, welcome to my blog thread. I trust you're all healthy and well.

As you may or may not have noticed, I have created a new TSR account to start afresh with big things to come.. ok fine, I forgot my password. You see you can't autosave passwords on your device (privacy!) nor can you write the password down (bit outdated) and then you find yourself in my position.. maybe I'll stick to writing passwords down... Anyway swiftly moving on.

Lets get into it!..

2017

I took my A level exams and I received CDD overall in Geography, Biology and Chemistry. Dissapointed much?

Maybe personal reasons, but then again you have Grenfell Tower victims absolutely smashing their exams despite the trauma they went through.

So I decided to take a gap year and retake my exams to not only improve my grades and absolutely smash them this year round, but to boost my self confidence and belief in myself. During the exam period, my confidence and self-esteem hit rock bottom and I seriously lost all belief in my abilities to do well. Also during my previous exams I felt like I was more comfortable in the back seat, but this year that is all set to change as I am taking the front seat and taking control of my own destiny.

Alrighty lets move on from this soppy past and plan for the future eh?

Biology & Chemistry

Last year, I compiled notes for Bio and Chem from class lessons (although they weren't the best), OCR revision guides, online notes and some summary notes from snaprevise into a self-written notes- I won't be rewriting the notes again as they're colourful and looking great as they are.

Revision Plan?

I will be using different revision techniques which I'm sure you're already aware of inc mindmaps, post its, revision cards to actually condense the info and understand this.

Geography

With notes available online, I incorporated my notes to produce my final set of notes. This may not have been the best approach given writing your own notes will improve revision, however given the amount of notes/case studies and the time, the condensed concise notes I used I found well suited. Although this year, I will be making my own notes using the previous notes and my class notes.

As above, I will use an array of revision techniques to revise for Geography. Given the amount of case studies and information to learn, revision cards and mind maps will definitely come handy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have bought 3 vital tools to keep on top of my revision and be organised:

1) Calendar: Firstly, I have filled in the dates of when my examinations will take place, results day as well as others including family holiday and of course TSR competition results aka gcse results day.

2) List Journal: I will take pics soon and show you, but its a great, customised journal where you can split your revision into small chapters and outline everything to learn within that chapter and the how you will complete this, once completed- you can tick this off.
E.g. Biology- DNA- List everything you need to learn regarding DNA like the structure, DNA replication, DNA identification practical.. Once I'm comfortable with each Unit under that section I can tick this off and move on. This will complement my revision timetable well.

3) Things to do today list: This is a detailed version of the list journal book. I will outline each task I will complete on that specific day including other tasks like Gym whilst incorporating a few units I will revise on that day, once completed: tick them off.

What will serve to be my Motivation this year?

A family holiday is planned during the summer for a few weeks as well as my sisters wedding whilst we're away which I'm looking forward too, but its a matter of smashing the exams out the way first.

University- can't wait to move to another city and make new friends as well studying what I love.

Last year- looking back on last year and my grades I'm really looking forward to improving my grades and proving everyone who may have doubted me wrong. Boom!

TSR Blogging

I will try to blog everyday as long as I can till, the daily blogging will serve as a reminder to review/summarise how much work I have done on that day and push me to work harder on days where I may do little to no work.

Just before I go, I just want to say COME ON 2018! BRING IT ON!

WORK HARD BUT..... GRIND HARDER

ReadySalted28- Peace out.

Scroll to see replies

I wish you all the best. It’s going to be hard but you can improve on Biology and Chemistry Find websites and resources that will help you improve your grade especially if you’re retaking.
Original post by Tlameloisstrange
I wish you all the best. It’s going to be hard but you can improve on Biology and Chemistry Find websites and resources that will help you improve your grade especially if you’re retaking.


Thank you! :smile:
Original post by ReadySalted28
Ladies and Gents, welcome to my blog thread. I trust you're all healthy and well.

As you may or may not have noticed, I have created a new TSR account to start afresh with big things to come.. ok fine, I forgot my password. You see you can't autosave passwords on your device (privacy!) nor can you write the password down (bit outdated) and then you find yourself in my position.. maybe I'll stick to writing passwords down... Anyway swiftly moving on.

Lets get into it!..

2017

I took my A level exams and I received CDD overall in Geography, Biology and Chemistry. Dissapointed much?

Maybe personal reasons, but then again you have Grenfell Tower victims absolutely smashing their exams despite the trauma they went through.

So I decided to take a gap year and retake my exams to not only improve my grades and absolutely smash them this year round, but to boost my self confidence and belief in myself. During the exam period, my confidence and self-esteem hit rock bottom and I seriously lost all belief in my abilities to do well. Also during my previous exams I felt like I was more comfortable in the back seat, but this year that is all set to change as I am taking the front seat and taking control of my own destiny.

Alrighty lets move on from this soppy past and plan for the future eh?

Biology & Chemistry

Last year, I compiled notes for Bio and Chem from class lessons (although they weren't the best), OCR revision guides, online notes and some summary notes from snaprevise into a self-written notes- I won't be rewriting the notes again as they're colourful and looking great as they are.

Revision Plan?

I will be using different revision techniques which I'm sure you're already aware of inc mindmaps, post its, revision cards to actually condense the info and understand this.

Geography

With notes available online, I incorporated my notes to produce my final set of notes. This may not have been the best approach given writing your own notes will improve revision, however given the amount of notes/case studies and the time, the condensed concise notes I used I found well suited. Although this year, I will be making my own notes using the previous notes and my class notes.

As above, I will use an array of revision techniques to revise for Geography. Given the amount of case studies and information to learn, revision cards and mind maps will definitely come handy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have bought 3 vital tools to keep on top of my revision and be organised:

1) Calendar: Firstly, I have filled in the dates of when my examinations will take place, results day as well as others including family holiday and of course TSR competition results aka gcse results day.

2) List Journal: I will take pics soon and show you, but its a great, customised journal where you can split your revision into small chapters and outline everything to learn within that chapter and the how you will complete this, once completed- you can tick this off.
E.g. Biology- DNA- List everything you need to learn regarding DNA like the structure, DNA replication, DNA identification practical.. Once I'm comfortable with each Unit under that section I can tick this off and move on. This will complement my revision timetable well.

3) Things to do today list: This is a detailed version of the list journal book. I will outline each task I will complete on that specific day including other tasks like Gym whilst incorporating a few units I will revise on that day, once completed: tick them off.

What will serve to be my Motivation this year?

A family holiday is planned during the summer for a few weeks as well as my sisters wedding whilst we're away which I'm looking forward too, but its a matter of smashing the exams out the way first.

University- can't wait to move to another city and make new friends as well studying what I love.

Last year- looking back on last year and my grades I'm really looking forward to improving my grades and proving everyone who may have doubted me wrong. Boom!

TSR Blogging

I will try to blog everyday as long as I can till, the daily blogging will serve as a reminder to review/summarise how much work I have done on that day and push me to work harder on days where I may do little to no work.

Just before I go, I just want to say COME ON 2018! BRING IT ON!

WORK HARD BUT..... GRIND HARDER

ReadySalted28- Peace out.


Hey, I just found your blog and we are kinda in the same boat except I haven't done my A-levels yet I just kinda messed up my AS-levels. I wish you a ton of luck with your resits and hope you regain some self confidence. I will definitely be watching this thread and am excited to read your daily posts.
I did really badly in Biology last year for AS (got a D) and I need an A this year to get into uni! Really scared and struggling to even understand let alone remember all the content! Im doing OCR too- do you have any advice?

I feel like I'm start it from scratch because I never even understood all of last year's content so I'm basically learning it all for the first time again. I'm so stressed I feel like crying and I know its my fault because I should have worked harder last year.

Do you use the CGP Bio revision book? I'm not sure whether to just use that as it's easier to understand or whether I need to use the real book which I HATE.

Thanks for the idea of the motivation list! Making my own now :smile:
Original post by ReadySalted28
Ladies and Gents, welcome to my blog thread. I trust you're all healthy and well.

As you may or may not have noticed, I have created a new TSR account to start afresh with big things to come.. ok fine, I forgot my password. You see you can't autosave passwords on your device (privacy!) nor can you write the password down (bit outdated) and then you find yourself in my position.. maybe I'll stick to writing passwords down... Anyway swiftly moving on.

Lets get into it!..

2017

I took my A level exams and I received CDD overall in Geography, Biology and Chemistry. Dissapointed much?

Maybe personal reasons, but then again you have Grenfell Tower victims absolutely smashing their exams despite the trauma they went through.

So I decided to take a gap year and retake my exams to not only improve my grades and absolutely smash them this year round, but to boost my self confidence and belief in myself. During the exam period, my confidence and self-esteem hit rock bottom and I seriously lost all belief in my abilities to do well. Also during my previous exams I felt like I was more comfortable in the back seat, but this year that is all set to change as I am taking the front seat and taking control of my own destiny.

Alrighty lets move on from this soppy past and plan for the future eh?

Biology & Chemistry

Last year, I compiled notes for Bio and Chem from class lessons (although they weren't the best), OCR revision guides, online notes and some summary notes from snaprevise into a self-written notes- I won't be rewriting the notes again as they're colourful and looking great as they are.

Revision Plan?

I will be using different revision techniques which I'm sure you're already aware of inc mindmaps, post its, revision cards to actually condense the info and understand this.

Geography

With notes available online, I incorporated my notes to produce my final set of notes. This may not have been the best approach given writing your own notes will improve revision, however given the amount of notes/case studies and the time, the condensed concise notes I used I found well suited. Although this year, I will be making my own notes using the previous notes and my class notes.

As above, I will use an array of revision techniques to revise for Geography. Given the amount of case studies and information to learn, revision cards and mind maps will definitely come handy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have bought 3 vital tools to keep on top of my revision and be organised:

1) Calendar: Firstly, I have filled in the dates of when my examinations will take place, results day as well as others including family holiday and of course TSR competition results aka gcse results day.

2) List Journal: I will take pics soon and show you, but its a great, customised journal where you can split your revision into small chapters and outline everything to learn within that chapter and the how you will complete this, once completed- you can tick this off.
E.g. Biology- DNA- List everything you need to learn regarding DNA like the structure, DNA replication, DNA identification practical.. Once I'm comfortable with each Unit under that section I can tick this off and move on. This will complement my revision timetable well.

3) Things to do today list: This is a detailed version of the list journal book. I will outline each task I will complete on that specific day including other tasks like Gym whilst incorporating a few units I will revise on that day, once completed: tick them off.

What will serve to be my Motivation this year?

A family holiday is planned during the summer for a few weeks as well as my sisters wedding whilst we're away which I'm looking forward too, but its a matter of smashing the exams out the way first.

University- can't wait to move to another city and make new friends as well studying what I love.

Last year- looking back on last year and my grades I'm really looking forward to improving my grades and proving everyone who may have doubted me wrong. Boom!

TSR Blogging

I will try to blog everyday as long as I can till, the daily blogging will serve as a reminder to review/summarise how much work I have done on that day and push me to work harder on days where I may do little to no work.

Just before I go, I just want to say COME ON 2018! BRING IT ON!

WORK HARD BUT..... GRIND HARDER

ReadySalted28- Peace out.


Best of luck with everything :smile:

How've you been getting on since you started this blog? :h:
omg i can’t wait to see how you get on!
seriously - good luck :hugs:

(check out my gyg if you want?!)
Ooooh. good luck!

As a repeating student I know how much it sucks, so i'm certainly wishing you the best to get the grades you need to get where you want to be!!:smile:
Reply 8
Good luck! I can't wait to see photos of your journal :biggrin:
Original post by kathasora
Hey, I just found your blog and we are kinda in the same boat except I haven't done my A-levels yet I just kinda messed up my AS-levels. I wish you a ton of luck with your resits and hope you regain some self confidence. I will definitely be watching this thread and am excited to read your daily posts.


Hey thanks! Seriously, we can do it- its absolutely fine if you think you messed up on AS. Work hard this year continuously. Keep this mantra in your head - WORK HARD, PARTYY/ PLAY HARDER. This few months is very temp, once your get amazing grades- you'll feel like jumping off the roof.

Good luck, and I hope this platform can serve to be a motivation for you as well as for myself.

TK.
Original post by AutumnSummers
I did really badly in Biology last year for AS (got a D) and I need an A this year to get into uni! Really scared and struggling to even understand let alone remember all the content! Im doing OCR too- do you have any advice?

I feel like I'm start it from scratch because I never even understood all of last year's content so I'm basically learning it all for the first time again. I'm so stressed I feel like crying and I know its my fault because I should have worked harder last year.

Do you use the CGP Bio revision book? I'm not sure whether to just use that as it's easier to understand or whether I need to use the real book which I HATE.

Thanks for the idea of the motivation list! Making my own now :smile:


AutumnSummers, I know you will not believe this but you are so capable to hit them big grades. You have around 5 months, seriously knuckle down now, work your ass off. Its fine if you don't understand everything- we are humans, list all the units in the book and start with the hardest. Complete past paper questions when you feel comfortable with that unit.

I use OCR Revision Guide (orange) and the bulky OCR Guide. I will post pictures now on the blog. If you find the CGP guide easier, definitely go for it. I'd recommend buying the OCR orange book as this is basically a condensed version of the real thing and they go hand in hand in my opinion.

My big mistake last year was comparing myself with my friends and others at school. I started in Nov and made all my notes before any of my friends had started, but because my motivation was so low I never actually wanted to sit to revise as I thought I was either too dumb or wasn't gonna get the grades like my friends were. All because I was less confident than them, due to the job I had this year, I feel so confident with myself now.

Start from scratch, you'll smash them grades but you need to prove to everyone who doubted you and especially yourself you are worthy and you better than everyone else! Go Smash them grades!

I hope we can be there to help each other during the exams and keep each other motivated!


So here's goes round two. Was nearly finished writing up the previous blog- but the tab closed itself, oh well. Anyway..



So above is the OCR Biology book which I use for Biology. There are two books, AS and A2. I have the notes for AS as well for A2. Although I will be adding more notes for the last few units for A2 (Module 6). This book is great since it includes pretty much majority of the spec in it. I printed off the spec last year and recall going through it to include I had everything, majority of the info was there- some aspects I did rely on other sources to add more info. Generally OCR Bio and Chemistry books have snippets of the spec of each new topic on the top of the book- which is great also.



Here is the Chemistry OCR book version of the bio as seen in the first pic. I have bought Bio and Chem OCR revision guides (orange book) which breakdown the info which makes it easier to understand visually as well as the providing concise info.



As I stated in the original blog, here are the books I was discussing about. 'Things to do today' is great- (but I'm sure you can jot this down on any rough piece of paper you have, just to give you a heads up of what to expect in you revision day, but since I had this book- I thought why not use this.) 'List Journal'- is great as I will use the pages inside to jot down what I need to cover in each topic and tick them off. I will do this for all my subjects, and I have page markers so essentially I will look back onto each subject -> topic to see where I can work further on.

There is also a Start -> Goal page across the whole book, can anyone let me know what I could potentially do with that and what I can use the boxes for. Please let me know, I would love to know what you think!!!

A calendar is a calendar, I just entered the dates inside. Although I love the bit of motivation at the front!



Here are the folders I have created. So there is AS/A2 Bio, Chem and Geog.

p.s don't mind the plate in the corner :colondollar:

Whats next?

I will be creating a folder full of past paper questions for all bio and chemistry. So I will essentially complete a past paper every other day or something of that sort after revising all my notes of course. But for Geog given its more writing based, I won't fuss to print past papers and waste paper, I will just write the question and answer the questions on a rough book.

- Tomorrow I will be waking up at 7am - exercise, eat breakfast and then start revision 9pm. There will be a update at 8pm tomorrow. Stay tuned people.

Peace.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by ReadySalted28
Hey thanks! Seriously, we can do it- its absolutely fine if you think you messed up on AS. Work hard this year continuously. Keep this mantra in your head - WORK HARD, PARTYY/ PLAY HARDER. This few months is very temp, once your get amazing grades- you'll feel like jumping off the roof.

Good luck, and I hope this platform can serve to be a motivation for you as well as for myself.

TK.



Thanks. Love that mantra!
Original post by ReadySalted28
AutumnSummers, I know you will not believe this but you are so capable to hit them big grades. You have around 5 months, seriously knuckle down now, work your ass off. Its fine if you don't understand everything- we are humans, list all the units in the book and start with the hardest. Complete past paper questions when you feel comfortable with that unit.

I use OCR Revision Guide (orange) and the bulky OCR Guide. I will post pictures now on the blog. If you find the CGP guide easier, definitely go for it. I'd recommend buying the OCR orange book as this is basically a condensed version of the real thing and they go hand in hand in my opinion.

My big mistake last year was comparing myself with my friends and others at school. I started in Nov and made all my notes before any of my friends had started, but because my motivation was so low I never actually wanted to sit to revise as I thought I was either too dumb or wasn't gonna get the grades like my friends were. All because I was less confident than them, due to the job I had this year, I feel so confident with myself now.

Start from scratch, you'll smash them grades but you need to prove to everyone who doubted you and especially yourself you are worthy and you better than everyone else! Go Smash them grades!

I hope we can be there to help each other during the exams and keep each other motivated!


Thanks so much for the advice and motivation! Let's do this!


14/01/18 8.10pm

I have created the folder of all past papers for Bio and Chemistry, although later during the year I will need to get hold of the specimen papers once I complete all the past papers in the folder as I revise.

Last night, I couldn't sleep the whole night. I ended up sleeping at 6am in the morning and waking up at half 12 midday. At around 1-2pm, my mum held a females family gathering today (dunno what is was as it looks like I wasn't invited lol), we made food and later I helped distribute this to my relatives houses at the end.

So I would say today was in fact a lazy day and then as time passed, I didn't end up doing work. Im quite annoyed since I really wanted to make a start today, but couldn't follow my plan. But at least the past papers element is out the way.

So it looks like my revision plan has been moved to tomorrow.

P.s. I don't know whether any of you guys revising have made a revision timetable now, I'm wondering if I should make one now or towards the end of February?

THANKSS!


Wow, it seems in forever I haven't done a update. I'm back ready than ever to get back onto this blog game.

If you follow my other blog thread I updated earlier today, I explained why I have not updated. Working long hours and then coming home exhausted and falling asleep has been on repeat since my last update, as well as being lazy. I have not followed through my 'today's list plan' where I usually wrote everything I need to do including Student Room Blog post. But given working and completing other tasks, it feels like revising and blog post have fallen down the priority list which is a shame.

Realistically: How am I feeling?

Truthfully, not to sugar-coat things, I don't have that determination, enthusiasm that I may had at the beginning of revising and updating blog posts. Generally, being a positive person I don't really reflect on negative feelings of feeling low, having low motivation and dedication to work solid hard and smashing anything I do. Generally this may be a positive aspect as instead of focussing on the negatives, I focus on the positive things. But I have come to the realisation, although some may argue this is true- I disagree. It is important to be optimistic & positive, but equally its vital to reflect on negatives to improve myself and make myself even stronger/better.

I have realised the thing I tend to do is not look into the negative at all and somewhat bury my head in the sand because I don't want to know. In the long-run this is toxic. So being motivated and determined to push and push my self harder to the finish line is so important. (Essentially, I wanted to do this post to share how I'm feeling for myself- because I'm not really good at sharing emotions, so yeah its feels quite emasculating in a way!).

I have left my full-time job, because it was taking majority of my time but I wasn't able to fit revision in around my job despite having a great job, but I will look back at this moment in future as the turning point for me. Rise.

What's stopping me?

I actually don't know, I blame my job but if I'm motivated, I would be able to fit revision around it. Maybe I'm lazy or I'm fearful of being in the same situation last year I'm putting this off. But I gotta remember, every student is going through this phase and its not about being successful and being at the top, but how well you respond from struggle. When you fall down, its how you hold yourself and pick yourself back up, tell yourself you can do it and stay hanging in there.

'Invest in yourself, people will invest in you.' - Here's to achieving great things.

I know since leaving work now I can solely focus on revision, so tomorrow will be good. I'm going to cover Geography tomorrow. A post will be out from tomorrow for sure until then peace.

Thanks!


Today has been a productive a day, much more than yesterday shall I say. I think it's good I posted that blog post yesterday, instead of holding back to say what I want to say. It allowed me to say what I was thinking and feeling, giving me the determination to actually work hard today. :^_^:



I worked on making notes for geography today, it was good. I used online resources to also add to my notes as well as other notes I printed last year to create my own set of notes. The plate tectonics section I was working on is split into 3 sections. :banana::charm:

1. Plate Movement
2. Vulcanicity
3. Seismicity

I have completed my notes for part 1 and 2 which is good. In the vulcanicity section the spec requires me to know 2 case studies of volcanoes. I decided to make notes for 5 case studies because each case study is unique to its country, how well the eruption was managed by officials- so having more than 2 gives me the ability to link/bring in other case studies if I end up choosing this section to write my synoptic essay on. :bigsmile::chaplin:



Storytime:colone:

When I was researching on the Nevado Del Ruiz case study for the eruption in 1985 I found it quite interesting. Just to share some points, the eruption took place on Nov 13th. A year before the volcano showed indications it is due to erupt soon, but the gov disregarded this :grumble: and weeks leading upto the eruption- there was minor earthquakes, volcanic activity hinting an eruption- but officials didn't even act on this :judge:. Even on the afternoon of the eruption, ash clouds were released, but radio stations reassured people to stay put and don't worry. Red cross said it might be a good idea to evacuate people at 7pm, but soon as the volcano looked calm- evacuation was called off.:lolwut::lolwut:

So, at 9am when hot pyroclastic flow, lava and ash was released :eek3::eek4::eek3:- residents were totally unaware. And at that time a storm blocked the view to the mountain- so people passing couldn't see anything would be wrong :doh:- until it hit the people of that area resulting in 23,000 deaths.:erm::emo: How crazy is that!

So tomorrow I will look to start working on seismicity in the morning or I might start on it tonight, seeing how I feel. Tomorrow, I will also start reviewing Biology tomorrow- make some remaining notes I have on the last unit and read over topics I'm struggling with if I finish the notes early.

See you guys tomorrow. Peace.
(edited 6 years ago)


Yeah.. so well the day forgetting thing finally happened to me. I woke up today thinking it was Tuesday. I have my sister in law knocking on my room door saying I'm getting late as I go out each friday. I was like whaat, she's tripping it aint friday. So I pick up my phone and check it said Friday. I think I have been robbed of my week days, but oh well if its friday, its friday. I missed out the Hunted episode yesterday because I thought it was Monday instead of Thursday.

Hahah, yeah I think i've lost it. But it's official its Saturday tomorrow.

I was working on the Geography yesterday and just worked on completing the unit. I have however got to add 2 case studies to my folder and the unit is complete.

It hasn't been too hectic today. Tomorrow my friend wants me to go to visit some haunted buildings around town/ or some deserted houses he was saying. I don't really feel like going out as I'd rather work on revising, but we'll see what unfolds.

Nice short and sweet blog for you guys.

Have a good one.
your blog posts are so aesthetically pleasing!
i need to put more effort in...

but, lol same, when you can’t figure out what day it is :wink:

ooooh abandoned houses?! that could be pretty entertaining!
Original post by clouddbubbles
your blog posts are so aesthetically pleasing!
i need to put more effort in...

but, lol same, when you can’t figure out what day it is :wink:

ooooh abandoned houses?! that could be pretty entertaining!


Thanks, lol we ended up going to new houses instead

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