9 Weeks to a 9 (or a couple of 7s and 8s)

Just your average Zoe trying to get good grades.

Current Situation:

Since sitting mocks last week, I have come to realise how little time we have left. I've been doing light revision since about October but realised I still have the majority of topics to cover.

The snow days we've had recently have allowed me to organise my revision into a timetable so I can cover everything in time for the exams. (My revision timetable is linked). French, History and Chemistry are the ones I'm going to struggle with most time-wise but I'm hoping to squeeze the revision in. :mrfreeze:

Life style:

I love health, fitness and sports. I spend 3 nights a week at the gym doing BJJ and Muay Thai which I love. I have a part time job on Saturdays only but it still gives me the later afternoon and evening free to revise and relax. On the days I'm not at work or practicing martial arts I love resistance training. I've planned to fit revision around these as Sunday is completely free and they usually only take 2 hours out of my day. I tend to count these as social activities as well which should keep me motivated during the run up to exams that I'm not isolating myself and still being active. :bike:

The goal:

I'm hoping for just x1 9 as I've been able to achieve this a few times in RE mocks but I'd still be happy with a 7 or an 8. In general though I'd be happy with straight 7s besides Lit, Lang and French (which will probably be lower). We just sat our last set of mocks which I'm hoping will result in something similar to my December mocks.

Mock results: December vs February

Spoiler

Our French teacher left at the end of year 10 and wasn't replaced so I haven't really made much progress but I'm still going to aim for a 5. :shot:

Completed:

I managed to get 100% on my business coursework at the start of year 11 which is worth 25% of our final grade so I can afford for a few slip ups in the exam. :crossedf:

In Year 10 I managed to complete my IT course with a D* so both of these take less pressure off in exam season.

Future:

I'm probably going to stay at my current school for sixth form to study a-levels. I'm leaning towards Maths, Business and a science with maybe the EPQ, Level 3 sports or Further Maths as a 4th option. I'm super indecisive so I'll probably change my mind 1000 times between now and September! :colondollar:

GOOD LUCK IN REVISION AND FOR RESULTS DAY EVERYONE! :beer:

+ remember to have fun :bl:

(edited 6 years ago)

Exam - Google Docs.pdf51.4KB

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Good luck! :tongue:

You know, I was so confused with the new 1-9 grading :rofl:

I was wondering what 9 and 7 and 8's???

Reply 3

zoe.b

Original post by LunaCat

You know, I was so confused with the new 1-9 grading :rofl:

I was wondering what 9 and 7 and 8's???

Same! When it was first explained I always mixed up what the highest grade was - 9 or 1. So confusing! I go with 7 = A and 8 = A* because that's what most of my teachers say. But I don't feel I have achieved as well when the results are a 7 or 8 compared with an A or A* because there is still a higher grade (9=A**? :cry2:

)

Reply 4

zoe.b

So far:

I've managed to keep up with my revision timetable besides RE and Physics. Also, I realised a mistake I've made in the schedule of the timetable as well which sucks but I'm hoping to catch up the extra week I added during the Easter half term. My RE revision book only just came :unimpressed:

and I planned Physics to be on Sunday but it was mother's day so again - I need to catch up! But overall I've been fairly productive in revision this week.

Most of my revision flashcards for the first topics are done, e.g B1, I just need to do more mocks/practice exam questions but I'm finding new ones hard to find considering there are only set of past papers for English and maths.

Today: Just got back from Thai Boxing and planning to do some maths work and revision. Our business teacher is obsessed with the forgetting curve and shown us how to revise most effectively today so I'm considering changing revision style but don't want to waste time. :woo:

Near future: We have our sixth form taster sessions next week so I picked Maths, Chemistry and Physics. I'm really not enjoying Chemistry revision so I'll probably leave it at GCSE and try to swap the taster session for something else - probably Biology or History.
Goal (updated): Because of our taster sessions and sixth form offer letters this week and last week we've had careers meetings. For me, something in finance sounds enjoyable or physiotherapy, possibly occupational therapy. If I were to pick Maths, Business, Biology and PE I should be covered as well as having a few other options because of Maths and Biology. I'm still open to the idea of taking physics or further maths instead of PE or just taking 3 a-levels. Still not sure, whoops! :hmmmm:

I'll probably wait until results day or September to be focused on my choices.

I'll update this later with a photo of revision:

Reply 5

zoe.b

6 Weeks to go!

Starting to get slightly nervous about exams as I still haven't made all of my resources :frown:

. I'm also planning to go to 5/5 revision sessions running for my subjects in the half-term which totals to about 20 hours. Currently I'm doing Chemistry C7 which isn't scheduled on my timetable for this week but it's a nice, short topic to ease myself into half term revision. Somehow I'm behind with updating this blog as well!

Change in plan?

I'm still undecided about a-levels, some subjects don't seem as bad now that I'm revising them but it's the opposite for some others. Chemistry doesn't seem bad at all now but business revision is a bit of a drag, I prefer new content. :colondollar:

Outside of school:

Currently I'm babysitting and using the time to revise while they're sleeping. I do this about once/twice a week, some weeks not at all. This is probably my favourite time to revise - no distractions, no siblings to argue with and not really much to do as I don't bring lots of stuff. I've used the half term so far to catch up on exercise. I had to skip Muay Thai on Thursday for babysitting but yesterday and today I did resistance training so I'm feeling good. I took part in the sports relief step challenge (not too sure on the exact name) which ends today (I think) so I'm fine to do a little everyday again.

I'm planning on going to a trampoline park with my friend before we go back to school which should be a nice break from revision even though we'll probably be discussing some school work on the way :noway:

.

I know I really need to upload some photos - I keep forgetting!

Reply 6

zoe.b

Half-term disaster! :K:

We're about halfway through the half-term and my wifi has stopped working! Especially for maths, a lot of my revision resources are online so for the past couple of days I've had to make use of my physical resources. A trip to the library today (here as I type) was super needed and I'll probably start doing this more often as I'm so much more focused for longer periods of time.

Good news: :smile:

I spent about 12 hours at school so far and I'm planning to spend about another 10 there next week in revision sessions so I'm hoping this makes up for the lack of wifi. I'm concentrating on maths and science at the moment because on results day they're the ones I'll probably be focused on - unless I fail everything else! I'm looking to secure my grades rather than boost them but that'd be a bonus. Besides English language - I'll hope for a 6. The plan is to do a few specimen papers or longer mark questions to hand in and get feedback from after the half-term.

Only 38 days to go! :frown:

Reply 7

absolutelysprout

good luck with your gcses! :smile:

just out of curiosity, do you have to teach yourself french as you don't have a french teacher?!

Reply 8

zoe.b

Original post by entertainmyfaith

good luck with your gcses! :smile:

just out of curiosity, do you have to teach yourself french as you don't have a french teacher?!

I haven't been the most productive with my time which should've been for French. I was trying to persuade my school to allow me to drop French as I got a U in mocks :eek:

but they said no so I will have to revise and learn it now (even though exams are 5 weeks away from today and our speaking exam is even less!). We were expected to learn the rest of the specification without our teacher which seemed a little unfair when the resources they gave us were vocab based and had no grammar/structure guides. But I guess it could've been worse - no French teacher for year 10 either? Thanks for the good luck and to you to if you have exams this year.

Reply 9

absolutelysprout

Original post by zocar

I haven't been the most productive with my time which should've been for French. I was trying to persuade my school to allow me to drop French as I got a U in mocks :eek:

that sucks! french teachers really can help especially with grammar agh
thank you :smile:

Reply 10

Stephaniedalton

Good luck with your GCSEs, I’m sitting mine this year too and can’t quite believe how quickly they’ve come around!

Reply 11

zoe.b

Exams in 2 weeks!
Only a quick update - my wifi still isn't working so I'm panicking!

French speaking is this Friday and really I'm not too worried for French - it can't get worse than mocks. We had a preparation session on Friday, it was useful but eye-opening as there is so much we have forgot.

Besides that it is 13 days until the 1st exam and I have only just started revising English Literature! Our first one is Philosophy and Ethics component of RE which is one of the subjects I'm more confident in so it doesn't start too intensely.

I'm thinking about applying for the IB at the moment even though it is so late after the deadline! I really have nothing to lose and it won't lock me into doing the IB so I'm planning to send off the application this week. Higher level: Economics, Philosophy and Biology. Standard Level: Eng. Lit, Maths and Spanish is the plan. I'm super uncertain about what career I want so I don't want to narrow it too much with a levels which would've been maths, biology, economics and pe