Competition - post a photo you've taken of nature >>

Miriam’s Road to A*s

It is very late in the school year to be starting this, but I’ve finally decided to get my arse in gear and work for my grades.

I’m Miriam, a Year 11 Student from Wales who has high hopes to attain 12 A*s in my GCSE exams. I already have the full Numeracy and English Language GCSEs at A*s. Below are my predictions for this year:

Biology: A*
Chemistry: A*
Physics: A*
Mathematics: A*
English Literature: A*
Welsh 2nd Language: A*
Religious Studies: A*
Music: A*
German: A*
History: A*

In my Year 10 exams, I achieved all A*s (by some miracle of nature) and in January I sat an English Literature paper and achieved one mark off an A* (oof).

Anyway, I feel that I’ve become a bit too complacent with my revision (and I am definitely Queen of the Procrastinators), so hopefully being committed to this blog will help me. If you want to read along, feel free. There may be tears of exhaustion, but if doing this achieves me the grades to impress my dream university (Cambridge), then I’m willing to battle through.

Good luck to anyone who reads this!
Miriam x

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

Chemusen

I think this could be interesting. I, too, am a year 11 student in Wales expected to get A*s in most subjects (except English Lit/Lang and Welsh 2nd Language cause languages can...no, frankly.) Good luck to you too, and well done on your results so far!

Reply 2

Miriam29

Original post by Lewianter

Do you have a blog? I’ll watch it if you do.

Reply 3

Chemusen

Original post by MiriamButcher

Do you have a blog? I’ll watch it if you do.

I haven't actually considered doing one yet but this has actually put the idea in my mind

Reply 4

Chemusen

Btw if it's of any interest (which I doubt very much but I'm bored so meh) here's a breakdown of my predicted results-
Biology- A*
Chemistry- A*
Physics- A*
English Language- A
English Literature- B (which is really...bad)
Welsh 2nd Language- A
Religious Studies- A*
Geography- A*
Music-A*
Numeracy- A*

Already have A* Mathematics, and there's one less option subject cause I took Triple Award Science (Yay such fun 😒)

Reply 5

Miriam29

Original post by Lewianter

Don’t hate on Triple! It means that if I absolutely flunk my Physics, my Chem and Bio are safe.

Reply 6

Chemusen

I suppose there's that angle- if I fail Chem (and believe me I probably will) I have the other two

Reply 7

Miriam29

18/03/18

Today’s revision consisted of Welsh and Chemistry. I’ve found that typing up my chemistry notes helps me to revise the topics, so I’ll keep doing that.

For Welsh, I’ve decided to start with the basics before moving on, so I’ve made some Flashcards.

Reply 8

Miriam29

Original post by Lewianter

I suppose there's that angle- if I fail Chem (and believe me I probably will) I have the other two

My Chemistry teacher’s persistence means that even if I tried, I could not fail Chemistry. It doesn’t help that my Physics teacher is on paternity and I’m having to learn about half-life by myself.

Reply 9

Chemusen

My physics teacher isn't great- it's just I find it relatively easy. My chem teacher was off for about two months with something and it's really set us back cause the multitude of supplies we had were all hapless.
Anyway I'll stop intruding on your blog now- I might go make my own later, it'd help me.

Reply 10

sadforsadboys

Hi Miriam! I'm Emily and I also have a GYG blog! :tongue:

Reply 11

Miriam29

Original post by JedEmily

Hi Miriam! I'm Emily and I also have a GYG blog! :tongue:

I’ll be sure to check it out!

Reply 12

Chemusen

I did decide to set it up- whether or not I'll remember its existence is another matter totally.

Reply 13

Miriam29

19/03/18

Today I got a harrowing reminder that I have a Physics test tomorrow. I’m slightly hating myself for not remembering, but I decided to spend time revising instead of hating myself further.

To revise for the sciences I’ve decided to type up everything of importance into revision guides of my own. I like the Bangor Revision guides for the WJEC specification, but they’re a bit long-winded. If I had had more time, I would have made Flashcards for the specific topic (Radiation and Half-life), but I’ll just have to do it after the test.

I’m feeling neutral about the test. I’m not worrying to the point of panic (I am a serial worrier), but I’m not too confident. The maths side of it is quite easy, but I just need to remember all of the facts.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to revise more than one subject as I won’t have an after-schooo activity.

Reply 14

Miriam29

21/03/18

Today I completed a Maths past paper and have typed up German key phrases onto a lovely app called Quizlet to practise them on my phone. Hopefully I’ll record myself speaking later and send it to my German teacher.

Reply 15

Miriam29

29/04/18

So....... it's been a while since I last updated this. I don't know what happened but I'll endeavour to pick this up now.

I sat my Welsh and German oral exams last weeks and they went very well. I was very stressed in the run up (though I'm always stressed) and I didn't really revise until a week before hand. However, I made very few mistakes and my teachers were very complimentary afterwards.

My first written exam is on the 11th May and it is a Welsh exam. I'm confident for that, but the week after I have my Bio and Chem exams. I'm confident for Chem but feel like I'm cramming Biology constantly. It's soooo content heavy, but I'm not too stressed for that. However, my Physics exam is on the 23rd May and for that I am far from confident. Further Motion Concepts is destroying my self-esteem and my teacher's idea of a revision lesson was so appallingly awful that I feel that I am worse off than when before it happened. My Phys mock went quite well, excluding some stupid mistakes. Hopefully the results are good.

In terms of Music, I managed to finish both of my compositions, the performances, the programme note, and the analysis of my brief composition. I'm feeling quite confident for my exam, though I need to work on hearing intervals.

History is going well. I just need to make sure that my knowledge is impeccable since I find the exam technique easy to use.

Maths is also going very well. I'm aiming for an average of at east 90% over my two exams. I've also decided to sit the Additional Maths exam, and am hoping for a distinction, though I would be satisfied with a merit.

English is the exam that I'm most worried about. I need 69 UMS out of 80 to get an A*, and I drastically need to improve my timing for the essay questions. I have so much to say and so little time to write it down. I'm getting faster and faster, so hopefully it will be fine by the exam.

Anyway, I hope to update this more regularly now as it will probably motivate me more.

Bye,
Miriam

Reply 16

Miriam29

15/05/18

So.... Judgement Day has arrived. By that, I mean that today is the day of my Biology exam. For some reason I was exceedingly calm over the last few days, but now I’m so stressed that I wouldn’t be surprised if I have stress lines. I know the content and I’m fairly confident with answering questions, but I guess I’m a chronic worrier.

In other news, I sat my Welsh Reading and Writing exam on Friday and it was pretty easy. I only need a high B/low A to get an A* overall, so I’m fairly confident that I’ve achieved an A* overall. I won a Welsh creative writing competition in the Urdd Eisteddfod, so hopefully some of that reflects in work.

My Chemistry exam is this Thursday and again, I’m confident that I know the content. I’ll just go-over the final topic of Reversible Reactions to ensure that my knowledge of the Haber Process, the Contact Process, Steam Reformation, and Equilibria Reactions is up to scratch.

Anyway, if anyone reads this, I wish you luck in your exams as well.

Reply 17

Chemusen

How did you find the biol today? I personally think I messed up quite a lot of it, but most of my friends are very confident in their performance.

Reply 18

Miriam29

Original post by Lewianter

How did you find the biol today? I personally think I messed up quite a lot of it, but most of my friends are very confident in their performance.

It was okay. Some of the questions seemed to not really be related to Biology at all, but I liked the QER on DNA. They covered monoclonal antibodies, and I’m soooo glad that I revised that topic in detail.