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GCSEs start in less than a month and haven't started properly revising GYG

Introduction - May be a little long so feel free to read whatever sections you wish hi everyone I'm currently studying GCSE in Year 11, the biggest mess you've probably ever seen.

Why I'm starting a GYG - I really need a motivation boost and I think kinda keeping a blog diary thing that other people can read would be gucci - Id really love a place to share my ideas and methods of coping with revision in such little time. All my friends are talking about having done 60 hours of revision of the2/3 weeks of our easter holidays. How much have I done? four hours :afraid: - Id also love to have this blog for me to look back to and see how I coped and how everything went -Hopefully some people going through the same situation as I am can relate and not panic knowing someone else is also going through this -Seems like a good place to release my exam worries -and a good place to structure a good revision plan and get feedback -this place seems to have a really nice community and I think id love to try this :smile:

My situation - My first exam is on May the 8th or 9th, but they officially start on May 15th and end on June 15th Im currently 2 weeks into my 3 week easter break and have revised a total of 4 hours - not proper revision its all been a mess and haven't really started all other friends have been doing a minimum of 3 hours a DAY I didn't revise much for my mocks either saying these don't matter ill do a huge comeback during easter break... anddddd well :colondollar:

Why I haven’t started revising -
- I didn’t know where to start, every time id try to start it would be like am I really learning anything or I wont have time to finish all this like mind maps for biology.

-I get distracted REALLY easily, I’ve stared at walls just thinking bout life for ages after eliminating all distractions because I really didn't want to start- the thought of revision and the worries that I wont finish and will fail and wont land my real job and carry on being around my friends at school. Truth is that I really want to carry on going to school because if I’m not accepted into A level and don’t carry on education ill just feel really unaccomplished and empty- butttt thats just me and I respect anyone who dropped out to pursue other things- I’m just not interested in them and wanna get a degree so I can be a counsellor :smile: .

-It also really doesn’t help with my anxiety and can cause anxiety attacks so I tend to avoid the thought of revision- and therefore doing it

-(Apparently I have depression according to my counsellor which I’ve suspected for ages because I’m never truly happy; and tend to avoid tasks that don’t make me happy and feel empty like revision and rather seek things that make me happy like funny stuff on youtube or texting friends)

-I kinda keep jumping into it without much thought let alone writing it down- but thats kinda just been solved

BUT Most of them are caused by the fear of not finishing and therefore failing because I didnt even properly revise half let alone learn that half- but hopefully eliminating those fears will make me overall more happy and also finding the optimal path to go on from here will eliminate those fears and ill be able to revise effectively:smile: If I can make revision fun and engaging that’ll eliminate the distraction and depression; ill also get that feeling of accomplishment which I r e a l l y want; so hopefully ill move past those and revise effectively :smile:
And alsooo I've discovered ways to improve and effective ways to revise in a month (see: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5312208&p=77177856#post77177856), I asked a question earlier and got loads of really helpful advice that I can piece together to make a plan; but before I do that I wanna talk about my mock results and aims.

Results/ Subjects I’m doing

Biology A (7)
Classical Civilisation C
Chemistry B
English Lit D (3)
English Lan
History D
Mathematics C+ (5)
Physics C+ (5)
Spanish C+ (5)

Aims (Thinking Reasonably) (in letters)
Biology A
Classical Civilisation C+
Chemistry A
English C+
History C
Mathematics B+
Physics C+
Spanish B

A-Level Options: Psychology, Sociology, Chemistry, Biology

Psychology and Sociology aren’t GCSE courses, So I think ill only worry about getting A’s in Chemistry and Biology (may consider medicine)

Plan: Using the discussion I linked somewhere in here I will be revising doing past papers (for all subjects) and using Seneca (for the subjects it teaches) which I haven’t tried yet and Ill update my experiences with it (better than revision guides- and free?). For subjects that it doesn’t teach such ass class civ ill be using my notes/ revision guides. Ill read a page, note down everything I’ve learnt and re read the page to see if I’ve missed out any key points and add them to my concise notes. I wont be doing any more mind maps as they’re too time consuming (For me)

Timetable: My school recommends to do 6 hours a day revision during the holiday (which I still have a few days left of, and will be using somewhat during study leave and the half term in between my exams too) - The most I’ve ever done in a day is 4 hours; but I’m willing to challenge and push myself. Ill also be doing an additional 30 minutes of listening to my English literature books every night before I sleep (because I’m terrible at reading)- so in total 6 hours and 30 minutes (Exceptions for when I’m just starting it out and seeing what actually works)

Ive divided the day into 3 sections- Morning, Afternoon, and Night

Morning Sessions are gonna be from: 9am - 1pm - where ill aim to do 2:30-3 hours of revision in that time

Afternoon Sessions: 2pm-5pm - Where ill aim to do 2 hours of revision in that time

Evening Sessions: 6pm-9pm - Where ill do as much work to make up 6 hours of revision for the day.

Ill be working down my revision time table- my first exam is biology so thats the one I’m going to revise first, next exam is chemistry so thats the next subject ill revise etc. Im counting English as one subject. If a subject appears more than one time on the exam timetable (such as Spanish listening, writing , reading etc) ill count them all as one subject too; so I end up with:

Biology
Chemistry
English
Physics
Maths
History
Class Civ
Spanish

Ill go down the list each 2 hours; so if I was gonna completely start my revision it would go Biology in the first 2 hours, Chemistry in the next 2 hours and then English in the next two hours- and thats my day done. Next day it’ll be Physics in the first two hours etc. any work not done on one day will roll over into next days (but will still make it no more than 6 hours- maybe do a subject of my choice that I’m struggling if the roll overs not too much) I really like this timetable as its really flexible without much confusion (if you know what I’m on about(?) any questions just ask. Ill be starting completely fresh with this. Once I complete Spanish ill restart from the top so it’ll be biology after.

Because my spanish speaking is before everything else I may sacrifice a few hours weeks or days before the exam to learn my answers and read the advice.

Plan for after Holiday

Ill be doing 3-4 hours a day of revision on weekdays. 2 hours of it will be revision with the same style of my timetable for the holiday/study leave/ half term (so a new subject every day)

Personal Rewards(?) I’m mainly doing this as a way to get myself to work and be dedicated to spread positivity by saying I’ve done my work to y’all. But my ideal rewards are:

Being accepted into a level

The huge sense of accomplishment and relief and the fact I managed to actually pull this off despite all these things holding me back

Being able to do subjects I actually love like psychology

In the future being able to get a career I love

Having the most stress free and amazing summer in years; knowing yeah I struggled but I came back and I did my complete best and be proud

Since my current school does a level I can be like I changed and I started revising really hard I just realised too late and I want a second chance (as long as I get good grades in biology and chemistry :biggrin: )

Wrapping it up

I wrote a l o t more than I expected but yeah I’m glad I finally let out my thoughts :smile: tell me your honest thoughts on what you read and ill update this every day. I’m quite new to TSR so I hope I’m doing everything righttt. Ill appreciate any feedback I get so much thank you so muchhh if you even read a bit of it it means a lot :smile: I might’ve missed some stuff but ill add them in for tomorrow if I have or any corrections. Hopefully ill be able to show a little bit more of my personality into these posts later on; and ill always be true with my progress.
Wednesday/(Thursday🌚) - 18th April

It just turned 12am as I'm writing this (Aka Thursday) as I didn’t expect all that I wrote to take THAT long but I really wanted to sleep with a clear mind and having let everything out. I wont be able to properly start tomorrow because I have a revision class and then I have to go shopping for clothes and revision guide and aim to do as much homework as I can (I have Spanish, but its really big) and also have some work for English and a past paper for biology that I should probably do to stay on my teachers good side :smile: ; but ill be sure to get all my sleep tomorrow and hopefully properly start on Friday (unless I have any incomplete homework) so goals for tomorrow:

- survive biology revision class
-Buy revision guides (English)
-Try to complete as much schoolwork as possible
-Get 9 hours of sleep Hopefully by the end of the holiday I will have done a full round of all my subjects (which is biology- spanish)

Thoughts

Today (Well now Yesterday) I was thinking about dropping history since I know barely anything about it and it’ll be real-time consuming to learn the entire syllabus in less than a month (I got a D in it for my mocks) but ill ask my teacher about it when I get back to school (next Tuesday). Ill also be talking to my tutor about how I started revision really late and their advice and thoughts and ill post it here :smile: Im also really really happy I wrote this I kinda just let everything out. Im gonna sleep soon after posting this goodnight everyone :smile:
@5h5 Hey there

Always nice to see a new face in GYG! :wavey:

I'm glad you found getting your thoughts down helped, I think lots of people here find it a calming thing to do, so keep going! I used to be really similar in terms of anxiety to the point of ignoring my problems. I think if you start small and give yourself manageable goals you will soon start chipping away at it and it should feel more manageable. :biggrin:

Good idea talking to your tutors, that's what they are there for and they are always happy to help, open communication is key.
Original post by Evil Homer
@5h5 Hey there

Always nice to see a new face in GYG! :wavey:

I'm glad you found getting your thoughts down helped, I think lots of people here find it a calming thing to do, so keep going! I used to be really similar in terms of anxiety to the point of ignoring my problems. I think if you start small and give yourself manageable goals you will soon start chipping away at it and it should feel more manageable. :biggrin:

Good idea talking to your tutors, that's what they are there for and they are always happy to help, open communication is key.


Your right :smile: thank you so much for replying and even reading my gyg so far I didn’t really expect to see a lot of those 👀 Im starting to face a lot of my problems today like procrastination I spent alot of time today seeing if I can block certain websites on Mac. I wasn’t able to find anything that I could do or was too time consuming but I think I’ll disable safari and use google chrome because that has extensions that can do that (and who knows? Maybe I’ll come across one for safari soon :biggrin: ) but glad to know that someone shares some of my problems and yeah I’m not going too hard into it I think I’ll build it up. I might just start with 4 hours tomorrow and then see how I can build it up. Same thing with School weekdays I’ll start with 2 or a hour depending on how much Homework I get. I’m also handing in my phone to my dad but yeah 🤷*♀️
Thursday 19th April - 25 days until my first exam

I thought it would be useful to add how much days until my first exam. Technically I have 18 until my spanish speaking but that isn't part of my timetable; but I thought it would help be a reminder of how much time I actually have left. Looking at the number; it kinda worries me as its so little time to start; but im willing to put in the work. Also my last exams in 56 days and that number looks a lot more promising than 28; and my first exam is biology and it is an aevel option; so ill be putting a little extra work into bio. Ive found that once I actually start doing the work it isn't that bad; its just starting the work thats hard. Its weird because for my Year 10 exams I was a lot more dedicated; id be revising 3 hours on a weekday for 1 silly biology test in winter break year 10; and now im struggling to do 3 hours a day on a holiday for my official :colondollar: hopefully I find the motivation I had back then and push myself to work. I have to admit that I haven't done a lot of work today. Out of yesterdays goals I've only been able to do the underlined:

- survive biology revision class - it was 3 hours- a longer than I expected :frown:
-Buy revision guides (English) - (was too tired after biology class :shh:)
-Try to complete as much schoolwork as possible - nope
-Get 9 hours of sleep - hopefully :biggrin:

Im currently doing 1/3 of my spanish homework (I could only find 1/3) :afraid: and im gonna be honest I haven't started until 15 minutes ago :F but hopefully with enough sleep tonight instead of 5:30 hours ill be able to start tomorrow. tomorrow im not aiming to do more than 3-4 hours as im not just gonna jump in 6 hours because... well... that didn't turn out well

But the aim for after tomorrow is to do 5-6 hours. Ive thought about it and realised that 6 hours out of a 15 hour day isn't that bad. its almost only 1/4 of my day I can spend the rest chilling. it kinda makes me feel stupid that I've only been able to do just over 4 hours of revision in 3 weeks of holiday not even a full day but ill try to remember to read the post I made here last night that kinda actually motivated me to do work?

I also found out that my friend with a learning disability has been able to do 6 hours a day for all this holiday and iim like fuvjvkjshjsfhfs and my other friend got really mad at me (que?) but I guess they don't understand that its hard for me.

**I also forgot to add to yesterdays post that my mum left for holiday last week and she was the only thing that made me truly happy and can't call me very often and thats been having a negative effect on me too :frown: she also lied about how much she's staying she said 10 days when its actually 2 full weeks and I was like ugh I can't even survive 5 days and I felt betrayed as she said she's only going for a wedding but that only took a day? why she staying 2 weeks? but anyway thats been hard for meh too :frown:

Anyway imma carry on with my spanish booklet and ill update you guys with my sleep tomorrow. Thanks for reading :smile:

I also haven't had a chance to look properly at Seneca yet buttttt I will. I found out a good strategy to use it was that to have my CGP text book on the corresponding pages too and after I finish a section on there I skim read and note down any information I think thats important along with the things of Seneca (on the website it says that not to rely too much on Seneca? maybe for legal issues idek its in beta but I worked out a solution for it again by skim reading my cup guide too) but yeahhh hopefully I get to try this out tomorrow and try Seneca alone tonight before I sleep. ill update you guys tomorrow :biggrin: ill add anything I forgot into tomorrows entry too

(Also thanks for 40 views wiggg im famous:colondollar:)
(edited 5 years ago)
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My name is Emily and I’m also doing my GCSEs soon! I also have a GYG but since I’ve been so busy revising I haven’t updated it (nor have I look on social media that much). I only have 20 days until my first exam and 46 days until my last exam so the clock is ticking 😩 Thankfully I only have 8 exams left to do and I’m finished every piece of coursework.

I’ll try and check this GYG out as much as possible 😬.

Adieu!
Original post by JedEmily
6F398060-BFAD-4E58-AF8F-3376F741F81C.jpg.jpeg

My name is Emily and I’m also doing my GCSEs soon! I also have a GYG but since I’ve been so busy revising I haven’t updated it (nor have I look on social media that much). I only have 20 days until my first exam and 46 days until my last exam so the clock is ticking 😩 Thankfully I only have 8 exams left to do and I’m finished every piece of coursework.

I’ll try and check this GYG out as much as possible 😬.

Adieu!


Thanks :biggrin:
Monday April 23rd - 21 days until my first exam

I realised how much work I actually have to do for when school starts (tomorrow) a few days ago and its been putting a lot of pressure on me along with the fact that I still haven't started my revision. Luckily im going to go talk to my form tutor about everything tomorrow so hopefully I find a solution or some support :biggrin: You know that feeling where you have so much work to do that you physically just cant and don't do much of it? yeah thats me at the moment :frown: hopefully it all turns out good :biggrin: wish me luck guysss<3
Reply 8
I was in the same situation a month ago, I decided to leave all the studying aside and started solving past papers only literally. Any question that I find difficult, I’d open the mark scheme and memorize the answers, start solving from 2017 all the way down to cover the newest questions in the syllabus, because igcse exams are always repeated with the same rhythm of questions, if a question requires you to understand a process simply watch an animation on YouTube our brains tend to process images a lot better. Again just forget all the books and look at the past papers, just open up your laptop and solve the entire day non stop, the questions will be repeated and I’ll guarantee that you’ll do good by just doing past papers over the next two weeks, but be dedicated and really focus on the questions before checking the mark scheme, I finished all the past papers of ,( biology chemistry maths and geography) in just a month, so i think 2 to 3 weeks will give you a great understanding for your upcoming exams, and good luck.

Here’s an excellent website for pastpapers:
Dynamicpapers.com
Gceguide.com
Original post by mutasim0412
I was in the same situation a month ago, I decided to leave all the studying aside and started solving past papers only literally. Any question that I find difficult, I’d open the mark scheme and memorize the answers, start solving from 2017 all the way down to cover the newest questions in the syllabus, because igcse exams are always repeated with the same rhythm of questions, if a question requires you to understand a process simply watch an animation on YouTube our brains tend to process images a lot better. Again just forget all the books and look at the past papers, just open up your laptop and solve the entire day non stop, the questions will be repeated and I’ll guarantee that you’ll do good by just doing past papers over the next two weeks, but be dedicated and really focus on the questions before checking the mark scheme, I finished all the past papers of ,( biology chemistry maths and geography) in just a month, so i think 2 to 3 weeks will give you a great understanding for your upcoming exams, and good luck.

Here’s an excellent website for pastpapers:
Dynamicpapers.com
Gceguide.com


Okay thanks! the problem is im doing the new exams :/ but I got workbooks that have the new gcse stuff in it

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