GCSE Year advice/tips etc

So I just started Year 11, and I need advice and tips to get me through the year without failing and hopefully getting good grades🙏

Get your notes from year 10 in order.

Take it seriously and be organised.

Start revising in good time.

Work on weak spots.

Practice exams.

Make sure you know which ones are the most important.
Maths, English and then any you intend to take at A level.

Ah Okay, thankyou ! when do you think I should start revising?

For me, february half term was a good time

How did you do in your GCSEs? And what did types of revision helped most?

Ah Okay, thankyou ! when do you think I should start revising?

six 9s, three 8s, and two a*. I mostly used mindmaps; I'd draw a mindmap with headings and then write all the info I could remeber about each heading. Then I'd go through and correct/add to it. I threw these out as soon as they were done (they were legit the messiest things ever), and then did more of them. Videos also helped a lot, like freesciencelessons, also websites like mathsgenie are great!

Wow that’s amazing! Okay I’ll try the revision techniques out some time! (Sorry I’m asking loads of questions btw) but do you have any tips for like around exam season to help with stress levels and motivation etc?

It depends on you and what you want plus how consistent a student you are. On TSR most of them get A* or A ad claim to have done little or no revision.

Be honest with yourself and get your notes in order, then gradually increase it through the year. Any time between Christmas down to April.

Getting notes in order is semi revision.
Practice of exams but with books and no time is lighter revision.

The heavier stuff you can leave down to 6-10 weeks before. Many will claim to do it in a lot less. If you start too early you can always slow down. If you start too late you have no options.

Key is to be organised and keep each subject up to date. revision isnt for learning stuff for the first time.

It's fine to ask!

Exam season is 100x less stressful than you'd expect. Mocks are honestly more stressful. You also don't really have time to worry about stress, because as soon as you finish an exam, even if you mess up, it's straight on to the next one. I think most people agree that mocks are way more stressful than the actual things.

As for motivation, just keep pushing through. It gets pretty hard in exam season and you're pretty exhausted (somehow sitting still in an exam hall makes you crazy tired?), so I'd recommend being relatively ready for exams before they start, so you don't have a massive workload whilst actually sitting them.

Ah okay I understand now, I know like that if you want top grades you basically put in what you get out. But I’m worried because in an ideal world I’d like top grades but I just haven’t found the type of revision that really helps me! In my end of year ten/start of year 11 mocks I got English-6 and 3, maths 7, physics 7, Chem and biology 6, art 6, textiles 5, drama 8, geography 8. Don’t get me wrong I’m not dissapointed with the results I’m just looking for how to get to the next step, if that makes sense?

Okay that’s pretty helpful, so as long as I stay organised and prepared I should not get that stressed? Also I’ve heard rumours from older students, and just want to know your opinion on it, so is it true that schools make the mock exams harder than the actual GCSEs so that you get worse grades in the mocks so you revise more for the actual thing? I have no clue if it’s true, I’m just wondering

Sorry to jump into this, but you are exactly right. You will 100 percent get out what you put in, there's not really any trick around it. To find the right revision for you just keep trying (you've got time, don't worry) and your grades are pretty good at the moment. One question - when were your end of year 10 mocks? Asking because when you were in year 10 there weren't any grade boundaries for the new GCSE, and teachers might have put them too high, like they did for us. When we did our mocks, our chemistry teacher made it 195/200 for a 9, which was a bit of a joke...

Make sure to focus on what you find hard, and not just go over things you find easy.[/

We did our year 10 mocks just after the year 11’s were finishing there last few exams. I’m pretty sure they used the 2017 grade boundaries, so I have no clue if the grades are accurate or if there low or high that’s why I’m not sure how much revision I need to do etc

Our mocks were specimen papers from AQA, I think most schools used specimen papers from exam boards. Whilst mocks are probably about the same difficulty, teachers do tend to use grade boundaries that are pretty high (especially for my year, as we were the first for science etc with the new GCSE). Mocks in general are a slight train wreck, as no one has great exam technique and doesn't know how to structure questions. This improves so much after mocks and you end up doing way better.

Okay that’s good to hear, my maths teacher always says how she’ll be able to “level up our grades” by next year. Did you find that each mock you did your grades got better? I’ve got upcoming mocks I think around December, however I know that I’ve got an upcoming English literature mocks in 6/7 weeks, should I have already started revising for it even though I only went back to school on Wednesday?

Sorry I didn’t quote it

As you get more used to mocks, your grades go up. Our first maths mock was one paper in december, I did no revision and got a 7. Second was in feb, when we'd started revising in class because we'd finished the course and I got an 8. And the last was just before Easter where I'd been revising by myself, and I got a 9 in that. The more you do the better it gets.

If I was you, I wouldn't start revising yet. If you start revising now, you'll end up way too burnt out by the end of the year. I spent about a week and a half revising for our first set of mocks (just after Christmas). This was way too short to actually do well in them, but it meant that when I started to revise for actual exams I still had loads of motivation as I hadn't done loads earlier and there was more pressure. It depends who you are and how your brain works really, some people find it easy to revise from september to june straight, but I'd have found it hell.

Okay so I think my plan is I’ll start 2 weeks before my literature exam. I’m not trying to seem arrogant but I’m sort of an all round student and can do okay in most subjects. Did you set targets to get certain grades in certain subjects? Do you think it would help if I set targets for myself?