Advice managing revision around mocks?

I sat my mocks in January and was extremely pleased with my results. I achieved seven 9s, two 8s, and a 6. I am aiming for all 9s, however, despite the fact I didn't revise a huge amount for my mocks, I feel burned out, and I have a lack of motivation to start revision again. I have a rough timetable of what revision I need to do on each day, but I haven't started it yet. I have paper 2 science mocks in mid-march, and I have been putting off revision in subjects such as history by telling myself that I shouldn't revise other subjects when I have these mocks coming up.

For example, on a Friday, I have told myself that I should revise English Literature and Spanish, yet I do not want to start this schedule yet, as I feel it is irrelevant to my upcoming mocks; I am unable to see the bigger picture in that it is wholly relevant to my GCSEs.

Due to my good mock grades despite a lack of serious revision, I am confident that I can put off revision for some time, yet I don't want that to be my attitude. I want to revise and be a student that can find time to revise, but I can't bring myself to start.

Does anyone have any advice with when I should start revision, or how I should balance revising all my subjects despite the fact my upcoming set of mocks are only on Biology, Chemistry, and Physics? Any feedback would be much appreciated, thank you

Wow, these results are amazing! Same tbh, I don't know how to juggle revision for mocks with actual GCSE's. Spend about 60% of your time going through science revision, because of upcoming mocks and the rest revising for other subjects. As for motivation, just picture yourself on results day with straight 9s.How did you get such amazing mock results? I can't seem to revise either as i am always distracted by my phone, smh. I got pretty mediocre mock results, a bit embarrassing for TSR i got four 8s two 6s and two 5s.How do i revise for english language?? I am really struggling!

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/revision/gcse/revision-advice-my-journey-to-11-grade-9s-and-how-to-stay-motivated
Read this - it's about how I got all 11 9s at GCSE and has a bit about staying motivated - it's important to remember the reasons why you want to do well. You did amazing in your mocks so you clearly have a lot of potential. For sciences, I really believe practice questions are very effective and for concepts you don't understand, youtube channels like free science lessons may help you to get the basics. Wish you all the best and I hope I was useful

I'll try and go through the revision I did for each subject quickly:

With Maths we have been set either one or two past papers every week for at least the last year so I didn't actually do any revision specific for my mocks, however i'd assume doing past paper questions is the way to go, regardless of whether they are new spec or not. I'm inclined to believe that maths is probably the subject with the most resources available for past paper questions, as whereas with science, I couldn't see myself going through papers that aren't on the current spec, maths is maths, regardless of whether it is new spec or not, it's all good practice. However, having completed the maths course a while ago and simply doing papers in lessons and as homework, I find that I am quite burned out with maths at the moment, despite the fact I am going to be doing it and Further Maths for A-Level. My maths was the only paper I sat other than computer science that wasn't a 2018 GCSE paper, and I got 89.91%, when the grade boundary my school set for a 9 was 90%. Found it quite disappointing to be so close, but I am still very confident for the GCSE.

With the sciences I broke them down into each topic. I used Seneca Learning, which I find to be a really helpful platform that our school has been using for a couple of months now, to go through a topic, I then followed this up with briefly reading through the CGP guide for that topic, and then printing off sets of questions from physicsandmathstutor.com. They have a few sets of questions for each topic, so if they had, for example:

A Simple Atomic Model 1 QP
A Simple Atomic Model 2 QP
A Simple Atomic Model 3 QP
Periodic Table 1 QP
Periodic Table 2 QP
Periodic Table 3 QP
Properties of Transition Metals 1 QP
Properties of Transition Metals 2 QP
Properties of Transition Metals 3 QP


I would do
A Simple Atomic Model 1 QP
Periodic Table 1 QP
Properties of Transition Metals 1 QP

I told myself that i'd go through all the questions on the site when it came to GCSEs but that seems really impractical now and I will probably just do the same questions as I did before. I then went through the spec for the topic and made flashcards based off the spec for any aspects of the topic that I didn't instinctively know. So for example, I found that I knew the majority of chemistry topics 1 and 4, so I made no flashcards for them. Regarding flashcards, I find that making them is a lot more productive than actually going through them. As yet, I haven't gone through any flashcards that i've made as I find it boring, unfortunately.

For History, I hardly revised. I started maybe 3 days before, by having my best mate over and just talking over our notes. I got a 9, but I think the questions I got in the mock were quite lucky and I was able to waffle a bit, so I need to revise more for the real thing. I found on the night before that BBC Bitesize, although I overlook it alot, has videos on the topics I did for the mock, Germany, and the Cold War, and I found them to be quite helpful just to watch, as I find that I remember quite a bit from videos.

For Spanish, and this may go for other languages, the only paper I did much revision for was the listening. I did the specimen paper the night before and a few weeks before I decided that i'd watch a spanish TV show on youtube for a bit. I tried to watch Reina de Corazones on youtube, but there were only three full episodes. I'm not sure how much it actually helped but I guess it may be useful to get used to the speed that speakers talk at. I find reading and writing quite easy, and I didn't revise any specific vocal but I plan to dedicate some sessions to doing vocab on Quizlet for the real thing, however I find vocab learning to be very boring.

For RS, I have flashcards on my wall with bible references, which I look at every now and then. I find that I can write a quote and then waffle about it and do quite well in RP so i'd focus my time on learning references. I am unsure of how to learn Buddhism quotes though as they generally seem quite long-winded.

For Computer Science I made flashcards for the topics in the spec that were actually wordy. I made flashcards for like how the CPU works etc, but not for coding techniques, as that comes naturally to me.

For English Lit, which I got exactly the 75% needed for an 8, I only revised Romeo and Juliet the night before, and skipped revising a Christmas Carol as it was still fresh in my head from doing it. I found that, although I am not very artsy, making a mindmap for each theme from the Study and Revise for GCSE Hodder Guide that our school gave us, linking a theme to a quote and briefly explaining it worked well, as I got 25/30 for that essay. I should've revised ACC, as I got 21/30, so I will focus more on that in the GCSE. I find that when I write something down, I generally remember it the next day, so that helped a lot for english.

For English Language, which was my 6, I watched Mr Bruff's playlist on paper 1. That was it, and I felt I did quite well. I was disappointed with my 6, yet the other student in my class with near straight 9s also got a 6, and a 6 was the highest in the class. Our class thinks it was dodgy marking personally but I will try to do some practice on questions if I find the time. I find exam technique is most important with essay-based subjects.



Sorry that i've just typed an essay, but I got carried away, by the length of my response you'd think I revised loads, but I left quite a bit til the night before and found that I spent a lot of time on xbox in the week before. As for motivation, I always seem to be 2nd best in the class, which I find convenient because people usually don't come to me first for answers, so I can focus on my own work, but it would be nice to get straight 9s and finally emerge from the shadows. My xbox is no longer in my room, and I can't actually be bothered to set it up in another room, so hopefully that helps me for the real thing. I would recommend asking your parents to have your phone when it comes to revising, as, with the xbox, I find not having the distraction with me as an option to do is useful.

Thanks for your response

Woah! This was extremely helpful, you have a lot of potential, thanks for the helpful tips! I really need to pull my socks up in maths and rs. I did my English Literature GCSE last year and got a 9, i would also recommend doing a LOT of past papers/planning them and giving them to your teacher to mark. Watch Mr Salles and Stacey Raey on Youtube as they have perceptive analysis.
Thank you for the help