Exam Technique

Hi everyone. I recently got a D in my AS edexcel chemistry and what to get it up to an A for A level. first of all is this possible?
Secondly, is writing in bullet points in the actual exam allowed and if so does it help?
Also feel free to pop some exam techniques that you may have found useful.

Thanks

Reply 1

MagnumKoishi

Original post by Tejr

It's certainly possible if you put a lot of effort and determination into it.

Writing in bullet points is allowed and if you can do it well, it's a good way of keeping your answers concise and focused.

And other than that, practice is the best way of developing exam technique. Do as many past papers as possible and (important) *go through the mark schemes carefully*. This will help you learn the sort of things examiners are looking for jn each type of question

(I did physics, but I'd imagine the same applies to chemistry)

Reply 2

Tejr

Thanks a lot. However, do the bullet points have to be full sentences or can they be phrases?

Reply 3

MagnumKoishi

Original post by Tejr

Thanks a lot. However, do the bullet points have to be full sentences or can they be phrases?

Phrases. For sciences, unless the question says otherwise, the quality of your writing is totally irrelevant

Reply 4

Tejr

thanks a lot... kinda working for me

Reply 5

username4902456

This revision trick my teacher told me works so well for me in most of my subjects including chemistry so i guess it applies to you too :smile:

so first off i would read the specification and understand the content properly not just nodding whenever our teacher spoke. I would watch freescience lessons on youtube ( MY GUY :smile:

) and then make notes in a notebook so basically make my own little personalised specification using loads of colour and highlighters and stuff. Freescience lessons don’t actually have A level videos yet BUT this school year he said he’s going to make them in time for A levels 2020 so you should be good

Then i would put alllllll my notes away and get a big a3 paper and make like this massive mindmap ( or whichever way you learn bullet points, lists, paragraphs etc) of different chapters in the specification ( like P1 P2 ygm) and write down everything i can remember from the specification in one colour like black. Sounds boring i know but once you’re done and can’t think of anything else look back at your notes and add stuff you missed in a DIFFERENT colour e.g purple. This way you can see the areas you need to brush up on and relearn them. I would repeat this mindmap thing so many times until the majority if not all of the mindmap was black and not purple ygm. You can see your progress with each mindmap because there will be less and less purple.

Once the mindmaps were black i would then move on to exam questions and answer them confidently with all the knowledge from revision. this would be the last step just before the exam to familiarise myself and then a once over of the specification before the exam and i’m sorted :smile:

in my year 10 mocks i was generally like 4/5 in most of my subjects and after doing all this i moved all the way up to 8/9s in my practise papers! so hopefully it should work for you too it’s a lot of effort i know but hopefully it will be worth it