Making notes!

Depends on if you're doing separate science or combined...

I'm doing separate and I'm aiming to get 9s in chemistry and biology, and an 8 in physics (my exam board is OCR Gateway).

For biology, it's quite hard to condense notes down as biology is a very content heavy subject. I suggest for biology you focus on memorising processes and doing lots of practise questions (and also be quite strict with yourself when marking, because biology mark schemes are VERY specific). In terms of making notes, find what works for you, whether that's just flashcards (or quizlets-whether premade or made by yourself), mindmaps or normal notes. Make sure you don't copy notes straight from textbooks or revision guides: it's important to make revision interactive so you remember it better. Make good use of the revision guides, I personally LOVE CGP revision guides for last minute revision - completely saved me for my mocks haha.

Chemistry is a lot easier to condense down notes wise, as it's very concept based and once you know these concepts, you can apply these to most questions (another reason why practise questions are great for science). I'd say use the textbook and revision guides to make condensed notes, and use these rather than the revision guide when revising, as it'll be quicker.

Physics is kind of half-way between biology and chemistry in terms of revising, concept based but also still quite content heavy. I find with physics, I have to sit down and read through the revision guide before I make any notes to make sure I understand everything and their links. Again, practise questions!
Learning equations through quizlet is easiest I find... do what works best for you!

I hope this helps!

I'm doing combined higher and thank you for your help

Flashcards really helped me out. But it was the overall process of going through school notes and deciding what was worth keeping and what wasn't that allowed me to learn.

I got 9s in all my sciences last year... what I’d say is look at all the topics and decide on what you’re not so confident on. Then watch videos like Free Science Lessons or Primrose Kitten and make notes based on what they cover. Try to condense as much as possible without losing all the important points. But what really gets you the grades is DOING PAST PAPER QUESTIONS. They are the key to getting a good grade rather than just note making. I’m happy to answer any other questions on getting through GCSEs. Good luck

Hii! I’d like to know, how many past paper questions were you typically doing as you were learning through the course? Or did you do them mostly nearer the exams?

So I got the CGP book which had loads of exam questions by topic it was really good. This tended to be in my revision nearer the exams once we’d finished learning all the content and then if they didn’t go so well I’d find some more. Hope that help

Thank you!! Also, when you say 'nearer exams' how many weeks/months do you mean? And do you tend to repeat past papers?