The Student Room Group

Studying help

I'll be sitting my GCSEs in the summer and I got my mock results back and failed most.
I'm behind with a lot of my subjects and I'm not good at getting to work on revision or anything does anyone have any helpful tips/websites/resources I can try? Here's the subjects I need help with...
- Biology AQA (all sciences are separate sciences, not doing combined)
-Chemistry AQA
-Physics AQA
-Maths AQA
-Business Edexcel
-History Edexcel
Use ur mocks to see ur weakest points u need to work on. Make sure u revise these first and understand them. U can make flashcards on the question, or flashcards about that topic. If ur doing flashcards, put a question on the front and answers on the back so ur actively thinking about the answer.

One app that helps is Pinterest. Although it’s not an official revision site, it has so much revision resources from teachers and pupils which is super helpful- especially for history. But make sure instead of just reading their revision, u actually use it and make ur own revision from it.

For science try ‘physics and maths tutor’. It has all the specification for AQA GCSE science and follows it. There’s notes for each topic along with flashcards. Read the notes for a deep understanding of the topic, and u can use it along with ur revision guide (I use CGP).
U can use their flashcards to make ur own therefore the info is being processed in ur head more instead of passively reading it.
Or if u like notes and mind maps, use the notes/ ur revision guide to make even condensed notes/ mind maps.
Seneca learning is also a good website. After finishing making a revision resource on a topic, try doing questions on Seneca learning- just type in the exam board and the subject. If you get 100% on the topic, go through ur revision guide contents page and highlight the topic in green, if u need work on it, yellow, if u did really badly, red. Therefore u can see which parts u need to revise more on.

For maths try a website called OnMaths. It has exam style questions on each topic as well as online practice papers and prediction papers for each exam board. The practice and prediction papers always change the numbers, but have the same question therefore u can practice it again and again without memorising an exact answer, but knowing how to work it out. Try doing the topic based questions on ur weak points and if u don’t understand, they have a linked video explaining the topic on youtube.
If u like using flashcards, have a flashcard with an exam style question on the front, and the step by step answer behind it. This is useful with questions you always get wrong or don’t understand. U can use questions from the website, or from ur mocks.

Another tip is to use practice papers wisely. Answer the questions and mark it urself so u know what u need to work on. Again, on ur weak points, try making revision resources such as flashcards on the questions u got wrong, because in the real exam, there may be similar questions/ questions on that topic.

Ik this may seem long, but I hope the tips help with revising more effectively. If ur really confused with something, remember to tell ur teachers about it. If u don’t own a revision guide for a subject, remember to get one- I prefer CGP, but ask ur teacher if they have a specific preference.
Reply 2
Original post by Chho
Use ur mocks to see ur weakest points u need to work on. Make sure u revise these first and understand them. U can make flashcards on the question, or flashcards about that topic. If ur doing flashcards, put a question on the front and answers on the back so ur actively thinking about the answer.

One app that helps is Pinterest. Although it’s not an official revision site, it has so much revision resources from teachers and pupils which is super helpful- especially for history. But make sure instead of just reading their revision, u actually use it and make ur own revision from it.

For science try ‘physics and maths tutor’. It has all the specification for AQA GCSE science and follows it. There’s notes for each topic along with flashcards. Read the notes for a deep understanding of the topic, and u can use it along with ur revision guide (I use CGP).
U can use their flashcards to make ur own therefore the info is being processed in ur head more instead of passively reading it.
Or if u like notes and mind maps, use the notes/ ur revision guide to make even condensed notes/ mind maps.
Seneca learning is also a good website. After finishing making a revision resource on a topic, try doing questions on Seneca learning- just type in the exam board and the subject. If you get 100% on the topic, go through ur revision guide contents page and highlight the topic in green, if u need work on it, yellow, if u did really badly, red. Therefore u can see which parts u need to revise more on.

For maths try a website called OnMaths. It has exam style questions on each topic as well as online practice papers and prediction papers for each exam board. The practice and prediction papers always change the numbers, but have the same question therefore u can practice it again and again without memorising an exact answer, but knowing how to work it out. Try doing the topic based questions on ur weak points and if u don’t understand, they have a linked video explaining the topic on youtube.
If u like using flashcards, have a flashcard with an exam style question on the front, and the step by step answer behind it. This is useful with questions you always get wrong or don’t understand. U can use questions from the website, or from ur mocks.

Another tip is to use practice papers wisely. Answer the questions and mark it urself so u know what u need to work on. Again, on ur weak points, try making revision resources such as flashcards on the questions u got wrong, because in the real exam, there may be similar questions/ questions on that topic.

Ik this may seem long, but I hope the tips help with revising more effectively. If ur really confused with something, remember to tell ur teachers about it. If u don’t own a revision guide for a subject, remember to get one- I prefer CGP, but ask ur teacher if they have a specific preference.

this is very helpful thank you so much !
I'm not a talented scientist, by which I mean that to this day I have no idea how a symbol equation works, but I used the edexcel revision workbook (there's probably one for AQA too) and revision guide to get 99 in Science... I'd do a page of questions per day, mark them and then (depending on my percentage after marking them harshly) I would do revision on the topic by making notes from the textbook/ internet on concepts that I didn't understand, etc. (By making notes I don't mean copying notes, I mean creating a new way of explaining the information to myself. For the carbon cycle in Biology, for instance, I drew a map that only used pictures to explain each step and I can picture that to this day!). I would then do the questions again without looking at the answers, and perhaps find some more questions for the topic online. I'd mark them, improve my answers by using the mark scheme to identify keywords that I'd missed and things like that. Of course, I did other things too depending on the specific unit, but that was the main thing! Oh, and I started with the units that I'd identified in the contents as the hardest for me, so that my revision would have the biggest impact possible on my grades.
Reply 4
i’m going to try revision with drawing like you said because as much as i’m **** at it i’m definitely a visual learner haha

Quick Reply