Grades in Year 10-11

ok so because of the lockdown, it's most likely I'll return to school in year 11. It's been 4 years and I haven't made enough progress. In year 9, I increased my level 5 in all my sciences to grade 7's or (A's) but my Maths and English have fallen behind. How do I get 9-7's in my mocks for english and maths? (They've been rescheduled to September) English seems to be a weird conundrum for me. I know I understand the content but when it comes to the exam results, I just get slapped with a grade 5. Maths just infuriates me. I hate the numbers and shapes. I feel hopeless. However, I know I can turn it around just like I did with science. How do I get better?

Reply 1

username5135574

Revise revise and revise , you have about 4-5 months off school

Reply 2

stillcrying

Original post by Jesslyn <3

Best way is to practise and not give up. I used seneca learning for my revision in year 11 (for all subjects) and I wish I had known about it sooner! Then obviously do past papers on the side.

And for some inspiration, I was on a 4 in physics for the whole of year 9 and then about half way through year 10 I got a 5 and we did a year 10 mock just before the summer and I got a 6. Fast forward to year 11 mocks, I got a 6 again and then we did 2 more assessments before my GCSEs where I got a 7 and then an 8 and in the real thing I got an 8! As long as you persevere anything is possible! :smile:

Reply 3

f15es1

For maths Dr Frost Maths is a life saver! Set the difficulty to 1-3 to get the higher paper level of question or 1-2 for foundation (I made this mistake and kept it at 1-4 and got very depressed as to why i couldn't do a level maths but now i know why)

English I think is really just knowing what they're looking for. In lit remember to include all of the AOs so analysis, in depth word or structure analysis and historical context. Obviously learn your quotes but honestly you don't even need a deep understanding of the book because all you're looking for is to tick the examiners boxes. I like to start all of my paragraphs with explicit sign post sentence that explains what I will be exploring in that paragraph and why that links to the question. Linking to the question is key.

English language for the creative writing question and transactional writing pieces I like to make a grammar checkbox before I start to make sure I include semi colons etc and obviously reading will help but if you see a phrase from a book you're reading that you like just grab it and try and put it in your writing (obviously only if it naturally fits). For the questions just look at the mark scheme and see what they want and once you've cracked that you're sorted.

Reply 4

fluous

For maths, its just questions upon questions to get familiar with all the topics. Practice really does make perfect. Once you see that some problems are not as hard as they seem, then maths will get easier. With English, understanding what you need to include for each question is important but I'm not really good at English either so I think someone's already explained that stuff in detail already.