Answering questions dilemma GCSE Science

I've got a major problem where I am able to memorise GCSE science content flawlessly, whilst obviously understanding it. However, when I try a past paper or some questions using the pearson edexcel science book, my mind goes completely blank. I understand when answering questions you have to think outside the box of what you learnt and answer in a scientific manner, for e.g, "What's the problem when you use tap water for a steam iron ? (distillation chemistry)" , a brief answer is "tap water contains minerals which are able to block the steam iron's holes, when using it." It was a simple answer but somehow I couldn't make my mind up on it. Answering scientifically and thinking outside the box when answering questions that are not clear-cut is my biggest weakness as a triple student. If you had the same problem as me and you managed to solve it, please share with me your experience and even for people who understand where I am coming from please share with me your techniques and practices, I'm willing to listen to all of your suggestions. Thank you.

I was in the same situation as you. In my January mocks I got a grade 5,3,3 in Bio, physics and chem. I ended up with a grade 9,8,7.

Prior to my mocks, I was so confident because I’d made flash cards on the whole textbook for all three of the sciences, and I knew them like the back of my hand. When I got the results, it hit me hard, and I was so angry because I knew all the content. I watched YouTube video tips, and what they said was to do loads of exam questions. So i did. I stopped intensively memorising the flash cards like I used to and did a ton of exam questions. Which helped massively and was able to turn around my grade.

What I did was printed out literally 50pages worth of exam questions, with the mark scheme for each of the subjects. I would do like 15 pages a day, and then mark it. The ones I got wrong, and I got the majority of it wrong at the beginning, I would correct. Then the next day I would do redo the 15 pages I did the day before in another colour, and do another new 15 pages. Kept on doing that and it worked.

If you are finding it hard to answer the question, I do think its because you haven't done many/enough questions.

Its not always good to memorise content, I'm unfortunately finding that out during my A-levels.

I think the easiest thing for you to do would be reading perhaps a topic/chapter of your gcse content whenever you have time and then attempt questions a few hours later. That way the content will be fresh in your mind and you'll be able to think of the scientific answer easily. Do this a few times and you'll get used to the style of questions and how to answer them. After this you should start doing actual papers and see how that goes.

Another thing which might help is mind mapping everything you know about one topic, without looking at a textbook etc before hand. This way you'll actually realise how much you know about the topic and what gaps you need to fill.

I hope this was helpful and good luck for your exams~

I did my gcses last year I also did exam board edexcel. So I sort of think logically first and I probably read the question like a gazillion times and then I probably write down everything I know about that topic and then look at how many marks it is so I know whether I need to go in depth. Also take time to gather ur knowledge on that topic, scribbling it down around the question would be better , I would do that in my tests. Also frequent past paper too! I rlly hope this helps, this is just what I did I achieved a 76