Is it possible to get all grade 9s for 8 GCSE subjects?

mellow2006

In year 10 mocks, my results were: 4 grade 9s, 3 grade 8s and 1 grade 7.

I just did my year 11 November mocks and received worse grades of around 1 or 2 grade 9s, 1 or 2 grade 8s and the rest 7s with 2 grade 5s from English lit and lang.

I have received those year 11 grades as mostly, I managed my time really badly. For example, I have taken 10-15 minutes on the writing section B of English Language paper 1 then 45 minutes. Also, I was not able to revise well enough as I was still burnt out from revising non-stop in Year 10.

So, now I am thinking is it really possible to achieve grade 9s for all subjects by the time I do my GCSE exams without making myself burn out.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 1

Bigboyyoussef

Original post by mellow2006

Those results actually really good, not many people get grade 9s in the mocks, Y10 or Y11. Don’t worry, you did well

Reply 2

chansss

Original post by mellow2006

Unless you wanna increase your chances of getting into a high uni/six form then stop bothering. They make GCSES seem so important but they're not, getting 6s and above is perfectly fine. Reserve your energy for a levels, thats when it gets serious. So basically yes, it is possible but don't really think its worth it at all, you're just gonna be expiring all your energy for some stupid and mostly irrelevant numbers, your happiness is more important. As a year 13 student im telling you rn to aim for 6s and more and don't bother burning yourself out, you'll realise how irrelevant GCSES are soon enough, only let yourself influence what grades u want and how hard you wanna work, not schools or other people in your class. Best of luck.

Reply 3

Reality Check

Original post by mellow2006

It does make me cringe about to think about a fifteen-year-old being 'burnt out' by schoolwork! It really isn't at all healthy. Bankers get 'burnt out' after doing 100-hour plus weeks for fifteen years. You shouldn't be feeling like this by GCSEs.

I think you need a bit more balance and to ease off the unrealistic pressure. No-one needs all 9s at GCSE, and in many ways there is very little practical difference between an 8 and a 9.

Have you spoken to your parent(s) about how you feel about academic work - and how you feel that you really want/need to gain such high results across the board?

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 4

HardlyHuman

Original post by mellow2006

It definitely is possible.
I get what you mean - I got 10 grade 9s, 1 grade 8 and 1 grade 7 in my year 10 mocks, and although I haven't yet got back my November Mocks, I doubt I will be able to do as well as in year 10 - partly because I didn't do any structured revision. That being said, I think this is because nobody really revised that much for year 11 mocks? I may be wrong, but in year 10 I heard many people revising a month or two before, while for the November mocks the earliest people started revising was a month before.

Obviously different people work in different ways, but maybe spread revision out to the extent it just feels like an extra homework?
For example, each week do a practice paper on a certain subject, mark it (most important in my opinion :smile:

) and keep it in a folder so you can just refer to previous papers and improve for next time.

Alternatively focus on the subjects you are doing for A-Level, if you are sick of the GCSE content then maybe read around the subject - it is still likely to be helpful and may feel less like revision?

Lots of people say GCSEs are largely irrelevant, and they probably are, but being a perfectionist is not a bad thing either - although if you feel like you are getting burnt out then of course your health is more important.

Reply 5

arialle

Original post by mellow2006

I found that it is possible (I got 10 9's), I spent a lot of time improving the subjects that I wasn't so good at instead of just doing the ones i was good at. For time management in exams, for example English Lang - I planned out how long I should spend on each type of question and then practiced writing within those time constraints. If you feel burnt out there's no way you will do your best, you need extra time to rest in between studying. (I even played on my nintendo to calm down if I was stressed too much) Try different revision techniques that get you better results (flashcards worked really well for me) and do practice papers timed. You don't need to get straight 9's and your grades are good, although I can understand the motivation. :smile: