Take our quiz to find out what your revision personality is! >>

Going into year 11

I’m in year 10 rn, and I massively failed my end of year tests. The entire year I’ve cheated on in class tests, and everyone in my class basically just cheated to stay in set 1. I know it was bad, but I don’t think I’m dumb, (well at least i think haha) because I understand all of it, I just completely forget later and revise so late that it never sticks. It really dawned on me when i got my results because i realised none of it was really mine, and I sort of did a 180 and now want to make my parents happy and do well (ready for my academic comeback lol). I feel bad because my mock grades are basically lies and I definitely don’t deserve them. Where should I start? Should i start with past papers of try to go over the whole curriculum over summer or something?? Thanks to anyone who read all this :smile:

(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 1

DataVenia

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by B_____

If you "understand all of it" but "completely forget later", then you need to focus on remembering the content. Past papers won't help with that.

Different people find different techniques work best for them, so some trial-and-error might be required until you work out what works best for you. It might also be that some techniques work better for some subjects than others.

Try going through a topic (using a text book, or similar materials) and makes notes from it. Use colour. Use diagrams. Use tables. Those will help your "visual" memory.

Write-out flash cards, and then test yourself (no cheating!) so see how well you did. Or get a friend of parent to test you.

Pick a topic and try writing down everything you know about it. Then go through the text book and look for key things you missed. Learn those things, and then try again. (This is called blurting, by the way.)

Try drawing mind maps showing how you can "drill-down" into a single topic, with different pieces of information "branching off" into a tree-like structure.

Hopefully at least one of the above will work for you, and will allow you to actually remember the content. Good luck.