Failure

Hi everyone,

For context I do biology, chemistry and psychology. So since the start of Year 12 in chemistry I have been getting C’s and B’s in my topic assessments, however, when I sat the end of year mock I ended up with a U. I don’t think I revised effectively enough so I spoke to teachers and friends who had done well.
Everyone said do flashcards, blurting, mind maps, topic questions from textbooks and past paper questions and do past paper questions.
I did all of the above, over summer and when doing practise papers at home in timed conditions I was getting C/B which was quite an improvement for me.
I didn’t go on holiday this year neither did I go out alot, and cancelled alot of plans just so I could study.
I studied in my room, on my dining table and the library on occasion as well.

I got back my results for my chemistry mock today and I have got a U again. I do not know what else I could have possibly done over the 5 weeks to do better and I really want to improve by November.

I spoke to my teachers and head of 6th form + head of year and they really don’t know where I’ve gone wrong. My teachers told me to attend intervention and perhaps study after school with them? I also did go tuition for 3 months.

If anyone has any other questions or suggestions please let me know!

Thank you so much for reading!

Have you seen a copy of you marked papers, and gone through them to see where you lost marks? Are you losing marks due to lack of knowledge? Or due to an inability to apply that knowledge?

It just seems really strange that you're "doing practise papers at home in timed conditions I was getting C/B", get you're getting U in a school-based mock. Could it be down to stress? When you were doing the mock, how did you think you were doing? Did you feel you knew most things?

Or perhaps the issue is that you're self-marking the practice papers you're doing at home extremely generously? Or that the level of difficult of those papers doesn't reflect the difficult of the mock papers? Did the mock seem harder than what you'd done at home?

X

This is a strange situation. I cannot figure out what has gone wrong but I do suspect it is your exam technique. You need to have a look at your paper and the mark scheme.

I don’t think anyone can figure it out. Thank you so much though, when I get a chance to look at it again tomorrow I’ll see what happened with a clearer mind.
<3

I got some U's during my chemistry exams as well for OCR and in the actual thing ended up only a few marks away from an A, it's DEFINITELY possible to improve.

first of all, doesn't matter if your teacher sometimes uses old spec questions, DON'T do old spec papers please. the questions can be stupidly difficult and also a lot of the content is removed from the current spec so you won't even know how to answer the questions, they're a waste of time.

Focus on learning the content in the specification and making flashcards using the textbook and spec. You can also watch MaChemGuy videos on YouTube as he specialises in OCR chemistry A level and watch the videos on the topic, then read the textbook to consolidate that and then make flashcards on definitions and questions you got wrong. Keep doing that and you'll see improvement !! Remember that panicking during your mocks makes everything worse, try to feel excited (although I know that sounds insane) about doing a paper and pretend you're super confident about doing the paper as you've learned everything they need you to know and so nothing can trip you up !! Go through all the new specification papers and find exam questions related to the topic you're doing, e.g. on Alkanes or Aromatic compounds and practise doing them. Make flow charts and draw out all the different organic reactions from scratch and write colour changes and names of weird formulas you can't remember on sticky notes and put them all around your room.

I was genuinely the worst student at chemistry and if I could get a few marks away from an A in the real exam you can ABSOLUTELY make progress and please feel free to give me a pm if you need any help with topics. good luck !!

You will figure it out. For now, take a break, relax, and put the exam out of your mind until tomorrow.

I had intended to provide you with some general revision tips, but @aliaa03 beat me to it and has done a superb job - much better than what I could've done. One additional suggestion I'd like to make is to consider taking your teacher's offer to attend intervention sessions and study with them after school.

Do come back on this thread tomorrow and let us know the outcome of looking at your paper? Then we can provide further tailored advice if you need it.

You've got this.

Thank you so much for all your help! It helped me really think about everything!
I’m going to go the intervention and she said she doesn’t mind having me after school for 1v1 as well which I have decided to take advantage of as well.

I will let you know once I look at the paper properly with a clearer head and maybe I can try going from there !

That's brilliant. I'm glad our advice helped.

Lastly, a quick question, do you mind if I move your thread to the chemistry forum?

Oh yes, you can if you need too!! I should have done it earlier but I forgot to change it

Hi everyone,

For context I do biology, chemistry and psychology. So since the start of Year 12 in chemistry I have been getting C’s and B’s in my topic assessments, however, when I sat the end of year mock I ended up with a U. I don’t think I revised effectively enough so I spoke to teachers and friends who had done well.
Everyone said do flashcards, blurting, mind maps, topic questions from textbooks and past paper questions and do past paper questions.
I did all of the above, over summer and when doing practise papers at home in timed conditions I was getting C/B which was quite an improvement for me.
I didn’t go on holiday this year neither did I go out alot, and cancelled alot of plans just so I could study.
I studied in my room, on my dining table and the library on occasion as well.

I got back my results for my chemistry mock today and I have got a U again. I do not know what else I could have possibly done over the 5 weeks to do better and I really want to improve by November.

I spoke to my teachers and head of 6th form + head of year and they really don’t know where I’ve gone wrong. My teachers told me to attend intervention and perhaps study after school with them? I also did go tuition for 3 months.

If anyone has any other questions or suggestions please let me know!

Thank you so much for reading!

It's certainly deflating when you feel you've done a lot of revision and work just to end up with a U. If you remember any of the exam questions you could tell your teachers about them and what your answers were. As long as you don't incur pressure and stress because of this situation you'll be alright. I got a U in my second Law exam and I was happy to move on and do History instead because dwelling on failure is a waste of time unless you can do a resit or somehow get the result overturned if there were mistakes on the examiner's part. What students don't realize is that there's always a way forward even if you don't get the grades you desire.

X

Hello @mahi_k,

I came across this thread and thought I'd ask how things are going?

5hyl33n

Hiya,

I was going to update this thread but my teacher did not come into school on Friday so whenever I seem to have her next.

I have been revising chemistry over today and yesterday evening from the beginning by watching videos and doing flashcards. I also have a booklet my school gave us last year which has questions by topic which has been a bit helpful.

Thank you so much for asking<3

hello I was in the same situation as you last year but I didn't revise as much as you I just revised a month before exams and screwing up the exam I got a c retaking it this year but one thing I can tell you for sure is don't revise that much content as of right now I am doing a 2 to 6 split where I revise two hours and 6 hours of questions this is going to prepare you for your exam nicely obviously you can start by doing a 1 :2 split and until you exams everyday maybe up it by a factor of 2 or 1.5 3 months before exams and have a free day and you should be good . all my inorganic chem teacher was shocked when I told him I got a C I was predicted an A and the mistake I did. was that I was revising content that I already know I wasn't applying the content in questions .hope you understand my point