The Student Room Group

GCSE science revision

So since GCSEs are in around 3 weeks I've been revising using past papers for my sciences and it's been going well however I've realised that most of the questions I get wrong are because even though I understand the topic I can't get the mark scheme word for word. Would it be worth it to keep doing past papers and keep making those mistakes and hope I end up getting used to the mark scheme in time or instead try blurting word for word from the spec and my revision guide (instead of doing past papers since I won't really have time for both) to try and get the exact knowledge that they want me to know to get the marks for my exams? I know it's probably too late to start changing my revision methods by now but I'm worried this is going to cost me the highest marks even though I understand the topics.

Reply 1

I did my GCSEs last year and really found the mark schemes annoying so i definiteky know where you are coming from. I reccomend that you blurt from the spec for any topics where you feel that you have lacking knowlege, and then doing the topic specific questions on Physics and Maths tutor. I would also advise that you do lots of the higher mark questions (can also be found on pmt) or at least read the mark schemes for them so that you get familiar with the type of specific wording that the mark scheme is looking for, which will definitely help you to improve your scores and stop you losing those annoying marks that don't really affect the amount of knowlege you have.I found that doing practice questions helped me to raise my marks for AQA triple science because of getting used to the mark scheme.

Reply 2

Original post by charliecollard
I did my GCSEs last year and really found the mark schemes annoying so i definiteky know where you are coming from. I reccomend that you blurt from the spec for any topics where you feel that you have lacking knowlege, and then doing the topic specific questions on Physics and Maths tutor. I would also advise that you do lots of the higher mark questions (can also be found on pmt) or at least read the mark schemes for them so that you get familiar with the type of specific wording that the mark scheme is looking for, which will definitely help you to improve your scores and stop you losing those annoying marks that don't really affect the amount of knowlege you have.I found that doing practice questions helped me to raise my marks for AQA triple science because of getting used to the mark scheme.

So would you say that doing topic specific questions is more important than doing entire past papers? Thank you so much for the advice!

Reply 3

Original post by coherent-shroud
So would you say that doing topic specific questions is more important than doing entire past papers? Thank you so much for the advice!

It would be difficult to say - I would suggest trying to do a bit of both - topic specific questions now on the areas that are making you struggle and then closter to the exam do as many full past papers as possible.

Reply 4

Original post by coherent-shroud
So since GCSEs are in around 3 weeks I've been revising using past papers for my sciences and it's been going well however I've realised that most of the questions I get wrong are because even though I understand the topic I can't get the mark scheme word for word. Would it be worth it to keep doing past papers and keep making those mistakes and hope I end up getting used to the mark scheme in time or instead try blurting word for word from the spec and my revision guide (instead of doing past papers since I won't really have time for both) to try and get the exact knowledge that they want me to know to get the marks for my exams? I know it's probably too late to start changing my revision methods by now but I'm worried this is going to cost me the highest marks even though I understand the topics.

Hi! I would suggest after looking at the wrong answers you have written, i would suggest writing that specific question or key details about it on a flashcard!
Good luck 🙂

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