I'm struggling to revise like I did in Y11 not I'm in Y12

I'm in Y12 doing my first set of mocks and struggling to concentrate and do long revision sessions like I used to be able to and I have no idea why. I've done 3 essay subjects and at GCSE I used to be able to spend 6 hours straight revising the night before a test but now its y12 and I'm struggling to do 20 minutes without breaking concentration in some way😭. I got 9s in all my essay subjects at GCSE and really want to do well but I'm struggling and I've never really had this hard of a time before. Any advice would be amazing!

Reply 1

squiddy135

First of all I’d say that you’re not the first person to find this to an extent in Y12 - I also felt that for Y12 exams I struggled to focus anywhere near as much as I had for GCSEs (like you I worked very hard for these, got high grades and was ambitious), as did many people I knew. We all managed to get through and be more productive for A-levels, which have just finished. I say this to show you that this isn’t unusual and is far from the end of the world, so please don’t worry any more than you can help.

I find that when this happens, it’s best to try to work with it, rather than ignore it, keep trying to do what I was doing before and consequently simply spending hours procrastinating and spiralling into catastrophising (often all too easy to do). If you currently can’t focus for more than 20 minutes, then just try to do 20 minute chunks of full concentration, then have a 5 or so minute break - 20 minutes of proper focus is actually very good. It’s about quality as much as, or more than, quantity.
Also, try breaking revision down into specific tasks, and then set yourself whatever you’re going to do in your 20 minutes of focus, so you can feel you’ve achieved something and can know that you’re getting through what you need to, rather than just a daunting mental wall of “revise x subject”.

If you need motivation to work, I’d recommend using an app like Flora as well, which stops you using your phone for a set period of time, shows you how much studying you’ve done that day and week, and where you can connect with friends and have friendly competition to study as much or more than some of them. If you’re a relatively competitive person, this can help a lot (I started using it a few months ago and wish I’d started earlier), although make sure you don’t get bogged down in comparing yourself to others regarding hours of study, so maybe be careful with that aspect.

Sorry for the very long response, I hope some of it helps. Remember that you’re not alone in having this issue and it’s not the end of the world. Everyone who finds school quite easy and tends to do well eventually still finds at some point that things get harder, this is the time that you’re hitting that hurdle for the first time, but you can get through it, and at the end of the day this is only Y12, you’ve got a year to work things out.