In my Y12 summer mocks I got CDD in Maths Bio Chem respectively. Same exam boards as you. I revised over the summer and ended up with A*AA predictions.
The main thing is to not give up, I wanted to because I also studied long and hard only to not get the results I want. I wanted to do medicine aswell. Over the summer I went through where I went wrong in my exams and covered all content. I done this via anki as it was a great form of active recall as that way you are actually revising instead of learning. I used past papers to track my progress and I saw it slowly going up for all my subjects, and I saw my first 75% (A) ever in my chemistry September test.
The main thing is to not give up, I wanted to because I also studied long and hard only to not get the results I want. I wanted to do medicine aswell. Over the summer I went through where I went wrong in my exams and covered all content. I done this via anki as it was a great form of active recall as that way you are actually revising instead of learning. I used past papers to track my progress and I saw it slowly going up for all my subjects, and I saw my first 75% (A) ever in my chemistry September test.
Original post by 21Vee
In my Y12 summer mocks I got CDD in Maths Bio Chem respectively. Same exam boards as you. I revised over the summer and ended up with A*AA predictions.
The main thing is to not give up, I wanted to because I also studied long and hard only to not get the results I want. I wanted to do medicine aswell. Over the summer I went through where I went wrong in my exams and covered all content. I done this via anki as it was a great form of active recall as that way you are actually revising instead of learning. I used past papers to track my progress and I saw it slowly going up for all my subjects, and I saw my first 75% (A) ever in my chemistry September test.
The main thing is to not give up, I wanted to because I also studied long and hard only to not get the results I want. I wanted to do medicine aswell. Over the summer I went through where I went wrong in my exams and covered all content. I done this via anki as it was a great form of active recall as that way you are actually revising instead of learning. I used past papers to track my progress and I saw it slowly going up for all my subjects, and I saw my first 75% (A) ever in my chemistry September test.
Thank you for this, you're giving me so much hope🤗🤗 Is there any revision sources you recommend, asides from Anki (is that paid by the way)?
I went from a D to an A in biology, the main thing is that the mark schemes are so specific, so a bunch of exam questions and then you’ll learn the marks and you’ll literally pick up at least a grade boundaries worth of marks just on key vocabulary if that’s what you miss out on as I found I’d miss a word or two and lose out but as soon as I’d learnt how they liked me to word things my grades shot up
Original post by marsaria
My B was psychology AQA, D in OCR chemistry and D in AQA biology.
It might seem unattainable but I know I have to do it. Please give me recommendations on what I can do. I did study and revise but it doesn’t look like it was worth it.
It might seem unattainable but I know I have to do it. Please give me recommendations on what I can do. I did study and revise but it doesn’t look like it was worth it.
Identify what your weakest topics are (traffic light system, red for weakest, green for most confident) and why you struggle with them. Is it exam technique that is the problem, or is it a lack of understanding? If it’s a lack of understanding, watch YouTube videos to help explain concepts. If it’s exam technique, I would practice exam-style questions using Physics Maths Tutor or other websites.
Consider your study techniques and consider if they worked for you and if they didn’t, why. Your study techniques should be active recall ideally, like flashcards or quizzes, and past papers. Making and reading notes may feel like revision, but it’s a very passive technique and doesn’t test your recall.
Try making a to-do-list for summer revision, using the list of your weakest topics.
Original post by marsaria
Thank you for this, you're giving me so much hope🤗🤗 Is there any revision sources you recommend, asides from Anki (is that paid by the way)?
For biology especially, I would still recommend Anki/ other flashcard apps such as quizlet (I still prefer anki due to its speed). Anki is free on android and PC but it’s not for iOs😣. Imo anki is still the best investment I made for Year 13. I bought pre-made anki (STEMUP) with mark scheme specific answers and added my own ones as-well which allowed me to score high marks in my exams. This is what worked for me
Original post by marsaria
My B was psychology AQA, D in OCR chemistry and D in AQA biology.
It might seem unattainable but I know I have to do it. Please give me recommendations on what I can do. I did study and revise but it doesn’t look like it was worth it.
It might seem unattainable but I know I have to do it. Please give me recommendations on what I can do. I did study and revise but it doesn’t look like it was worth it.
Biology honestly two things changed my life when it came to biology.
1) biology with olivia books, you have to pay for them but i swear to you its well worth the money
2) revise topics not in spec order as spec order is so random. Revise topics as they relate to eachother across the whole spec. For example revise protiens and then revise enzymes and then revise different topics that have enzymes in it like dna replication (3.1), atp (3.1), digestion (3.3), mrna (3.4), restriction enzymes in the final part of the spec (3.8), rubisco (3.5) and yk the list can keep going cos theres so many enzyme stuff.
The reason i say to revise topics as they link rather than spec order is because it helps soo much with essay when doing the AO2 but also the way the exam is structured is youll have like this year a,b,c) was triglycerides and then d) was to do with lipid digestion and e) was to do with phospholipids in phagocytes. Something like that. But itll help you to understand and answer questions better as well.
1) biology with olivia books, you have to pay for them but i swear to you its well worth the money
2) revise topics not in spec order as spec order is so random. Revise topics as they relate to eachother across the whole spec. For example revise protiens and then revise enzymes and then revise different topics that have enzymes in it like dna replication (3.1), atp (3.1), digestion (3.3), mrna (3.4), restriction enzymes in the final part of the spec (3.8), rubisco (3.5) and yk the list can keep going cos theres so many enzyme stuff.
The reason i say to revise topics as they link rather than spec order is because it helps soo much with essay when doing the AO2 but also the way the exam is structured is youll have like this year a,b,c) was triglycerides and then d) was to do with lipid digestion and e) was to do with phospholipids in phagocytes. Something like that. But itll help you to understand and answer questions better as well.
Also i highly recommend the traffic system thing someone said above. And a way to tell is do red, yellow and green say for everything in your biology spec. Revise those red topics first but the way to do it as i said above is to link in other topics so say your red topic is rna translation well to understand translation you need to firstly understand the structure of RNA so thats topic 1 then how RNA bond together again topic 1 still. Then you need to understand the role of ribosomes so topic 2 and then you need to know transcription and finally you revise translation.
whilst you work your way through that,go to PMT and do the topic questions they have when you finish each topic to check what you and arent understanding and then go back to your traffic system to update it. Like did you do the basics of rna structure and find you put green but in fact your actually amber after doing the questions. Or did you do translation and you was red but now your amber or green.
This will not only help you revise content in a more efficient way, itll also help you to really understand the content in the way it all builds up, links to eachother and how to answer the questions so terminology needed. The traffic systek then helps you to ammend your revision to target specific areas you need to understand more.
whilst you work your way through that,go to PMT and do the topic questions they have when you finish each topic to check what you and arent understanding and then go back to your traffic system to update it. Like did you do the basics of rna structure and find you put green but in fact your actually amber after doing the questions. Or did you do translation and you was red but now your amber or green.
This will not only help you revise content in a more efficient way, itll also help you to really understand the content in the way it all builds up, links to eachother and how to answer the questions so terminology needed. The traffic systek then helps you to ammend your revision to target specific areas you need to understand more.
And one last thing i know i wrote a lot but i went from just scraping C in easter to getting A in my practice exams just before the real things started. And another great way to underatand content is to make posters. Basicly biology is all processes mainly so a way of understanding processes is to draw it out. And no you dont need to be an artist, its not about how good it looks but how functional it is fir you. It may work for you it may not but i found this very helpful as someone whose a very visual learner
Original post by marsaria
My B was psychology AQA, D in OCR chemistry and D in AQA biology.
It might seem unattainable but I know I have to do it. Please give me recommendations on what I can do. I did study and revise but it doesn’t look like it was worth it.
It might seem unattainable but I know I have to do it. Please give me recommendations on what I can do. I did study and revise but it doesn’t look like it was worth it.
Hey! I definitely agree with everyone mentioning flashcards. You want to do these regularly throughout the year so the content really sticks. However, I also encourage taking time to fully understand things. I did OCR A Biology, but I found my grades improved massively when instead of just passively doing flashcards or exam questions I was hunting down videos and different explanations for each part of the course that didn't make sense in my head. It's really important to understand the content, because then it'll stick! Especially because understanding these things makes them more interesting and appealing to your brain☺️☺️
In relation to flashcards, I have A* flashcard sets covering all the specification points for the compulsory topics in Psychology (social influence, memory, attachment, psychopathology, approaches, biopsychology, research methods, issues + debates) and also the optional units my school covered (schizophrenia, relationships and forensics). I sell them all as a bundle for £5, this may be useful if you don't want to spend time making a completely different revision resource, or don't want to pay for Anki (I really recommend Quizlet Plus though 🤣😉). PM me if you're interested. Feel free to also PM me anything you're struggling with, especially psychology, as I'm doing a degree in psych. 😘
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