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I got all A* in my GCSEs - Ask me anything

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Reply 180

i don't remember if i've responded to this post before given that i scour the site for greek content but hi!! do you have any tips for learning greek grammar? vocab is not too bad as i learn it fairly effectively with quizlet flashcards, but the grammar is just so hard to get into my head and i have ~4 months until exams (i am also doing ocr)

Reply 181

Original post
by oatmealworm
i don't remember if i've responded to this post before given that i scour the site for greek content but hi!! do you have any tips for learning greek grammar? vocab is not too bad as i learn it fairly effectively with quizlet flashcards, but the grammar is just so hard to get into my head and i have ~4 months until exams (i am also doing ocr)

Hi, can't really reply now - would you mind reminding me sometime later today or tomorrow? Still very happy to answer :smile:

Kinza shazad
Hyyy could you please share the tips how you get all 9s in gcses

Kinza shazad
Havee anyonee got tips for englishh langauge and literature 😭😭 how would i get grade 9 for it


@Kinza shazad I saw your post in the other thread but I'll reply here if that's ok with you?

Reply 182

Original post
by sdfj
Hi, can't really reply now - would you mind reminding me sometime later today or tomorrow? Still very happy to answer :smile:
@Kinza shazad I saw your post in the other thread but I'll reply here if that's ok with you?


Yeaa yeahh I’m absolutely fine with this

Reply 183

Original post
by oatmealworm
i don't remember if i've responded to this post before given that i scour the site for greek content but hi!! do you have any tips for learning greek grammar? vocab is not too bad as i learn it fairly effectively with quizlet flashcards, but the grammar is just so hard to get into my head and i have ~4 months until exams (i am also doing ocr)

This appears to be your first post in this thread - thanks for posting anyway :biggrin:

I had the same problem - there wasn't exactly a lot online for us Classical Greek students!! :erm:

Honestly, my personal opinion is that the vocab is the most important bit - it's a good start that you're secure with that!

Grammar is unmistakeably important too: most of the grammar is usually in a table form - I personally find that the easiest way to learn all of these is by blurting (ie - just saying o, eis, ei, omen, ete, ousi, as an example) for all verbs and tenses, adjectives and nouns, as well as for irregulars. For this, it's probably best to create those tables yourself - the way I did it was a huge table of active, middle and passive, against all the tenses (including both aorist tenses) for main verbs, and another huge table for all participles. Might take you a good hour or an hour and a half but well worth the time in my opinion. It's harder for verbs and adjectives and everything else - I'll expand underneath.

You probably will have it but the John Taylor's Greek to GCSE textbook has all the grammar you need to know towards the end of part 2 - it's mostly in table format and fairly easy to learn. Again, I think blurting/revising and then immediately writing tables out is a good way of drilling the information in.

Well that's my two cents. Happy to answer any further questions and good luck :woo:

Reply 184

Original post
by sdfj
Hi everyone, this is by no means me bragging about my results. I received them yesterday and got:
English lit: 9 AQA
English lang: 9 AQA
French: 9 Edexcel
Maths: 9 Edexcel
Chemistry: 9 Edexcel
Biology: 9 Edexcel
Physics: 9 Edexcel
Spanish: 8 Edexcel
History: 8 Cambridge International
Classical Greek: 8 OCR
Additional maths: A (top grade) OCR
I am very happy with my GCSE results and thought this might be a way to help other users to get similar grades to mine. This is mostly targeted as those moving into Y9-11 but anyone is welcome to post.

can you help how to revise properly for scence

Reply 185

Original post
by Sasha23788888
can you help how to revise properly for scence

Hiya, may I ask what exam board this is?

Reply 186

Note to all: I've added my current A-Level subjects to the OP - happy to answer any questions about what they're like :smile:

Reply 187

yk for additional maths how do u learn it as there aint many vids on yt and school hasnt started teaching us it yet

Reply 188

Original post
by sdfj
Hiya, may I ask what exam board this is?

AQA

Reply 189

Original post
by Sasha23788888
AQA

Ive been struggling with science alot so i would really appreciate tips tysm

Reply 190

Original post
by zfsafas
yk for additional maths how do u learn it as there aint many vids on yt and school hasnt started teaching us it yet


OCR FSMQ?

And are you in Y10?

Reply 191

Original post
by Sasha23788888
Ive been struggling with science alot so i would really appreciate tips tysm


No problem - it’s a bit late tonight so I’ll answer tomorrow.

Feel free to remind me if I forget!

Reply 192

what do u advice for english revision?

Reply 193

How do you remember all the analysis for quotes for english lit and how do you structure a paragraph because im stuck on a 6, and i want to do it for A-level thankkss

Reply 194

Original post
by sdfj
Hi everyone, this is by no means me bragging about my results. I received them yesterday and got:
English lit: 9 AQA
English lang: 9 AQA
French: 9 Edexcel
Maths: 9 Edexcel
Chemistry: 9 Edexcel
Biology: 9 Edexcel
Physics: 9 Edexcel
Spanish: 8 Edexcel
History: 8 Cambridge International
Classical Greek: 8 OCR
Additional maths: A (top grade) OCR
I am very happy with my GCSE results and thought this might be a way to help other users to get similar grades to mine. This is mostly targeted as those moving into Y9-11 but anyone is welcome to post.
Edit: I'm currently do Maths and FM, Chemistry and Economics for A-Level - feel free to ask about them if you like :biggrin:
Congrats!! I want to know how to revise in between exams because there a week in may where i have a full week of exams an some days i have 2 in one day. Any advice you can give?

Reply 195

Original post
by juliascoarta
what do u advice for english revision?

Hiya, thanks for posting.

Is this for English Language or English Literature, or both? And what board do you do?

Reply 196

Original post
by Sasha23788888
Ive been struggling with science alot so i would really appreciate tips tysm

No problem :smile:

Honestly, I'm not so familiar with AQA science but I can definitely give you some of my main generic tips. So here goes...

Try and make sure you're secure on the maths-y stuff. All three sciences have some quite difficult maths at time. There's a lot of standard form, units conversion and rearranging equations in physics and chemistry, and also plenty of confusing wordy maths problems in biology. I'd estimate that about 15% of marks in my Edexcel paper was maths - not losing these marks is crucial for pulling up your grades. Maths-y question types are often very repetitive so a little bit of practice should get you that security pretty quick.


Learn every single key definition off by heart. This is highly underrated but very important - definitions are tested quite heavily by Edexcel (and presumably AQA) and knowing them all means that you won't ever drop marks when they come up. It takes a while to do but it's both mark and time-saving in exams and worth it. Knowing them can also help with longer answer questions that don't explicitly ask for a definition. PMT have great resources for definitions - click on one of the science subjects, AQA, the topic you're studying and the definitions section.

Learn all the practicals thoroughly. Practicals make up ~20% of Edexcel's science exams - they should make up a good chunk for AQA too.


If you haven't already, buy the CGP revision guide. The edexcel one was a life-saver for me and there are ones for the different boards - from what others have said, the AQA one is also fantastic. Notes were very concise and easy to learn in my version...


Learn all the content before jumping to past papers. It's easy for students to start doing past papers before they know all the core material - this is usually a bad idea. The truth is that past papers shouldn't be used to learn content - they should be used to test your pre-existing knowledge. That's the most effective way to use them in my opinion.


Hope that helps - I'm also very happy to answer any further questions that you might have!

Reply 197

Original post
by Liamgriff18
How do you remember all the analysis for quotes for english lit and how do you structure a paragraph because im stuck on a 6, and i want to do it for A-level thankkss

Hey, thanks for posting!

I created my own quote banks by writing the quote and a little bit of analysis on the side. I'll paste an example quote below (from Macbeth):

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand?” Macbeth is hallucinating a dagger leading him towards Duncan, which symbolizes his inclination towards violence and his willingness to fulfil his ambitions at any cost. This soliloquy as a whole marks his first hallucination and also signifies the start of the deterioration of Macbeth’s mental state and foreshadows his descent into madness.

The above is one of the quotes in my notes. I'd have about 10 of these for the main characters each, 5 for the minor characters, and about 5-7 for the key themes - they would overlap so it wasn't thaaat many but it's a lot of work to jump from a 6 to a 9. I'd recommend you do the same too.

It was really time intensive but I was struggling in English a bit compared to the others (around grade 6/7) around January or February, and this was a great way to learn all the quotes, but also practice writing analysis. I wouldn't so much recommend that you memorise your analysis points - depending on the structure of your essay and the question, the way you'd write your analysis points would vary.

Essay plans are a great way to learn these too - it can be quite time intensive to write loads of essays, so if you're confident-ish with essay writing, planning 3 paragraphs with a point, quote, analysis, context and summary/link sentence will save you time, allow you to cover a lot of the text, and drill quotes and analysis into your brain!

It's quite difficult to tell you how to structure a paragraph but this general idea always worked for me:

An insightful topic sentence

Quote

Analyse the quote

Another quote

Analyse the next quote by elaborating on the first analysis point

Add a structure/form point and explain how that emphasises the point you're trying to make

Write a brief summary statement that links back to the topic sentence


It's really not a rulebook and different paragraph structures will also work so don't follow this (or anything) too religiously.

Hope that helps!

Reply 198

Original post
by LAl-saery2008
Congrats!! I want to know how to revise in between exams because there a week in may where i have a full week of exams an some days i have 2 in one day. Any advice you can give?

Thanks a lot and thanks for posting!

Good question - I had the same problem (I had 5 exams in a week in may, 6 exams in another week in May and 5 exams in a week in June. It honestly felt quite excessive... A couple of tips to help you navigate this:

The night before shouldn't really be core revision time. Ideally you'd be fully prepared for the next day's exam. Being fully prepared will mean that the prepared for a full week of exams shouldn't be too difficult - you'd hope that it'd feel that you have nothing to revise. Sleeping late is a very bad idea though...


Don't worry too much about the double exams. I had 2 clashes - French and History, and then on a separate day, History and Biology. I thought it would be stressful but you're school/exam centre will ensure that you have a sufficient break. You shouldn't really feel too tired either!


Don't prepare for your exams after half-term (in June) in May. You've got plenty of time to revise for your June exams during the half-term break - from the end of April, only prioritise the content that could come up for May. This worked saving time for me!


Honestly, you'll probably find that going into school/to your exam centre every day for an exam isn't actually that tiring - you'll have plenty of time in the evening free to work or do other stuff. As long as you're prepared and you've worked in advance, you'll be fine. Don't forget to exercise, eat well and sleep on time! Easy to forget these critical things in the midst of stressful GCSEs...

Hope that helps and I'm happy to answer any further questions that you might have!

Reply 199

Original post
by sdfj
Thanks a lot and thanks for posting!
Good question - I had the same problem (I had 5 exams in a week in may, 6 exams in another week in May and 5 exams in a week in June. It honestly felt quite excessive... A couple of tips to help you navigate this:

The night before shouldn't really be core revision time. Ideally you'd be fully prepared for the next day's exam. Being fully prepared will mean that the prepared for a full week of exams shouldn't be too difficult - you'd hope that it'd feel that you have nothing to revise. Sleeping late is a very bad idea though...


Don't worry too much about the double exams. I had 2 clashes - French and History, and then on a separate day, History and Biology. I thought it would be stressful but you're school/exam centre will ensure that you have a sufficient break. You shouldn't really feel too tired either!


Don't prepare for your exams after half-term (in June) in May. You've got plenty of time to revise for your June exams during the half-term break - from the end of April, only prioritise the content that could come up for May. This worked saving time for me!


Honestly, you'll probably find that going into school/to your exam centre every day for an exam isn't actually that tiring - you'll have plenty of time in the evening free to work or do other stuff. As long as you're prepared and you've worked in advance, you'll be fine. Don't forget to exercise, eat well and sleep on time! Easy to forget these critical things in the midst of stressful GCSEs...
Hope that helps and I'm happy to answer any further questions that you might have!

yea i do agree with this, and plus during the exam week on the exam days they are not proper school days for you guys because you come in to do that one test on that day and you get to go home afterwards so you have plenty of time that rest of the day to revise for the next dayy. Plus on the weekends during the exam week try to space out your revision do some revision for exams coming up in the next 3 days for example and do more hours for a subject your less confident in, and plus its not all about how much time you put in , its about how effective your revision is!

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