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GCSE help for a lost average kid

ok so first off i am not at all as intelligent as some of the people on here. I would love for all 9's in my gcse's in may but honestly, it's not a realistic goal.

my grades as of rn are spanning between 4-6 with the highest being french at a 7 but like french is easy af come on now.

anyways despite the rant i just wanted to ask on here to see if anyone had ANY sort of advice for a student whose grades aren't exactly great, and hopefully i can engage some people in a similar place to me! - btw my main aim at the minute is getting 6-7 in all of my mocks in march :smile:

ok thanks for reading and sorry for the rant

want resources?

Original post by miffy122233

want resources?

yeah that would be great if u had any

Reply 3

FutureDOCC

Original post by stn118

ok so first off i am not at all as intelligent as some of the people on here. I would love for all 9's in my gcse's in may but honestly, it's not a realistic goal.
my grades as of rn are spanning between 4-6 with the highest being french at a 7 but like french is easy af come on now.
anyways despite the rant i just wanted to ask on here to see if anyone had ANY sort of advice for a student whose grades aren't exactly great, and hopefully i can engage some people in a similar place to me! - btw my main aim at the minute is getting 6-7 in all of my mocks in march :smile:

ok thanks for reading and sorry for the rant

What subjects do you do? Apart from compulsory ones, I did triple science, geography, history and Design and technology.
I revised for science by just understanding the content- i made notes on everything (I found to be really helpful since I wrote down everything n didn’t even regularly look at it during, only recapped it during lessons sometimes) and then did past papers, ALOT of past papers, and practice Questions.
Geography- I just made sure to understand the content by looking at some notes, or watching some revision videos (I didn’t rlly do much revision for it, but I always understood the content), so watch videos, make notes and do past papers
History— made notes on all the content - I watched a yt channel, forgot the name, where he would do a quick recap of the topic, - this was so id understand it, and then I’d look at more detailed notes to solidify it ig
Design Tech, I didn’t revise at all, but for the coursework I looked at exemplar coursework and just made sure to include everything they included

I got 8888877763
8 - in bio chem physics geo history
7- English lang maths Design tech
6- English lit
3- German

All the subjects I got 8 in- I was a couple marks off a 9, so I feel like the way i revised did work, Ik it might be abit unclear mb, lmk if it doesn’t make sense

Reply 4

hot-experiment

Original post by stn118

ok so first off i am not at all as intelligent as some of the people on here. I would love for all 9's in my gcse's in may but honestly, it's not a realistic goal.
my grades as of rn are spanning between 4-6 with the highest being french at a 7 but like french is easy af come on now.
anyways despite the rant i just wanted to ask on here to see if anyone had ANY sort of advice for a student whose grades aren't exactly great, and hopefully i can engage some people in a similar place to me! - btw my main aim at the minute is getting 6-7 in all of my mocks in march :smile:

ok thanks for reading and sorry for the rant

You'll want to do past papers, timed questions and look at model answers and mark schemes. If you havent already, download the specifications because they will tell you exactly what the examiners expect you to know and what they mark. I also found using examiners reports really helpful because they go in depth about how students across the country answered questions - and in what way is correct. These can be found on exam board websites, usually in teacher resources. I did drama, history, rs, triple science, maths, both englishes and french and got 9988777766. Because i have mostly essay subjects, (and idk if you do) i watched videos, read over the textbook and made mindmaps and flashcards to recap content. I also used websites like study smarter, seneca, cognito and physics and maths tutor. I also listen to the gcse english podcast which is SO helpful. Hope this helps!

Reply 5

miffy122233

you can find these on youtube:
1st class maths
Freesciencelessons
TLMaths
Primrose KItten

Also watch exam walkthroughs

Reply 6

miffy122233

Original post by stn118

ok so first off i am not at all as intelligent as some of the people on here. I would love for all 9's in my gcse's in may but honestly, it's not a realistic goal.
my grades as of rn are spanning between 4-6 with the highest being french at a 7 but like french is easy af come on now.
anyways despite the rant i just wanted to ask on here to see if anyone had ANY sort of advice for a student whose grades aren't exactly great, and hopefully i can engage some people in a similar place to me! - btw my main aim at the minute is getting 6-7 in all of my mocks in march :smile:

ok thanks for reading and sorry for the rant

Please tell me your exam boards as well

Reply 7

Trollhunter1312

Original post by stn118

ok so first off i am not at all as intelligent as some of the people on here. I would love for all 9's in my gcse's in may but honestly, it's not a realistic goal.
my grades as of rn are spanning between 4-6 with the highest being french at a 7 but like french is easy af come on now.
anyways despite the rant i just wanted to ask on here to see if anyone had ANY sort of advice for a student whose grades aren't exactly great, and hopefully i can engage some people in a similar place to me! - btw my main aim at the minute is getting 6-7 in all of my mocks in march :smile:

ok thanks for reading and sorry for the rant

A piece of advice: know your goals. If your trying to get get into A-levels then you prob only need 6's and lower. For a good grade it helps to find the spec and learn what you acctually need to know instead of what the teachers sometimes waffle on about. Also I love your confidence in French 😆 I think I've failed my listening test today. A little bit of revision each day definitely adds up in the end if you want to increase your grade. When are your mocks during March?

Reply 8

theminer333tm

Original post by stn118

ok so first off i am not at all as intelligent as some of the people on here. I would love for all 9's in my gcse's in may but honestly, it's not a realistic goal.
my grades as of rn are spanning between 4-6 with the highest being french at a 7 but like french is easy af come on now.
anyways despite the rant i just wanted to ask on here to see if anyone had ANY sort of advice for a student whose grades aren't exactly great, and hopefully i can engage some people in a similar place to me! - btw my main aim at the minute is getting 6-7 in all of my mocks in march :smile:

ok thanks for reading and sorry for the rant

I did GCSEs in 2023, and I can given you advice for any subject, but I'll give advice for the subject which I was having the same issue as you in.

English Literature (keep in mind that even though these methods worked for me, they might not work for you). So I was on a grade 3-4 all the way up until the week before the first English literature exam, and I ended up with an 8, so you have a lot of hope since you have much longer than I had to improve :smile:

.

Firstly, I think you should completely drop whatever structure the school teaches you to write in, which in my case was PETAL, as these structures only tell you how to order your talking points, not how to genuinely write and structure an English lit essay, if you know what I mean.

Now I'm not sure if others would agree this, but during my actual GCSE exams, what worked for me was not adopting a specific structure at all, and basically just writing as if it was a brain explosion on paper, if that makes any sense. Though, this is very risky, and I genuinely only did this because I basically gave up on English literature since I got a grade 3 on the final practice paper, 3 days before the actual exam, even though I worked so hard on it. So, I was super unmotivated and lost all my care for doing well, so I was just like "**** it" and just wrote in the way I said.

Basically, particularly in the unseen poetry section, you do NOT need to go through the entire poem, take out quotes, analyse the stupid techniques used etc. like the teachers make out and focus heavily on. In my case, i purely compared the titles without reading the poems, and did a couple paragraphs waffling on about the emotions they convey and whatnot. Since this clearly worked, I don't see why it wouldn't work for you, though I understand that it's risky since it goes against everything the teachers teach.

In addition, watching English Language and English Literature paper walkthroughs on YouTube was possibly the largest factor in me getting my grade, so don't follow my first piece of advice without doing this too. I know people say all the time about how videos help, so it makes you roll your eyes whenever anyone mentions it, but English literature is the ONLY subject (along with the goat freesciencelessons for science practicals) which I found these paper walkthroughs effective. Contrary to normal exam papers, such as sciences, maths etc. where the questions will vary each year and require completely new approaches, English literature exams require the exact same thought processes and approaches, and don't really have a big variety of questions, so these YouTube videos gave me a really strong idea on how to approach English lit exams (English language videos really helped with my English lit too, so watch them as well). The channel I purely watched was First Rate Tutors, which I advise you should definitely watch.

So yeah, doing all this only a week before the exams managed to bring my grade up significantly, so imagine how much this will improve your grade since you have months to prepare. I hope I could help :smile:

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