SQA Higher Exam Revision

As a student who has successfully completed my SQA National 8 Exams, I am eager to start preparing for my Highers which are undoubtedly more important.

Next year I am studying 5 Highers consisting of:
- Mathematics
- English
- Chemistry
- PE
- Biology

If there are pieces of advice or tips for each subject that successful Higher candidates from previous years could pass on, I would be most appreciative. For example organisation tips, mindsets that helped you or anything else you feel could be beneficial to replicate your success.

Many thanks.

Reply 1

stilllearning123

Original post

by Kadiga

As a student who has successfully completed my SQA National 8 Exams, I am eager to start preparing for my Highers which are undoubtedly more important.
Next year I am studying 5 Highers consisting of:
- Mathematics
- English
- Chemistry
- PE
- Biology
If there are pieces of advice or tips for each subject that successful Higher candidates from previous years could pass on, I would be most appreciative. For example organisation tips, mindsets that helped you or anything else you feel could be beneficial to replicate your success.
Many thanks.

I'm taking the same subjects as you right now (apart from pe, I'm doing history).

Mainly, the best way to study for Maths is to do as many questions as you can in your weakest areas, and in all areas in general.

For biology and chemistry, you basically have to do enough past papers that you begin to learn exactly what the question is asking for in your answer as many of the marks are for one specific word.

For English, practise your essay until you can remember it well and can rewrite it in 45-50 minutes. Learn the main quotations in your poem/play whatever you do, so you can use these to answer questions in the set text. Then for the ruae, just practise some papers until you feel confident in picking out words and phrases and analysing them.

I can't help much with PE, but I do have a question about it. In your school, what were the prelim marks like for the written section of PE? My school there was like an average of 50% and I'm trying to see if the subject is hard, not taught well or the people in my year are just stupid.

Best of luck!

Reply 2

OnlySmartOneHere

I'm a current Higher student as well taking Maths, English, Computing Science, Chemistry and Human Biology. I don't take PE so I can't offer you any help there but I can offer my advice and resources for your other subjects.

MATHS:
I agree with what @stilllearning123 has said about Maths. Past papers and past paper questions are really the best way to go. Dynamic Maths has a question bank where you can get PPQs related to specific topics in the course which can be useful for targeting your weakest areas. You can answer questions from the Old Higher course (pre-2015) as the content is similar but the questions are asked differently now than they were then so it's probably best to stick to 2015 papers and onwards. There's also highermaths.co.uk which has past papers, worksheets for specific topics, booster papers and so much more. They try and get you to pay for the 'Study Pack' or something but there's really no point - you get plenty of resources for free and you don't need the extra ones in my opinion.

BIOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY:
Jabchem is a pretty good website for biology and chemistry. They have the all of the new/revised higher course past papers and the old higher past papers too (but I'd stick with 2015 onwards as course content may be different the further back you go). It also has pre-made traffic light sheets - definitely for chemistry, not sure about biology - which you can use to identify the areas you need to improve on if you like that sort of thing. I also have hyperlinked chemistry past papers (2015-2019 and 2021-2023) where you can get past paper questions linked to specific parts of the course.

ALL SUBJECTS:
My school uses Achieve Learning - though I'm not sure if we pay to use it so I don't know if you'd be able to - which can be helpful. If you can use Achieve, it has past papers linked to topics so you can find questions for your weakest areas. It also has a traffic light feature for you to identify your weakest areas and can be used for all of your subjects. Scholar can also be a good resource for all of your subjects but, again, I'm not sure if it's paid for by the school. It has explanations for all of the areas of the course as well as mini-assessments/quizzes at the end of each section. It also has practice questions throughout with expandable answers so you can check to see if you've got them correct. It can be very good for getting a concept explained to you - especially if you found your teacher's explanation difficult to understand.

ENGLISH:
Scottish Set Text:

•

The Scottish Set Text section is the easiest part of the exam, in my opinion.

•

Make sure you have a thorough understanding of each poem/short story/whatever you're doing and the themes/messages in them.

•

Use flashcards to memorise quotations.

•

Make sure you know the structure for the final question. Commonality, given text, other text(s). It's not as difficult as it seems once you know how to attack it.

•

Past papers and practice questions are always great. It's even better if you can get them marked by your teacher (all of my teachers were more than willing to mark extra past papers I did).

Critical Essay:

•

Memorise an introduction for your Critical Essay. It's one of the only things you can memorise. The only thing you need to change is the last sentence, which you tweak so it fits the question you're answering (e.g. "*author/playwright name* uses the character *character name* to elicit a feeling of sympathy from the reader/audience through characterisation and dialogue." if the question is about sympathy).

•

What I like to do for quotes is to write them down and then branch off of certain words and phrases (sort of like a mindmap but it's a quote in the middle rather than a topic) and analyse them so that I know what I can write down for each quote rather than having to re-analyse it there and then in the exam. This is what I did for Nat5 English and it really helped me.

•

Not really a revision tip but if you're a slow write like me and often run out of time, it's perfectly fine to leave a point shabbily done so you can get a conclusion down. Trust me. Having a structured essay (introduction > main paragraphs > conclusion) is more important than having a perfect analysis. Without a conclusion, you can't reach certain bands of marks - even if your analysis is amazing.

•

Once again, past papers and getting them marked. Preferably timed ones. No one wants to write essays in their free time but it's good, even if just for the sake of helping you learn to manage your time better.

RUAE:

•

I was never that great at this - I still am not - but, once again, past papers are always great.

•

Reading comprehension is a must-have. If you are good at actually reading and understanding what's written without there being words you don't know then that is half the battle. I'd suggest reading the Guardian and other good quality news articles - that's what teachers recommended I do.

•

Know how to answer the different types of questions. I was taught different "formulas" for answering certain types of questions or breaking down specific techniques like word choice and imagery. If you actually know how to answer the different questions then that also is half the battle.

I hope this helps.

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