absolutely terrified for gcses
currently in year 11 and obviously theres only around 2 months left until our gcses start. im trying to calm myself about it but im just incredibly worried about some of my subjects.
maths is a worry but i'm cracking down immensely on it so im hoping im fine. im in the middle of my mocks at the minute and the last two im fairly confident ive done good on.
my main worry now is english, specifically the one paper with inspector calls and poems (im also a bit nervous about the other, but much less so than this one). i have quite literally no clue how to revise it whatsoever. im watching mr bruff and taking notes, and ive also had some aqa cgp flashcards ordered for me to use- but still, it feels like im not doing enough.
i really don't want to have to retake english again in college- im doing a level 3 games art course, so ill have a lot on my plate and most likely little motivation.
does anyone have any advice in regards to this? itd be incredibly appreciated :]
(also, my last mocks I got two 5's on my english, but iirc they were both paper 1's for english lit and lang. english lit had gone down a grade too, as the mocks before the ones im on about I was on a 6 for it)
maths is a worry but i'm cracking down immensely on it so im hoping im fine. im in the middle of my mocks at the minute and the last two im fairly confident ive done good on.
my main worry now is english, specifically the one paper with inspector calls and poems (im also a bit nervous about the other, but much less so than this one). i have quite literally no clue how to revise it whatsoever. im watching mr bruff and taking notes, and ive also had some aqa cgp flashcards ordered for me to use- but still, it feels like im not doing enough.
i really don't want to have to retake english again in college- im doing a level 3 games art course, so ill have a lot on my plate and most likely little motivation.
does anyone have any advice in regards to this? itd be incredibly appreciated :]
(also, my last mocks I got two 5's on my english, but iirc they were both paper 1's for english lit and lang. english lit had gone down a grade too, as the mocks before the ones im on about I was on a 6 for it)
Reply 1
Maths:
Do as much practice as you can. There are 3 reasons for this which i focus on. Firstly, doing practice questions means thatyoure continually exercising the parts of your brain which are needed to do maths so the more you practice the more naturally itwill come to you. Doing exam style questions also means that you’ll get used to the types of questions that you’ll be asked- tobe honest they dont tend to vary too much year on year so practicing old questions really helps. Thirdly, doing practicequestions means you’ll identify what you’re struggling with.
There’s loads of sites you can use to get questions on specific topics or find practice papers. If you have access to sites likeMathswatch or DrFrost those are helpful. Cognito has questions and videos which i would recommend. Corbett maths 5-a-dayis exceptionally useful.
Once you’ve done practice questions, you can then find what you’re struggling with struggled on and recap it. Watching a videois the way i find the best to do this- videos are especially helpful if they have example questions which you can work throughand then see how the teacher would do them. CorbettMaths, Cognito and GCSEMathsTutor are the channels id suggest youtake a look at.
Once youre confident on understanding a topic then you’ll need to do lots more practice questions to get used to what you’ll beasked in exams. CorbettMaths has loads of banks of practice questions on particular topics which are very helpful.
English language:
Having a clear paragraph structure for each question is super important. I used PEAR paragraphs pretty consistently acrossmost questions because they allowed me to get lots of marks pretty consistently. PEAR stands for Point (literally answering thequestion, a topic sentence) Evidence (pick a quote) Analysis (any language and/or structural techniques, depending on whatthe question asks you to comment on) Reader (link your quote to how the reader will likely feel- its doesn’t have to be deep butusing fancyish words like anticipation can make your writing sound less surface level).
Across both English subjects, doing questions and getting feedback from a teacher is the most helpful thing to know how toimprove. If your teacher wont mark your work for whatever reason then you could post in on TSR and ask for someone to markit. I marked lots of answers during year 11 as i found it helpful revision- you could mark other peoples answers to help yourunderstanding of what examiners are looking for. Or if you have a friend in your class who would be willing to swap answersand mark each others that’s also a strong option.
Learning how to annotate texts is extremely important. BBC Bitesize was how i learned how to do this i think but im sure theresloads of videos and articles on how to do this. You need to find a way which works well for you!
For the writing sections, quality over quantity is the key thing you need to focus on. One thing which can help is writing novafiction- stories with only 9 sentences. This forces you to condense your narrative or description. Obviously, in an exam you’llneed to write more than 9 sentences but it’s good practice. Before you start writing, come up with a list of language andstructural features you want to include in your writing and tick them off as you go so you remember to include them throughout.
Come up with a basic story that you can use most of the time and practice applying it to different questions. Quality over quantity is key for creative writing and structure is really important- having a distinct beginning, middle and end of your narrative. Before you start writing note down a list of structural features, language techniques and other stuff you want to include and as you go add stuff in. I found writing nova fiction helpful for revision (stories with only 9 sentences) because you do 3 sentences on the beginning, 3 on the middle and 3 on the end. That way you dont run out of time to do a complete narrative. Writing nova fiction also forces you to use a range of punctuation like semi colons or you simply wouldn’t be able to get everything down into 9 sentences.
English lit:
Using a clear paragraph structure is super important. I used PEAR paragraphs pretty consistently acrossmost questions because they allowed me to get lots of marks pretty consistently. PEAR stands for Point (literally answering thequestion, a topic sentence) Evidence (pick a quote) Analysis (any language structural and/or form features you can comment on) Reader (link your quote to how the reader will likely feel- its doesn’t have to be deep but using fancyish words like anticipation can make your writing sound less surface level).
Doing questions and getting feedback from a teacher is the most helpful thing to know how to improve. If your teacher wont mark your work for whatever reason then you could post in on TSR and ask for someone to mark it. You could also mark other peoples answers to help your understanding of what examiners are looking for. Or if you have a friend in your class who would be willing to swap answersand mark each others that’s also a strong option.
Learning how to annotate texts is extremely important. BBC Bitesize was how i learned how to do this i think but im sure there’s loads of videos and articles on how to do this. You need to find a way which works well for you!
Learning good quotations is immensely helpful. There’s loads of good study sets you can use which people have made or you can make your own. Either way, dont just memorise the quotations by themselves- learn the language analysis, how it links to key themes, context and characters and when it is said (this heavily influences how the reader will feel depending on if tension is rising or its a period of calm etc).
Doing lots of essays and having them marked will help you find whereyoure losing marks and then you can work on those key areas. Also reading through model essays and seeing what makes them get the highest marks is a great idea- you could use examiner reports to find common areas where people lose marks.
I used mind mapping a lot for literature so try that if you want to work on your marks. You could mindmap a quotation, a chapter,character, theme, piece of context, poem etc. Make sure that whenever you make a mindmap you include quotations which link in and lots of details.
Sorry for all the typos 😅 Happy to answer any questions on any of these subjects 🙂 I got 9s in all 3 last year and have tutored younger students for all 3 too so happy to share advice if you have questions!
Do as much practice as you can. There are 3 reasons for this which i focus on. Firstly, doing practice questions means thatyoure continually exercising the parts of your brain which are needed to do maths so the more you practice the more naturally itwill come to you. Doing exam style questions also means that you’ll get used to the types of questions that you’ll be asked- tobe honest they dont tend to vary too much year on year so practicing old questions really helps. Thirdly, doing practicequestions means you’ll identify what you’re struggling with.
There’s loads of sites you can use to get questions on specific topics or find practice papers. If you have access to sites likeMathswatch or DrFrost those are helpful. Cognito has questions and videos which i would recommend. Corbett maths 5-a-dayis exceptionally useful.
Once you’ve done practice questions, you can then find what you’re struggling with struggled on and recap it. Watching a videois the way i find the best to do this- videos are especially helpful if they have example questions which you can work throughand then see how the teacher would do them. CorbettMaths, Cognito and GCSEMathsTutor are the channels id suggest youtake a look at.
Once youre confident on understanding a topic then you’ll need to do lots more practice questions to get used to what you’ll beasked in exams. CorbettMaths has loads of banks of practice questions on particular topics which are very helpful.
English language:
Having a clear paragraph structure for each question is super important. I used PEAR paragraphs pretty consistently acrossmost questions because they allowed me to get lots of marks pretty consistently. PEAR stands for Point (literally answering thequestion, a topic sentence) Evidence (pick a quote) Analysis (any language and/or structural techniques, depending on whatthe question asks you to comment on) Reader (link your quote to how the reader will likely feel- its doesn’t have to be deep butusing fancyish words like anticipation can make your writing sound less surface level).
Across both English subjects, doing questions and getting feedback from a teacher is the most helpful thing to know how toimprove. If your teacher wont mark your work for whatever reason then you could post in on TSR and ask for someone to markit. I marked lots of answers during year 11 as i found it helpful revision- you could mark other peoples answers to help yourunderstanding of what examiners are looking for. Or if you have a friend in your class who would be willing to swap answersand mark each others that’s also a strong option.
Learning how to annotate texts is extremely important. BBC Bitesize was how i learned how to do this i think but im sure theresloads of videos and articles on how to do this. You need to find a way which works well for you!
For the writing sections, quality over quantity is the key thing you need to focus on. One thing which can help is writing novafiction- stories with only 9 sentences. This forces you to condense your narrative or description. Obviously, in an exam you’llneed to write more than 9 sentences but it’s good practice. Before you start writing, come up with a list of language andstructural features you want to include in your writing and tick them off as you go so you remember to include them throughout.
Come up with a basic story that you can use most of the time and practice applying it to different questions. Quality over quantity is key for creative writing and structure is really important- having a distinct beginning, middle and end of your narrative. Before you start writing note down a list of structural features, language techniques and other stuff you want to include and as you go add stuff in. I found writing nova fiction helpful for revision (stories with only 9 sentences) because you do 3 sentences on the beginning, 3 on the middle and 3 on the end. That way you dont run out of time to do a complete narrative. Writing nova fiction also forces you to use a range of punctuation like semi colons or you simply wouldn’t be able to get everything down into 9 sentences.
English lit:
Using a clear paragraph structure is super important. I used PEAR paragraphs pretty consistently acrossmost questions because they allowed me to get lots of marks pretty consistently. PEAR stands for Point (literally answering thequestion, a topic sentence) Evidence (pick a quote) Analysis (any language structural and/or form features you can comment on) Reader (link your quote to how the reader will likely feel- its doesn’t have to be deep but using fancyish words like anticipation can make your writing sound less surface level).
Doing questions and getting feedback from a teacher is the most helpful thing to know how to improve. If your teacher wont mark your work for whatever reason then you could post in on TSR and ask for someone to mark it. You could also mark other peoples answers to help your understanding of what examiners are looking for. Or if you have a friend in your class who would be willing to swap answersand mark each others that’s also a strong option.
Learning how to annotate texts is extremely important. BBC Bitesize was how i learned how to do this i think but im sure there’s loads of videos and articles on how to do this. You need to find a way which works well for you!
Learning good quotations is immensely helpful. There’s loads of good study sets you can use which people have made or you can make your own. Either way, dont just memorise the quotations by themselves- learn the language analysis, how it links to key themes, context and characters and when it is said (this heavily influences how the reader will feel depending on if tension is rising or its a period of calm etc).
Doing lots of essays and having them marked will help you find whereyoure losing marks and then you can work on those key areas. Also reading through model essays and seeing what makes them get the highest marks is a great idea- you could use examiner reports to find common areas where people lose marks.
I used mind mapping a lot for literature so try that if you want to work on your marks. You could mindmap a quotation, a chapter,character, theme, piece of context, poem etc. Make sure that whenever you make a mindmap you include quotations which link in and lots of details.
Sorry for all the typos 😅 Happy to answer any questions on any of these subjects 🙂 I got 9s in all 3 last year and have tutored younger students for all 3 too so happy to share advice if you have questions!
Reply 2
5
Original post
by DerDracologeMaths:
Do as much practice as you can. There are 3 reasons for this which i focus on. Firstly, doing practice questions means thatyoure continually exercising the parts of your brain which are needed to do maths so the more you practice the more naturally itwill come to you. Doing exam style questions also means that you’ll get used to the types of questions that you’ll be asked- tobe honest they dont tend to vary too much year on year so practicing old questions really helps. Thirdly, doing practicequestions means you’ll identify what you’re struggling with.
There’s loads of sites you can use to get questions on specific topics or find practice papers. If you have access to sites likeMathswatch or DrFrost those are helpful. Cognito has questions and videos which i would recommend. Corbett maths 5-a-dayis exceptionally useful.
Once you’ve done practice questions, you can then find what you’re struggling with struggled on and recap it. Watching a videois the way i find the best to do this- videos are especially helpful if they have example questions which you can work throughand then see how the teacher would do them. CorbettMaths, Cognito and GCSEMathsTutor are the channels id suggest youtake a look at.
Once youre confident on understanding a topic then you’ll need to do lots more practice questions to get used to what you’ll beasked in exams. CorbettMaths has loads of banks of practice questions on particular topics which are very helpful.
English language:
Having a clear paragraph structure for each question is super important. I used PEAR paragraphs pretty consistently acrossmost questions because they allowed me to get lots of marks pretty consistently. PEAR stands for Point (literally answering thequestion, a topic sentence) Evidence (pick a quote) Analysis (any language and/or structural techniques, depending on whatthe question asks you to comment on) Reader (link your quote to how the reader will likely feel- its doesn’t have to be deep butusing fancyish words like anticipation can make your writing sound less surface level).
Across both English subjects, doing questions and getting feedback from a teacher is the most helpful thing to know how toimprove. If your teacher wont mark your work for whatever reason then you could post in on TSR and ask for someone to markit. I marked lots of answers during year 11 as i found it helpful revision- you could mark other peoples answers to help yourunderstanding of what examiners are looking for. Or if you have a friend in your class who would be willing to swap answersand mark each others that’s also a strong option.
Learning how to annotate texts is extremely important. BBC Bitesize was how i learned how to do this i think but im sure theresloads of videos and articles on how to do this. You need to find a way which works well for you!
For the writing sections, quality over quantity is the key thing you need to focus on. One thing which can help is writing novafiction- stories with only 9 sentences. This forces you to condense your narrative or description. Obviously, in an exam you’llneed to write more than 9 sentences but it’s good practice. Before you start writing, come up with a list of language andstructural features you want to include in your writing and tick them off as you go so you remember to include them throughout.
Come up with a basic story that you can use most of the time and practice applying it to different questions. Quality over quantity is key for creative writing and structure is really important- having a distinct beginning, middle and end of your narrative. Before you start writing note down a list of structural features, language techniques and other stuff you want to include and as you go add stuff in. I found writing nova fiction helpful for revision (stories with only 9 sentences) because you do 3 sentences on the beginning, 3 on the middle and 3 on the end. That way you dont run out of time to do a complete narrative. Writing nova fiction also forces you to use a range of punctuation like semi colons or you simply wouldn’t be able to get everything down into 9 sentences.
English lit:
Using a clear paragraph structure is super important. I used PEAR paragraphs pretty consistently acrossmost questions because they allowed me to get lots of marks pretty consistently. PEAR stands for Point (literally answering thequestion, a topic sentence) Evidence (pick a quote) Analysis (any language structural and/or form features you can comment on) Reader (link your quote to how the reader will likely feel- its doesn’t have to be deep but using fancyish words like anticipation can make your writing sound less surface level).
Doing questions and getting feedback from a teacher is the most helpful thing to know how to improve. If your teacher wont mark your work for whatever reason then you could post in on TSR and ask for someone to mark it. You could also mark other peoples answers to help your understanding of what examiners are looking for. Or if you have a friend in your class who would be willing to swap answersand mark each others that’s also a strong option.
Learning how to annotate texts is extremely important. BBC Bitesize was how i learned how to do this i think but im sure there’s loads of videos and articles on how to do this. You need to find a way which works well for you!
Learning good quotations is immensely helpful. There’s loads of good study sets you can use which people have made or you can make your own. Either way, dont just memorise the quotations by themselves- learn the language analysis, how it links to key themes, context and characters and when it is said (this heavily influences how the reader will feel depending on if tension is rising or its a period of calm etc).
Doing lots of essays and having them marked will help you find whereyoure losing marks and then you can work on those key areas. Also reading through model essays and seeing what makes them get the highest marks is a great idea- you could use examiner reports to find common areas where people lose marks.
I used mind mapping a lot for literature so try that if you want to work on your marks. You could mindmap a quotation, a chapter,character, theme, piece of context, poem etc. Make sure that whenever you make a mindmap you include quotations which link in and lots of details.
Sorry for all the typos 😅 Happy to answer any questions on any of these subjects 🙂 I got 9s in all 3 last year and have tutored younger students for all 3 too so happy to share advice if you have questions!
Do as much practice as you can. There are 3 reasons for this which i focus on. Firstly, doing practice questions means thatyoure continually exercising the parts of your brain which are needed to do maths so the more you practice the more naturally itwill come to you. Doing exam style questions also means that you’ll get used to the types of questions that you’ll be asked- tobe honest they dont tend to vary too much year on year so practicing old questions really helps. Thirdly, doing practicequestions means you’ll identify what you’re struggling with.
There’s loads of sites you can use to get questions on specific topics or find practice papers. If you have access to sites likeMathswatch or DrFrost those are helpful. Cognito has questions and videos which i would recommend. Corbett maths 5-a-dayis exceptionally useful.
Once you’ve done practice questions, you can then find what you’re struggling with struggled on and recap it. Watching a videois the way i find the best to do this- videos are especially helpful if they have example questions which you can work throughand then see how the teacher would do them. CorbettMaths, Cognito and GCSEMathsTutor are the channels id suggest youtake a look at.
Once youre confident on understanding a topic then you’ll need to do lots more practice questions to get used to what you’ll beasked in exams. CorbettMaths has loads of banks of practice questions on particular topics which are very helpful.
English language:
Having a clear paragraph structure for each question is super important. I used PEAR paragraphs pretty consistently acrossmost questions because they allowed me to get lots of marks pretty consistently. PEAR stands for Point (literally answering thequestion, a topic sentence) Evidence (pick a quote) Analysis (any language and/or structural techniques, depending on whatthe question asks you to comment on) Reader (link your quote to how the reader will likely feel- its doesn’t have to be deep butusing fancyish words like anticipation can make your writing sound less surface level).
Across both English subjects, doing questions and getting feedback from a teacher is the most helpful thing to know how toimprove. If your teacher wont mark your work for whatever reason then you could post in on TSR and ask for someone to markit. I marked lots of answers during year 11 as i found it helpful revision- you could mark other peoples answers to help yourunderstanding of what examiners are looking for. Or if you have a friend in your class who would be willing to swap answersand mark each others that’s also a strong option.
Learning how to annotate texts is extremely important. BBC Bitesize was how i learned how to do this i think but im sure theresloads of videos and articles on how to do this. You need to find a way which works well for you!
For the writing sections, quality over quantity is the key thing you need to focus on. One thing which can help is writing novafiction- stories with only 9 sentences. This forces you to condense your narrative or description. Obviously, in an exam you’llneed to write more than 9 sentences but it’s good practice. Before you start writing, come up with a list of language andstructural features you want to include in your writing and tick them off as you go so you remember to include them throughout.
Come up with a basic story that you can use most of the time and practice applying it to different questions. Quality over quantity is key for creative writing and structure is really important- having a distinct beginning, middle and end of your narrative. Before you start writing note down a list of structural features, language techniques and other stuff you want to include and as you go add stuff in. I found writing nova fiction helpful for revision (stories with only 9 sentences) because you do 3 sentences on the beginning, 3 on the middle and 3 on the end. That way you dont run out of time to do a complete narrative. Writing nova fiction also forces you to use a range of punctuation like semi colons or you simply wouldn’t be able to get everything down into 9 sentences.
English lit:
Using a clear paragraph structure is super important. I used PEAR paragraphs pretty consistently acrossmost questions because they allowed me to get lots of marks pretty consistently. PEAR stands for Point (literally answering thequestion, a topic sentence) Evidence (pick a quote) Analysis (any language structural and/or form features you can comment on) Reader (link your quote to how the reader will likely feel- its doesn’t have to be deep but using fancyish words like anticipation can make your writing sound less surface level).
Doing questions and getting feedback from a teacher is the most helpful thing to know how to improve. If your teacher wont mark your work for whatever reason then you could post in on TSR and ask for someone to mark it. You could also mark other peoples answers to help your understanding of what examiners are looking for. Or if you have a friend in your class who would be willing to swap answersand mark each others that’s also a strong option.
Learning how to annotate texts is extremely important. BBC Bitesize was how i learned how to do this i think but im sure there’s loads of videos and articles on how to do this. You need to find a way which works well for you!
Learning good quotations is immensely helpful. There’s loads of good study sets you can use which people have made or you can make your own. Either way, dont just memorise the quotations by themselves- learn the language analysis, how it links to key themes, context and characters and when it is said (this heavily influences how the reader will feel depending on if tension is rising or its a period of calm etc).
Doing lots of essays and having them marked will help you find whereyoure losing marks and then you can work on those key areas. Also reading through model essays and seeing what makes them get the highest marks is a great idea- you could use examiner reports to find common areas where people lose marks.
I used mind mapping a lot for literature so try that if you want to work on your marks. You could mindmap a quotation, a chapter,character, theme, piece of context, poem etc. Make sure that whenever you make a mindmap you include quotations which link in and lots of details.
Sorry for all the typos 😅 Happy to answer any questions on any of these subjects 🙂 I got 9s in all 3 last year and have tutored younger students for all 3 too so happy to share advice if you have questions!
honestly reading through this has been incredibly useful- thank you so so much. i'll definitely be using these moving forward 🙂 again, thank you so much
Reply 3
I can do english perfectly well i am getting 9s in language and 8s in lit, But MATHS, I cannot do i have been getting a 5 on higher and idk why im struggling but the questions are so difficult and even when i revise i cant get my head around it and for what I am doing in college they want a 6 or 7 in maths! Any advice?
Reply 4
5
whats working for me at the minute is doing exam questions, i definitely recommend using the cgp exam question workbooks what you can get!!! tho atm im working at around a grade 4-5 which has improved from me getting 3's and such in the past 🙂 hope this helps
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