Last GYG before GCSEs!

Hi Welcome to GYG! Im a year 12 student doing a levels in Biology and Maths.
Here’s my advice across the core subjects:
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.
Science:
With science, a lot of the content is quite memory based so make sure you’re continually reviewing topics. One way of doingthis is sites like Tassomai and StudySmarter which use spaced repetition questioning. Or you could blurt on a few topics eachweek and see what youre forgetting. Like with maths, doing practice questions often will mean you know what you need tofocus on.
Once youre aware of a weaker area, watch a video and try your recall task again. I found for science that anything visual reallyengaged me- use some coloured pens, modelling clay, a whiteboard… anything that will make you think about what you’relearning a bit more.
The question types are really important so doing exam style questions is a must. Application of knowledge isvery important so practicing applying your knowledge is really useful- often it could be applying your knowledge to practicalskills so make sure you have a generally good knowledge of practicals too. 15% of your exams will be on working scientificallyso revising this is essential. FreeScienceLessons have a good playlist on that content and then you’ll need to review requiredpractical methods (check out the videos by Malmesbury science and ScienceShorts for this).
There’s also going to be plenty of calculation questions in science, in some parts of chem and across physics especially. This isagain practice, IsaacPhysics is a fantastic resource for this.
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 linkin and lots of details.
For physics I recommend using Cognito and CGP books because those are very visual whichi always found helped me. 40% of your marks come from calculations so make sure youregood with those (Isaac physics is great for practicing them) and you understand convertingbetween units and stuff. 15% of the content is on working scientifically- use theFreeScienceLessons playlist and the compilation video of gcse physics practicals onScienceShorts (both YouTube). Doing past paper or exam style questions will help you applyyour knowledge The rest of the marks (45%) come from content so make sure you knowwhat needs to be covered and you understand all the key concepts and definitions. Likes likeCognito and Seneca are good for quickly checking what you know and filling gaps in memoryand then CGP books and Bitesize are the best for teaching yourself stuff you forgot. Hopethat helps!
Happy to answer any questions on GCSEs, revision or a level Biology if needed 🙂
Best of luck with your studies! Youve got this