gcse help!

I have about a month until my GCSEs. Currently working at grade 6s and 7s, I want to achieve grade 9s. If you’ve done it before, could you share your experience, revision strategies, and any other effective methods that helped you? I’d really appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Reply 1

eddieb01

4

What have you been doing in the past? Which subjects are you taking? In maths, If you're aiming for a 9, you need to make sure that a) you are dropping almost no marks in the first 70% of the paper and b) you are capable of getting all or most marks on the last few questions that are especially difficult and set to discriminate between grade 7, 8 and 9 students. So to do this, you can set out a practise block where you quickly complete the first half or so of the paper (this should be second nature and easy to 100%), then the second half where you have more time to explore the trickier questions that will push you up to the grade 9. My advice for the sciences, English or other subjects would be different, so please specify which subjects you'd like to dial in on.

Reply 2

asukaxi

OP

7

Original post by eddieb01

What have you been doing in the past? Which subjects are you taking? In maths, If you're aiming for a 9, you need to make sure that a) you are dropping almost no marks in the first 70% of the paper and b) you are capable of getting all or most marks on the last few questions that are especially difficult and set to discriminate between grade 7, 8 and 9 students. So to do this, you can set out a practise block where you quickly complete the first half or so of the paper (this should be second nature and easy to 100%), then the second half where you have more time to explore the trickier questions that will push you up to the grade 9. My advice for the sciences, English or other subjects would be different, so please specify which subjects you'd like to dial in on.

Thankyou, I will definitely try this and also these are my predicted grades for the other subjects:
English Language 7 (AQA)
English Literature 8 (AQA)
History 7 (Eduqas)
IT D2
Maths 7 (Edexcel)
Science 66 (AQA)
Sociology 7 (AQA)

Reply 3

GCSE helper

9

Original post by asukaxi

I have about a month until my GCSEs. Currently working at grade 6s and 7s, I want to achieve grade 9s. If you’ve done it before, could you share your experience, revision strategies, and any other effective methods that helped you? I’d really appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Hi, If you want to get easy 9's for the content heavy subjects (Sciences, geography, RS, CS etc) then you have to use the SPECIFICATION (a document produced by the exam board with all the content that could come in the exam).
Then use other websites/CGP books (best book brand) to ensure you have learned everything on the specification. Also, make notes that follow the specification exactly, nothing more, nothing less. Then memorise these notes by ANKI flashcards/printing out out and reading through them. Then just do a bunch of past papers.
If you don't want to make notes, I would recommend checking out notes made by 'GCSEMastery' on stuvia (a website with revision notes). Search 'GCSEMastery' on the stuvia search bar. Their notes follow the specifcation very closely and are very good for Geography & combined science.
Hope this helps 🙂

Reply 4

eddieb01

4

Original post by asukaxi

Thankyou, I will definitely try this and also these are my predicted grades for the other subjects:
English Language 7 (AQA)
English Literature 8 (AQA)
History 7 (Eduqas)
IT D2
Maths 7 (Edexcel)
Science 66 (AQA)
Sociology 7 (AQA)

GCSE helper hit the nail on the head, but I think the biggest thing they missed out was that the easiest way to revise the spec (especially in science) is by doing past papers. I'm not sure for anything besides science, because I didnt take any of the subjects, but I know for science that basically all you want to be doing is loading up physics and maths tutor (.co.uk, not .com), and doing a) full past papers b) subject specific past paper questions, which you can do after you've analysed your weaknesses in the past papers. For me, this got from a 6 in chemistry to a 9, and I revised for 2 days. So anecdotally, it completely works. For English (lit and language), I also did AQA, and I can assure you that for both subjects, you're going to want to practise a lot. In literature, What I did to bump myself up from a 7 to a 9 was to analyse exactly what the exam board wants from me in terms of writing. I looked at their exemplar answers and tried my best to translate that into my own responses that I wrote at home then handed to my teacher. I basically didnt stop handing her 30 mark answers (in lit) until I was getting 26 or 27 out of 30 every time. It really becomes simple and mechanical because there are realistically a limited number of highly conceptual arguments you can make about the texts you're studying. For language, I would take a similar approach with the non-40 mark answers, then for the 40 mark answers I would recommend following Mr Everything English's advice on the 40 markers; he basically tells you exactly what to write, and it's impossible for it not to work. He's basically abusing the nature of the mark scheme to give you a high mark response. I'm guessing it worked because again it bumped me up from a 7 to a 9. If you dont want to follow the video, here's a summary: use big words, several language structures and devices, and don't really worry about the actual things you're saying. Good luck!!

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