how exactly should you study in y10?
how do i study without wasting my time? im in set 1 maths and my predicted grades for science are 7/8s which are one of the highest in my combined science class, but i haven't studied at all for my maths or science tests on the first week back to school (oops). so today im trying to study for maths but i genuinely have no clue on how to effectively and efficiently study. i want to have time available outside of school for my extracurriculars/side hustle stuff whatever without having to exhaust myself with too much studying, but i also want high grades on my actual gcses. i asked a friend if he was studying right now and he said he was because he wants high grades in year 11 and i can see he is taking it seriously, but i also saw this tiktok post where this girl showed how much she studied when she was in y10 and i think she didn't study a lot until later on in the year (may-july) for mocks; from september-december she only studied for tests, and from january-march she did some revision, so that made me think: "i don't want to burn myself out completely now, nor do i wanna make things too stressful this year and the next." i think i just don't know how to manage my time, but if you know how i could, please let me know. the teachers at my school give us revision methods but they never tell us how to effectively revise the right things since not everything goes on the tests we're given and it lowk pmo & especially for art, my art teacher tells us what to do but i don't know how to format my work or how much i should put in for the high grade i want. btw dont mind my english in all honesty i do not read
Reply 1
Hi, I am in year 11 so haven't done my GCSE's yet but I would say to relax a bit in year 10 (until your mocks, revise for them). I didn't really do much revision in year 10 but now in year 11 I am focusing and my grades are mainly 8's and 9's (an improvement from mainly 7's and 6's in year 10).
However, I would say if you have teachers who can't teach or your school doesn't have teachers who are qualified in what they are teaching like mine just do the content yourself. I wish I did this for subjects like physics as my teacher says he's never passed GCSE physics exams before.
Also, English literature is catching up to me now just try and make your revision resources for paper 1 in year 10 (not necessarily now but sometime in year 10) as my school teaches paper 2 in year 11 and I am only just starting to make my Macbeth revision. Re-read your texts over the summer as well it will help.
Most importantly when you revise use the specification. I cannot stress this enough especially for science, them CGP revision guides have a bunch of unnecessary information you won't be asked about on your exams since it's not on the specification. For science, free science lessons on youtube has videos that follow and stick to the spec exactly so he's better than cognito or CGP.
For maths just do past papers, past questions, 5 a day corbett maths questions. It really is the only way you can revise for maths. If you are consistently getting a topic wrong watch a video on it and then just spam past topic questions (I think you can find on PMT). I think the blokes called GCSE maths tutor on youtube, I'm not sure but there's a grade 9 playlist you can watch and it has the hardest skills on the paper so watch that.
Just so you know year 10 is the time for making mistakes, revising in ways that don't work and then correcting them heading into year 11. You are not going to get it right first try but making mistakes in your revision now or in your year 10 mocks means you are focused when in year 11. I would recommend just try catch up with notes, flashcards etc on topics your studying now (mainly paper 1) so in year 11 you can focus on paper 2.
Please keep on doing all of your extracurriculars, dropping them in year 10 to revise is not going to help anything as these are outlets for stress (I wouldn't drop them in year 11 either). Your revision should not be so extensive that you have to quit seeing your friends and doing extracurriculars as you are still a teenager who should be doing teenage things.
Don't compare your revision to your friends as always quality over quantity, I wouldn't spend over 30-45 mins on weekdays and 1-2 hours on weekends revising in year 10 (even this is way more than I did at this point in year 10), your friend seems to be taking it too seriously.
This was a long message but if you have anymore questions, happy to help.
However, I would say if you have teachers who can't teach or your school doesn't have teachers who are qualified in what they are teaching like mine just do the content yourself. I wish I did this for subjects like physics as my teacher says he's never passed GCSE physics exams before.
Also, English literature is catching up to me now just try and make your revision resources for paper 1 in year 10 (not necessarily now but sometime in year 10) as my school teaches paper 2 in year 11 and I am only just starting to make my Macbeth revision. Re-read your texts over the summer as well it will help.
Most importantly when you revise use the specification. I cannot stress this enough especially for science, them CGP revision guides have a bunch of unnecessary information you won't be asked about on your exams since it's not on the specification. For science, free science lessons on youtube has videos that follow and stick to the spec exactly so he's better than cognito or CGP.
For maths just do past papers, past questions, 5 a day corbett maths questions. It really is the only way you can revise for maths. If you are consistently getting a topic wrong watch a video on it and then just spam past topic questions (I think you can find on PMT). I think the blokes called GCSE maths tutor on youtube, I'm not sure but there's a grade 9 playlist you can watch and it has the hardest skills on the paper so watch that.
Just so you know year 10 is the time for making mistakes, revising in ways that don't work and then correcting them heading into year 11. You are not going to get it right first try but making mistakes in your revision now or in your year 10 mocks means you are focused when in year 11. I would recommend just try catch up with notes, flashcards etc on topics your studying now (mainly paper 1) so in year 11 you can focus on paper 2.
Please keep on doing all of your extracurriculars, dropping them in year 10 to revise is not going to help anything as these are outlets for stress (I wouldn't drop them in year 11 either). Your revision should not be so extensive that you have to quit seeing your friends and doing extracurriculars as you are still a teenager who should be doing teenage things.
Don't compare your revision to your friends as always quality over quantity, I wouldn't spend over 30-45 mins on weekdays and 1-2 hours on weekends revising in year 10 (even this is way more than I did at this point in year 10), your friend seems to be taking it too seriously.
This was a long message but if you have anymore questions, happy to help.
Reply 2
Original post
by cacababyhow do i study without wasting my time? im in set 1 maths and my predicted grades for science are 7/8s which are one of the highest in my combined science class, but i haven't studied at all for my maths or science tests on the first week back to school (oops). so today im trying to study for maths but i genuinely have no clue on how to effectively and efficiently study. i want to have time available outside of school for my extracurriculars/side hustle stuff whatever without having to exhaust myself with too much studying, but i also want high grades on my actual gcses. i asked a friend if he was studying right now and he said he was because he wants high grades in year 11 and i can see he is taking it seriously, but i also saw this tiktok post where this girl showed how much she studied when she was in y10 and i think she didn't study a lot until later on in the year (may-july) for mocks; from september-december she only studied for tests, and from january-march she did some revision, so that made me think: "i don't want to burn myself out completely now, nor do i wanna make things too stressful this year and the next." i think i just don't know how to manage my time, but if you know how i could, please let me know. the teachers at my school give us revision methods but they never tell us how to effectively revise the right things since not everything goes on the tests we're given and it lowk pmo & especially for art, my art teacher tells us what to do but i don't know how to format my work or how much i should put in for the high grade i want. btw dont mind my english in all honesty i do not read
Hello, I was in around the same position as you when I was in Y10 (I'm in Y11 now). Tbh I just learnt and revised most of the curriculum (for Sciences) using textbooks i.e. CGP as they organise the topics needed for GCSE Sciences making it easy to read and revise from, then closer to my Y10 and Y11 mocks I started focusing on doing exam questions/past papers as those are the harder obstacles to go over, I didn't have to stress too much about re-revising topics all over again unless it was just simple active recall. For Maths just keep doing a lot of past papers, you're in Set 1 so you should be able to do those questions easily. For efficient revising don't just passively rewrite revision "notes" and "flashcards", as this wasted so much of my time in Y10 and led me to getting around low 70%. Instead do active recall i.e. practice questions and exam questions to strengthen your understanding of the topic. So basically just learn all the topics in Y10, and then do past papers/exam questions in Y11 as that is the most efficient way of studying I know. For English just keep rereading your texts to remember quotes, and be thoughtful about them i.e. how it relates to context, why the author has put that there etc. which is what helped me jump from a low 7 in Y10 to high 8 in Y11. Sorry I can't help you for Art as I don't do Art GCSE.... (I would get like a 3 if I acc did it lol) So far I haven't got my results back yet for my mocks so I don't know if this will work or not, but fingers crossed it will. 🤞 Sorry for the long message but if you need more advice, feel free to ask. Sorry if this is a bit too vague...
Original post
by cacababyhow do i study without wasting my time? im in set 1 maths and my predicted grades for science are 7/8s which are one of the highest in my combined science class, but i haven't studied at all for my maths or science tests on the first week back to school (oops). so today im trying to study for maths but i genuinely have no clue on how to effectively and efficiently study. i want to have time available outside of school for my extracurriculars/side hustle stuff whatever without having to exhaust myself with too much studying, but i also want high grades on my actual gcses. i asked a friend if he was studying right now and he said he was because he wants high grades in year 11 and i can see he is taking it seriously, but i also saw this tiktok post where this girl showed how much she studied when she was in y10 and i think she didn't study a lot until later on in the year (may-july) for mocks; from september-december she only studied for tests, and from january-march she did some revision, so that made me think: "i don't want to burn myself out completely now, nor do i wanna make things too stressful this year and the next." i think i just don't know how to manage my time, but if you know how i could, please let me know. the teachers at my school give us revision methods but they never tell us how to effectively revise the right things since not everything goes on the tests we're given and it lowk pmo & especially for art, my art teacher tells us what to do but i don't know how to format my work or how much i should put in for the high grade i want. btw dont mind my english in all honesty i do not read
How about past papers?
Reply 4
Original post
by cacababyhow do i study without wasting my time? im in set 1 maths and my predicted grades for science are 7/8s which are one of the highest in my combined science class, but i haven't studied at all for my maths or science tests on the first week back to school (oops). so today im trying to study for maths but i genuinely have no clue on how to effectively and efficiently study. i want to have time available outside of school for my extracurriculars/side hustle stuff whatever without having to exhaust myself with too much studying, but i also want high grades on my actual gcses. i asked a friend if he was studying right now and he said he was because he wants high grades in year 11 and i can see he is taking it seriously, but i also saw this tiktok post where this girl showed how much she studied when she was in y10 and i think she didn't study a lot until later on in the year (may-july) for mocks; from september-december she only studied for tests, and from january-march she did some revision, so that made me think: "i don't want to burn myself out completely now, nor do i wanna make things too stressful this year and the next." i think i just don't know how to manage my time, but if you know how i could, please let me know. the teachers at my school give us revision methods but they never tell us how to effectively revise the right things since not everything goes on the tests we're given and it lowk pmo & especially for art, my art teacher tells us what to do but i don't know how to format my work or how much i should put in for the high grade i want. btw dont mind my english in all honesty i do not read
Hey @cacababy,
I always struggled with revising for GCSE Maths as well - I often felt like I was just answering the same types of questions over and over and not really learning anything. Past papers helped me a lot as they offered a more realistic exam experience and tested a wider range of topics from the specification.
In terms of GCSE Art, make sure you're writing annotations and experimenting with different mediums. Try not to worry too much about formatting at this stage - focus on creating new works, documenting your process and filling up your sketchbook. Look at GCSE Art sketchbook tours on YouTube if you want some additional inspiration.
Best of luck,
Eve (Kingston Rep).
(edited 1 month ago)
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