This may be a touch brutal, but if you can't pass the exams why do you believe you know the material? There's a world of difference between reading something and thinking "sure, that makes sense" and actually answering problems based on it. Either you don't know the material and therefore can't do the questions, or you do know the material but panic in exams. The former is readily fixed by doing many, many boring questions (without notes). The latter is fixed by manning up / dropping out / claiming dyslexia and getting extra time.
It's quite possible to know all the material and still fail the exam. GCSEs and A Levels are 20% knowledge, 80% exam technique.
flibbage0, you can get ahead by improving your exam technique. My motto has always been: Don't revise more, revise more efficiently. Here are just a few ways you can do that:
1. Print off all the relevant course specifications from the exam board websites. In most cases they will tell you exactly what you are and are not expected to know; read through them, make notes, know what to expect. Most of my fellow students didn't know what a course specification was at the time they were taking their final A Level exams.
2. Know the exam procedure inside-out. You would be amazed at how many people I encountered who enter A Level exams without a clue how the exam is set out; how many parts there are, how many questions you must answer from each, how many marks each question is worth, etc. Countless people lose significant chunks of marks by spending too much time on the first section, not realising there is a final section on the back of the questions booklet until five minutes before the end, etc.
This is an especially useful tip for getting ahead in cases where the exam procedure for your course has changed in recent years; many will presume the procedure is the same as for past papers.
3. Structure your answers, know the facts. As you have probably surmised from reading mark schemes for past papers, most exams (especially for science-based subjects) are marked by looking for specific keywords, phrases or facts.
Learn these, they will make you more efficient in the exam. Litter your answers with what the examiners want to hear, avoid unnecessary waffle that costs you time and marks. I have friends at university from private schools who were coached to write bullet-point answers for entire exam papers; you might stand to lose the usual 2-3 marks for good sentence structure, but your answers will be far more refined and you will spend much less time on each question.
4. Look for duplicate questions in past papers. Collate all the past papers for each of your courses, group questions by section as specified by the course specification. Many sections of each course will be so small, and the knowledge expected so narrow, that the same questions keep cropping up year on year.
The easiest question is the one you've already seen, reviewed the mark scheme for, and know exactly how it is marked. Many questions, especially those that are designed to delineate candidates at the highest levels, are designed to trip you up; be prepared.
5. Read the examiner's reports. Examiner's reports will tell you where your fellow students tend to trip up in exams. They will tell you the sections which students found most difficult (dedicate more time to revising these), the most common mistakes students make (ensure you don't make the same mistakes), and they may give hints as to the emphasis that will be placed on different questions in future (i.e. your) exams.
Some examiner's have a sense of humour too; at A Levels they often throw in the odd sarcastic remark. It's much worse at degree level!
6. Work out your expected UMS scores. Know how many 'real' marks you need on a paper; this often differs substantially from the UMS marks you need. Look for patterns in UMS conversion tables (usually available in examiner's reports), i.e. "65 real marks usually equals 80 UMS marks", draw up a spreadsheet for each of your courses with all your AS Level UMS marks and expected A2 marks.
Again, most of your fellow students wouldn't know what a UMS was if it slapped them in the face.
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Those are just a few tips off the top of my head.
Let's just say they worked for me, and I hope they work for you too!
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