Any revision techniques that actually work for GCSE revision?

[Schlong&Stable]

Write (by hand) revision cards. The act of actually writing something will help it stick in your memory, plus you'll have a revision card to read.

And above all, relax! Getting stressed out before an exam will make it harder to remember anything. GCSE's aren't that important in the grand scheme of things, there is nothing to worry about.

 

[aardvark]

you neded to find what is best for you.
I remember being told how to revise and how much i should be doing but i just ignored that and constantly read my notes.
worked for me but some people did things differently - they key is to understand the subject - if you can do that everything is easy up to university level and beyond.

 

[dowie]

This is a very good idea, any ideas where i can get them online or is it something i should ask my teacher for?

as your teachers... tis pretty silly if they don't supply them - it is the most obvious way to improve exams scores, repeatedly practice doing the exams

you go through your books from the various subjects... make a few notes etc.. get that out of the way early on so you've 'revised' - it is then past papers you want to focus on... do a past paper then go back and re-revise any areas you struggled on.. do the same for each subject... then do another past paper and again re-revise anything you struggled with... (do some additional similar exercises from your text book etc.. covering that area) repeat... after you've done a couple of papers then it becomes much easier - do as many as you can... Aside from one or two hard questions they seem to chuck in for the A* you'll tend find exams are more or less the same year on year... if anything they get progressively easier as time goes on - IIRC in my GCSEs the past papers from a decade before were harder than the more recent ones... questions broken down into more parts and hints given etc.. but the basic structure of the exams wasn't too different

 

[BennyC]

Small and often will probably work better for you than trying to batter your way through 3 hours solid.

Break things down into topics that you can spend 20 minutes on.

Make yourself revision cards. Even if you don't use them, the act of creating them will help absorb the content, and if you do need a quick reminder, you've made relevant cards to look at, in a style you will absorb better.

This.

I find small regular doses much more bearable. (I'm now 26 and studying for my final few professional exams). Anything more than 2 hours and after than it's just pointless. Regular breaks are you friend.

I also find repetition & recall (creating notes/cards) a good method for getting content to stick, even if it is a bit monotonous.

 

[Dis86]

Spending less time on forums at half eleven on a Sunday night and getting some sleep tends to help.

 

[jkb]

Write (by hand) revision cards. The act of actually writing something will help it stick in your memory, plus you'll have a revision card to read.

My A level chemistry teacher suggested this to me and it was the best advice I ever had.

 

[theaterix]

Spending less time on forums at half eleven on a Sunday night and getting some sleep tends to help.

Found out just after i last wrote that it is now tuesday (tomorrow) so ill get a good one tonight!

as your teachers... tis pretty silly if they don't supply them - it is the most obvious way to improve exams scores, repeatedly practice doing the exams

you go through your books from the various subjects... make a few notes etc.. get that out of the way early on so you've 'revised' - it is then past papers you want to focus on... do a past paper then go back and re-revise any areas you struggled on.. do the same for each subject... then do another past paper and again re-revise anything you struggled with... (do some additional similar exercises from your text book etc.. covering that area) repeat... after you've done a couple of papers then it becomes much easier - do as many as you can... Aside from one or two hard questions they seem to chuck in for the A* you'll tend find exams are more or less the same year on year... if anything they get progressively easier as time goes on - IIRC in my GCSEs the past papers from a decade before were harder than the more recent ones... questions broken down into more parts and hints given etc.. but the basic structure of the exams wasn't too different

Yeah I have noticed that, and i guess its why they are changing the way they are scored and making them harder...

Good to see a young person interested in studying.

Your brain is like a PC, it is more powerful than anything you can buy on Overclockers and it has an operating system!

It is helpful if you know how to program it and how your memory works.

The poster who said 20 minutes study, 5 minutes break was spot on.

This helps you learn to program your head http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buzans-Study-Skills-Techniques-Reading/dp/1406664898/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8


Get past papers and ask your teachers to set you some extra questions, get familiar with the curriculum for each of your subjects. For example pages 46 & 47 - but check it is the right exam board:

Photosynthesis and respiration pg 46 & 47
http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-BIOL-W-SP-14.PDF

So make sure you know about or at least have heard of everything on the curriculum - don't leave that to your teacher - they miss stuff out.

Biggest tip
No one on a plane is going to shout out is there an expert computer gamer or football fanatic onboard. They are hobbies, there is plenty of time for those.

Pack up your PC/console during exams, get it out if you really do not feel like doing any work and play as much as you want but for the most part hang up the mouse and study.

Please try this, it worked for me at university and I wish I had known it earlier when I was at Secondary school

Start your revision 10 weeks before the exams start. Seriously!

Buy a big ream of A3 paper off Amazon
Some coloured pencils and learn to mind map
Do past papers
Don't write out revision notes - utter waste of time - everyone does it

Set up a nice quiet location in your house - I have a standing desk in my garage! No internet, no distractions, nothing else to do

You can leave you stuff in there and pop in for an hour or two - walk away.

Do the hard thing, take past papers, qs, turn the books over, have a timed exam - I use my cooker timer! If your exam is an hour for 4 questions try 10 minutes for 4 questions but just reproduce your mind maps and after 40-minutes or when you can't recall anything more - see how you did. You will find you master some maps, but struggle on others, so practice those over and over until you have it done.

If there are frequent topics that come up, write them down and master them.

Practice turning over the books, revision mind maps and reproducing 10 or 20 things you know about that subject until you have memorized them.

After 8 weeks you have learned everything, you will have all your mind maps for each subject. Now you are going to have a week off!

Now 2 weeks before the exam have a week off! Sat, Sunday, Mon - Fri, Sat Sun = do everything do like doing - PC, footie, cinema, out with mates.

Notice how all your mates will just be starting their revision, you will have done yours - and you are having a holiday!

Now on the Sunday evening you will be refreshed and exam nerves will kick in, you have not done any revision for a week!

Now 1 week before
Start to revise by going over your revision notes. But you are fresh (fresh legs). You will have normal exam anxiety which will carry you through. It is going to feel great, you have done all your revision, you are just refreshing your knowledge and after a break you really can work hard up to and during the exam period.

Do this and I promise you they will be the easiest exams you ever did. Repeat this for your A-levels and Uni.

Work hard OP, several weeks out of society will not do you any harm and these GCSE tickets are a game, here is a good strategy to beat the game, they will open opportunities for you in the future. This determines your earning potential in the future and this bit of hard work means you will be watching plenty of footie and building gaming rigs in the future - it pays for your lifestyle and life and you have a brain, use it. Only you can do this.

Good luck

Saved all of that in a word document for future reference as i think that is the best bit of advice
I am taking a BTEC in Engineering, obviously Maths, English and Science as core subjects, and then History and PE.
Engineering is what i want to do as my career path and at the moment, im slowly starting my searches for apprenticeships, and if somehow, i dont manage to get one of them, ill end up going down the A-Level and Uni route, although id prefer to get away from school ASAP!
I dunno what is better money wise though, albeit i get a nice wage of about £1k per money at 16 for 4 years and a certain job after it, (wage differs fro place to place) and then its pretty straight forward from there.

Spend more time revising less time on the forums !

I had no way to revise for mine many years ago i relied on good teachers getting there point across.

But i like forums, they are fun! Its how i relax, computers chill me out

 

[Gangster]

My advice, stop trying to find methods, techniques, ways... just get on with it. You'll find what works for you.

 

[Roar87]

It's too late to do any new revision now for an exam tomorrow. Just get a good night's sleep.

I taught myself how to do Quadratic equations the night before my maths exam then promptly forgot how to do them immediately after the exam

 

[Kill_Phil]

People actually revise for mock exams?

 

[mjt]

Remember buying a Letts revision guide back in the day for my GCSE Science exams. Bumped me up a grade from my mocks so I can recommend them

 

[Muz333]

Just revise, no two ways around it.

I was exactly like you and I'm now in the final year of a PhD having never revised through school or university. Only when it came to university I was so in the habit of not revising that it was already too late for me to pick up the habit.

I ended up with a 2:1 instead of a 1 which while not a big deal was definitely below what was expected of me. I could quite easily seeing others in the same situation ending up with a 2:2 instead of a 2:1 and being denied entry to a PhD if that was what they had planned to do.

So long story short just revise because sooner or later you'll wish you had learned how to!

Edit:
I should add that it's important to check your work/tests before handing them in as well. That was another thing I never got into the habit of and to this day I still make silly mistakes that would have been fixed if I could just be bothered to look over my plans beforehand.

 

[ShivP]

CGPs are great - I found for GCSE you don't really need to understand the stuff, just learn it if you don't understand it. It's better if you do, but don't worry too much. This got me 9A*s anyway, so seems to work

Do plenty of revision though, 2-3 months in advance

 

[mjt]

CGPs are great - I found for GCSE you don't really need to understand the stuff, just learn it if you don't understand it. It's better if you do, but don't worry too much. This got me 9A*s anyway, so seems to work

Do plenty of revision though, 2-3 months in advance

And this is the problem with national curricula. Just train like a parrot and repeat under exam conditions

 

[Judgeneo]

Its good to get in the habit of revising for A-Levels and university, but GCSEs really don't matter much. Get your B's so you can get study that subject at A-Level, and don't bother with much else.

As for actual techniques, just do practise papers - lots of them. Open book at first, then do them timed and with no aids. Mark everything yourself being hard on yourself and do the questions you got wrong again.

 

[Pickers]

Exam board websites are great... Now is the time to play around with your strategies and no matter what some people say ^^^^^ GCSEs do need you to work, but we all get a bit rose tinted after the jump to A Level (incidentally, you may well fund this jump even bigger due to the reform, hence the benefit of playing with methods)

Find out what exam boards you use and browse their websites for specifications, and as the exams get close you can use past exam papers, mark schemes and possibly even some chief examiner's comments which can be helpful.

Routine is always a winner - it trains your brain into think mode which you can then tap in to in at exam time. Polo mints used to be my cue to focus!

 

[Nitefly]

Good luck! I seem to remember the CPG (or is that CGP) revision books being good for A levels.

 

[adolf hamster]

You need to try different things and find what works for you.

Personally i do the timer approach, hour on hour off, and when its hour on i really force myself (starting is always the hardest part).

Target your revision at the subjects you find hardest rather than the easy ones, spending ages going from a to a* in a subject you love might not be as good as going from an e to b in a subject you hate.

Plan ahead, if you've got an exam timetable start on the first subject and plan it to dedicate time as needed, no point spending weeks revising a subject only for the exam of another one to pop out of the blue.

Dont read, or highlight, you need to be writing at least, condensing your notes down to smaller blocks helps add it to memory, spend a bit of time doing that focusing on the random details you think you'll never remember or that wont crop up on an exam.

Do problems, especially in technical subjects like maths or physics, solving a problem your own way will be much easier to remember than the "do x then do y" approach taught.

The night before an exam, hell the whole day before an exam do nothing, relax, do whatever you want but get a good nights sleep, if you arent ready for the exam by then it's too late to do anything the day before, you wont remember it.

Get out of the house occasionally, during my gcse's i stayed inside too long revising until i just snapped and started randomly going for long walks to nowhere in particular, and its something to do to get the stress down, any outdoor sport/activity will do for this, if you don't you'll end up a tad crazy if your working too hard.

And finally, although probably a bit late for the tip, but the biggest help to revising is vising (yes i just made that up), if you turn up, pay attention, and at least try and get most of your homework done (yes they do set unreasonable amounts, been there done that bought the detention card), if you've been doing that all year then revising will just be the icing on the cake rather than trying to bake from scratch.

 

[Arsonist]

I don't know if anybody has mentioned this, but two things I will add.

Make sure you're getting a good 8 hours of sleep each night while you're revising. No point whatsoever forcing yourself up too early to cram, you won't remember a thing.

Eat properly - although if you're doing your GCSEs hopefully your mum will be feeding you right. Get a good balanced diet with plenty of veg. Try and avoid too many sugary/caffeine drinks to give you that second wind. They will only give you a worse comedown after.

 

[jpod]

And another thing I notice younglings forget to concentrate on, which didn't matter in my olevel, a level, uni days is your cv or your personal statement.you guys should be using those PCs for good, set up a WordPress business, write code, do a techy qualification online, do non techy stuff volunteer, dukeof Edinburgh, work experience, sport.... Start this early, be the captain of something...chess..tennis....not just fragging

Delighted you liked mystudy tips have loads more when your ready.