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Secondary education

Surviving GCSEs: tips from a teenager

12 replies

TeenTips · 16/01/2014 22:59

Hi all, I'm 16 years old and currently in Year 12. My mum is a lurking MN member, and has told me about the angsty threads that tend to crop up as exam season approaches. I did my GCSEs last year, and am proud of my results so I want to share my tips with the MNers, and hopefully they may come in handy!

Active revision is essential. Sitting and reading a textbook will do absolutely no good, we can’t retain anything that way, and frankly, it’s boring! Encourage your teens to do active revision in a way that suits them. Some, like me, prefer to take notes and this can be done in a plethora of different ways: linear note taking, making mindmaps, writing flashcards. A friend of mine made a PowerPoint presentation for each subject with one slide per point on the specification – it’s a fantastic way to cover everything you need to learn but stay concise, and watching the presentation is a good way to consolidate.

Make it pretty/fun! This will probably appeal more to girls than boys, but I personally treated myself to some fineliners and made coloured revision notes. Not essential, of course, but for visual learner like myself, it can make the note taking more engaging. Also, colour coding for languages is fantastic, blue for masculine works, pink for feminine and so on. Apologies for the gender stereotyping there, but it did work for me!

Planning is crucial. Although I understand that so many people find it difficult to make and stick to a timetable, I think I’ve found an easy way to do it! Here’s my how-to on how to make a revision timetable and stick to it.

  1. Get a piece of A4 paper for each subject and write a numbered list of topics that need studying for that subject. You could do this on the computer.


  1. Decide time slots in which you will revise every day. I personally, work best in 1 hour slots. So on study leave I knew I’d be revising for example, from 10-11am, 2-3pm, 4-5pm and 6-7pm.


  1. Make a table for each week of revising. The days in a column down the left-hand side and your ‘revision slots’ across the top.


  1. Work systematically through the topic lists you made and fill in your revision slots.


  1. Don’t just write ‘Biology’, be specific. Write ‘Biology Topic 1’ or ‘French Topics 3 and 4’. You know how long it will take you to revise each topic.


  1. I found it helpful to alternate between my ‘nightmare’ and my ‘favourite’ subjects, and do tricky topics in the mornings when I was more alert.


  1. Leave 2 hours per week as ‘catch-up time’. Nobody’s perfect, everyone falls behind. If you have these two free hours to fall back on in case you accidentally overslept, it’s much less stressful. Also it’s an incentive to stick to your timetable – if you don’t miss sessions, you can have Sunday off!


Past papers and practice questions are your best friend. Honestly, they are a lifesaver! Looking at markscheme after markscheme gave me a brilliant insight into what the examiners wanted from me, so when it came to the real exam, I could begin to imagine in my head exactly what the markscheme would say.

I hope this is helpful! I’m more than happy to give more tips, ad if you have questions, ask away!

The GCSEs I did were: maths, English language, English literature, biology, chemistry, physics, French, German, history and ICT Smile
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NatashaBee · 16/01/2014 23:11

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5madthings · 16/01/2014 23:14

Great thankyou, will pass these tips on to my son in yr 10 :)

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ancientbuchanan · 16/01/2014 23:16

Excellent tips, esp the 2 hour back up and the mark schemes

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TeenTips · 16/01/2014 23:20

Glad they were handy! The 2 hour back up is honestly a life saver, and quite motivational!

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TeenTips · 17/01/2014 16:14

Just thought

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TeenTips · 17/01/2014 17:05

Whoops, silly phone! Another reason, GCSE Bitesize is brilliant. If Facebook procrastination is an issue, try downloading Cold Turkey. It blocks specified websites for a specified amount of time.

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Timetoask · 18/01/2014 07:38

How nice of you to share! You are obviously a very studious person and I hope my ds has the same work ethic when the time comes!

Hopefully there is a website out there that teenagers look at often where you can post your advice as well. I am sure plenty of teenagers will find them really useful.

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schokolade · 18/01/2014 07:53

I have one to add from my school days - fits under your active revision really OP!

Revise in the form that the exam questions will come in.

So for example, for maths, do loads of short and long problems. But for English, write essays about the theme/character/setting of the novel/play/film you'll be asked about.

I see lots of students just writing bullet points etc for English/History/Biology revision. While knowing the information is important, writing the practice essays is much more useful because you still learn the information and when it comes to the exam there is a good chance you've already drafted the essay.

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TeenTips · 18/01/2014 17:17

time, I have also shared these tips on the student room, but thought it might be nice to put them here too Smile

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ThreeBeeOneGee · 18/01/2014 17:18

These are really sensible, thank you for sharing.

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lljkk · 18/01/2014 17:44

My :( comments is that DS will never read that.
But if anyone has tips for parents how to disengage & keep their sanity, I'm all up for reading them :).

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ThreeBeeOneGee · 18/01/2014 18:39
Grin
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