How to revise effectively for GCSE mocks. DD feeling overwhelmed

[Bigbillsbrain]

DD has mocks coming up in about 4 weeks. She’s not great at retaining information and is feeling a bit unsure how to cover everything and remember in that time. There’s so much to learn especially in biology, chemistry and physics. I want to help her make a plan but wonder if you’ve got any ideas.

Are school giving any advice? How has she revised in the past for her end of year exams? My daughter did her GCSE’s this summer and she mainly did past papers then marked them to see where she needed to do more work. Her school recommend this way of revising.

I love the idea of the active revision method , where you don’t write a massive timetable at the beginning, but instead record what you revise as you go along and REd Amber Green each topic , then plan your next topics based on what is Red or what you haven’t done for a while. Wish I’d thought to do it that way !! Not sure in practice though as mine are too young yet.

Does she have access to Seneca? DS1 is using that pretty much exclusively for his revision.

Pomodoro technique (25 mins focus then a break) is good for breaking it into manageable chunks.

I wrote a detailed post on revising earlier this month. See here:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/4650012-gcse-revision-planning-for-teen-with-dyspraxia?reply=120593115

Also if you search / look through the Secondary Education board other things will come up. (You need at the moment to ignore the vast number of choosing school posts which will fade out come November)

My daughters school have scheduled exam walkthroughs to to do over half term. It's a video by a teacher talking them through how to approach the paper model answers etc. they do a paper along side this pausing video as appropriate to write. Seems a great idea

My daughter went through whole 11+ thing so tbh she quite comfortable already with exam technique but for those that are not I think it's worthwhile.

Have a look at Quizlet. There are lots of pre-made sets, and/or you can make an account to make your own sets of flashcards. I find it very useful at university.

DD absolutely hates flash cards. Her most efficient way is doing the work. again.

We bought work books which contains proper exam questions, doing these she finds out how her knowledge is and if she has gaps she goes back to the actual work.

For language -it's all about vocabulary, her school has two websites each student has access to.

Her teachers also provide them with exam papers, they are also willing to review them if the student is stuck.

I used to read 2 or 3 different books explanations' of a topic and then try and write a summary in my own words. I'd keep going back and watch a video/ do a practise question/ explain it to someone else until I knew I understood. Then even if I forgot bits or details if I quickly read it through the night before the exam it would be in my brain on the day as the deeper understanding was already there.

For maths, she needs to be doing maths. No mind maps or copying out methods in 5 million different colours. She needs to do questions, check her answers and if her answer is wrong, go back over it to try to figure out why, then do some more questions on the same topic.

Corbettmaths has videos and worksheets for every topic
corbettmaths.com/contents/

As does Mathsgenie, helpfully split by exam grade so she can make sure she is targeting the right level of question www.mathsgenie.co.uk/gcse.html

What she could do is try some past paper questions (past papers on above websites) to identify which topics need extra work, then target those topics with watching videos and doing questions till she improves.

She has to find a revision technique that she enjoys and finds useful - use these mocks to try different techniques to find out which are best ready for the real exams. Also, a mix of revising and doing past paper questions. Little and often. But remember they are only mocks so don't let her get too stressed otherwise how will she cope with the real exams.

If I were doing it, I'd get the exam board revision books, do the quizzes for each section and figure out where my weak areas are then start with those.

Aside from maths, what worked for me when doing my uni exams was typing up my handwritten notes in the run up to exams --it made me absorb a lot of the information without realising.
I also did crib sheets.

For the sciences, it may help to remember that the grade boundaries are often quite low- she doesn't need to be getting 100%, so she doesn't need to know everything!

I would focus on key skills:

1. Drawing graphs
2. Substituting into equations
3. Calculating percentages
4. Practical skills including key terminology and how to write a method.

As these will benefit her across all sciences (and maths). Get her practising past paper questions, if you can, focusing on maths skills and practicals.

Seneca is really good for subject knowledge, and a lot of teens like it, but I would try to get her to do it on a computer, not a phone (less distractions).

I also really like www.savemyexams.co.uk/ for sciences- the notes are clear and visually appealing, and then she can practice the "topic questions" for that topic, as well (which are ranked easy/medium/hard). Unless she's aiming for 7+, I wouldn't bother with "hard" at this stage. Look at the mark schemes, they are often quite specific!

Is she just sitting paper ones for science? If so, there's only certain topics she will need to cover. If you're able to find this out, and the exam board, I'm happy to tell you which topics.

What's the aim for science? If it's to get a 5, would sitting foundation be a better option?