Hello,
So I want to achieve grade 9s 8s and 7s but I don't think I will be able to.
Could anyone list anyways that they revised/what they did to achieve grade 9s in particular?
Also if there are any useful sites that you could suggest when revising for GCSES.
Is there anything you would recommend I do in the summer holidays to prepare for Year 11 and GCSE exams.
My subjects are :
EDEXCEL MATHS HT
EDEXCEL ENGLISH LITERATURE
AQA ENGLISH LANGUAGE
AQA BIOLOGY HY
AQA PHYSICS HT
AQA CHEMISTRY HT
BTEC HSC
EDEXCEL HISTORY
EDEXCEL COMPUTER SCIENCE
Thank you so much 😄!
Thanks @Hassan Bajwa for the compliment :). Hassan gave loads of useful tips there and he definitely has underplayed his grades - he is a really smart guy (as can be seen from his blog posts).
As for my advice, I want to stress that anyone get a grade 9. Like seriously - anyone. I am no genius; I went to a really bad school that struggled to even get 4s let alone 9s. The reason I stood out was because I adopted a mindset. This might sound quite weird but let me explain.
You see, every school gives their students target or predicted grades. You may have already been given some. Your teachers may have told you that you are a grade 5 student, for example. But this is a load of rubbish. GCSEs don't test how naturally good you are at something, they test how hard you work.
There is a formula on how to get a grade 7-9. It will work 99% of the time and it doesn't have many steps. It goes as follows:
1 - Pay attention and take notes in every single lesson.
2 - Complete all your homework to the best of your ability (no slacking)
3 - Revise for EVERY end-of-unit test and mock like it counts to the real
thing.
4 - Keep recapping on revision and increase your work load leading up to
exams by doing past papers in timed conditions.
5 - Work on ways to stay calm during exams and other exam techniques.
And bam! You can achieve all 7s, 8s, and 9s in your GCSEs. The reason why people don't achieve these grades is because they don't work hard enough. This isn't easy but it's doable. You have to really want it.
Students often don't take end-of-unit tests or even mock exams seriously as they don't contribute to your final grade, but they do. You see the lessons and knowledge that you learn from those tests is absolutely key. How can you know whether or not your timing is good in an exam if you haven't properly tried in a mock?
Trust me, I tried my hardest in every school test like it was my actual GCSE exam. By the time I sat my exams, I had done so many practice questions that it sometimes felt like I had already done the GCSE paper in front of me (obviously, I hadn't but you get the point).
Maintain a balance. Come home from school and have a light snack. Revise for 2 hours or so and the rest of the day is yours. You don't need to say goodbye to your friends but just get your balance right. I used to go on Snapchat for hours but decided to limit my time to about 20-30 minutes - this massively helped.
I was getting 5s and 6s in some subjects and got those to 9s using my tips. My number one tip however is the following.
Make a Grade 9 your target grade for every subject. So revise as if you are chasing for 9 and nothing less. Then take a lower grade, say a 7, to be your minimum grade. Anything below a 7 will be unacceptable and a 7 will be ok - only ok. Whenever you do a chapter or unit test, or even a mock, note down how close you are to a 7. Once you get that 7, and you will if you work hard, aim for the 9. If you stop at the 7, chances are that you may get a 6 in the exam or you will risk not getting an 8/9.
Hope that this has helped :)
@Joel Runevic is our resident genius with a plethora of 9s under his belt, so I'm sure he'll be round soon to offer his thoughts.
I didn't do badly (I achieved 80% 7-9 at GCSE) so I thought I'd tell you what I should have done to get even better grades.
Firstly, start early. You have a lot of time this summer to look back on what you did in Year 10 and make good quality, concise but detailed notes on what you learnt. Once you have done that, start doing exam questions on them (there will be some parts you may not be able to do as you haven't finished the course) as this will be an advantage as you will be more familiar with the style of question than your peers. If you do this and have more time, you might like to read ahead to Year 11 material and get a head start.
Second, work through. Don't stop after summer - keep revising steadily until you get to around a month or two to the exams. You don't want to burn out so give yourself one or two days off a week, but make sure that when you do work it is productive. Leave your phone to the side, don't just read through notes.
The best running revision practices are: (running revision is just revision that takes place around the same time you are learning material, as opposed to the consolidation revision you will do before the exams)
Making new notes
Improving old notes
Trying exam questions
Learning equations and quotes etc.
This isn't an exhaustive list - you may find something not there works really well for you, and that's fine - the end goal of learning it well is all that matters.
Third, make sure you consolidate well. All of this prior work will do really well to give you an in depth and detailed knowledge of each subject, but that's nothing if you have no exam technique. In the last two months, focus really heavily on doing past papers as these are the number one way to succeed at any level (you should have been doing them throughout but now is the time really focus on them and pick up the pace). Make sure you do them under exam conditions and timed. Mark them - harshly. Track your progress and what subjects you do well in and not so well in, and focus your note-making/revision accordingly.
The last thing I have to say is that you have to believe in yourself. My school told us that no-one would get 9s, and lots of people (including me) gave up on getting them. If you don't back yourself in a venture, you might as well not bother. Everyone can get a 9 at GCSE, all it requires is hard work and preparation. Hope I helped!