GCSE Tips for Exam (Mock) Season – Estelle L
Although by the time that this article is published Year 11s will be halfway through their final set of mocks, it is never too late to reflect on your revision approach and attitude toward exams, especially with the dreaded GCSEs approaching steadily. So, to try and remove yourself from the frenzied hysteria your peers may undergo when mock results come back just a bit lower than expected, follow these tips and tricks to maximise the effectiveness of revision while it counts and prepare yourself for GCSEs in the best way possible!
Focus your revision:
Firstly, although it is easier to push yourself to revise if you are working on areas you a comfortable with, revising areas of subjects that you already know a lot about wont help you in the exams – maybe you will smash a few questions, but for the rest of the paper you will be baffled. Obviously, you have to revise what you struggle with, but this can make it hard to motivate yourself.
My advice would be to start with a revision session with one of your favourite subjects, still focusing your revision on where you are less confident in knowledge/technique, and then once you are in a working mindset (or ‘the zone’) start revising the tricky areas of the trickiest subjects.
Timing and breaks:
It is easy when revising to push your focus for too long, which results in you taking a break longer than the time you spent revising. There are many different timing methods for revision (i.e the Pomodoro method) but the basic argument is that you should work in shorter bursts with five or ten minute breaks in between subject or topic changes.
The problem with timing and breaks is that everyone has different attention spans, and some people can cope with focusing for prolonged periods of time while others struggle to work for half and hour without being distracted. You know yourself best; I would advise you to push yourself to revise for as long as possible up to about 50 minutes maximum before having a break, and then refocus your revision to get as much done as possible. 3 sets of up to 50 minutes focus can make a good stretch of revision in the morning before having a longer break, for lunch for example.
Revising for different subjects:
Similarly to the first point, you should revise different subjects differently. For subjects like Maths and Biology I found that doing as many past papers as possible (and I mean as MANY as humanly possible) was effective, as this familiarised me with the types of questions asked, methods needed, and how the mark scheme worked. To get the most marks in English it is more of a question of practising your writing skills and how to structure an essay response. By this point your subject teachers should have told you how to revise for their subject, and they ought to know a lot more than me about subject specific revision.
If you find that you are spending hours revising a subject but your performance isn’t really increasing, go and talk to your teacher to see if your revision is effective for your subject.
Exams:
By the time you have got to Year 11 at RHS you will have sat in the Assembly Hall under exam conditions for end-of-year exams numerous times, not including the different sets of mock exams over the GCSE course. Some people thrive in an exam environment, and don’t let what can be a very stressful situation get to them. Most people however do struggle under the pressure an exam hall brings.
When you are sitting your exams, try not to panic. You have done the work to get here and now you are simply relying on the knowledge that you know you have. You will always perform better if you go into the exam confident that you are going to do the best you can with the knowledge and experience you have, and attitude in the exam hall can certainly make up the difference between a grade.
Disclaimer: I am not saying that if you do no revision but go into your exam with a positive attitude you will be getting 8s and 9s – but a positive and confident attitude should be the icing on the cake of all the classwork, prep, and revision you have done to help you get the best grade possible for you.
Rest:
Of course, the secret key to revision is looking after yourself. You simply won’t be able to focus on four hours of sleep, nor will your revision be effective if you slave over your textbook for four hours straight the day before your exam. To revise effectively, ensure you are well rested, taking short but effective breaks (don’t fall into the void of scrolling on TikTok in your five minute break between revision), and well fed to ensure you are able to concentrate.
Everybody is different, and everyone therefore finds different methods of revision effective. This advice is meant to guide you and help you if you are feeling lost in how to revise, but don’t follow it to a T if you think something wont work for you. It might be better to cherry-pick through this advice and focus on what you think will be helpful to your productivity combined with everything you already know about revision.
Good luck to everybody taking exams this week and in the summer!
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