GCSE and A Level exams begin on Monday the 24th of 2023. Students across the entirety of the UK will be sitting down to sit exam papers which they’ve been preparing over two years for. This Exam Countdown series is not here to scare you, but to give some perspective, practical tips and advice.
The exam season itself should encompass sitting exams, doing some light revision, lots of sleep and good food and rest. But, in order to have the best possible experience of sitting exams as possible, the preparation and revision really needs to begin now.
For GCSE students, you’ll be preparing for anywhere between 8 and 14 different GCSE subjects, each with two or three exam papers each. If you’re sitting an AS exam, you might be a bit luckier, with only one or two external exams (but you’re not quite off the hook! It’s a good time to consolidate your year’s work before beginning A2 in September). And A Level students, I don’t think I need to say anything because you’re already aware of what the stakes are. It is these grades which will determine how you spend your next twelve months, and potentially the next 3 to 6 years of your life.
Now that we’re aware of what’s coming up in the near future, how should you be practically preparing right now? Well, the good news is that there is still a decent length of time left for you to be able to improve your current grades. At GCSE, there is very much the possibility of being able to improve at least 3 grades. At A Level, there is still hope to go up by a grade or two. After reading this article, your next step is to tidy up the specifications, and your notes.
I’d highly recommend that you go through all of the specifications for your subjects, and find the gaps in your knowledge. Make a list - I like making lists like this on the google drive because I can then add and take away from lists as things change, the google drive is with me wherever I go, and always accessible. Make a list of topics which you definitely need to cover, topics which you need to cover briefly, and topics which you’re fairly confident in (but still - don’t neglect revising those topics! You’ll see later that I recommend you review them at least once every six weeks). Try to be specific with the topic rather than just saying ‘the entirety of Topic 4 on the Biology Spec’.
Then, timetable the topics out. Realistically, in a school day you might come home, have homework to do and then only have time to review one to three topics. Again, this depends on how big the topic is, and how difficult you find it. If you read what I said earlier carefully - you’ll see that I said to tidy up notes - do not make new notes (unless it’s for new content you’re still learning at school/college). If you’re missing significant chunks of notes at this stage, but the content isn’t wholly complex and too difficult to understand, it’s going to be a waste of hours to make notes.
You may find it more useful to either start drawing and annotating over revision guides which you have (I don’t personally like this technique), or you might like to print out the pages of your online textbook and annotate the sheets - this way it feels a bit more like you have your own set of notes rather than reading out of a book (you may be able to tell that this is the method which I personally prefer!).
If you’re not missing huge notes, spend a little bit of time cross referencing your notes against the specification. Make sure you don’t have any holes or gaps. There are some nasty little one lined sentences on the specification which often are overlooked but always end up on exam papers. Knowing your spec well will automatically give you an advantage over other students.
If you do a little bit everyday for the next month, you should find that by the end of the month you’re fairly confident with your content and just before that point we’ll have another ‘Exam Countdown’ check-in where I tell you to start ditching any notes sheets, and purely begin exam questions. In this article we haven’t discussed specific revision techniques, but know that during this month, you can still test out different revision methods and see which way allows you to learn and apply content the most effectively. As you’re revising, try to keep mentally testing yourself to ensure you’re not just passively making notes or reading, and that you actually are taking the information in.
Ultimately, keep calm, do a little bit of work often and at this stage, that’s the best thing you can be doing.
Good luck!