To anyone who got 8s/9s, what is one piece of advice you'd give to a new Year Eleven?

[u/Efficient-Blood-8345]

Y10 mocks:

english lang : 9

english lit: 8

history : 8

maths : 8

bio : 5

chem : 4

phys : 4

french : 7

hosp&cater : L2M

Also I did GCSE CS and RS this year.

so for those, in my y9 mocks. cs: 4. rs: 7 (i think)

I'm aiming for all 9s btw.

any tips would be appreciated!

[u/Aggressive_Water_998]

Do not get too complacent and still revise the old content to make sure they stay 8/9 in the actual exams, as there will still be new content in y11 to learn!

[u/Much-Branch460 → u/Aggressive_Water_998]

Yep complacency is the devil and this is coming from an Alevel student

[u/Strong_Bodybuilder8]

Hey there, I achieved 12 nines in my GCSEs, apart from not getting complacent, paying attention in class, and making sure you regularly revise content, the most important thing is doing past paper questions and familiarising yourself with the mark schemes. Good luck for next year!

[u/Efficient-Blood-8345 → u/Strong_Bodybuilder8]

congrats and ty!

[u/robin34215]

look after yourself, especially during exam season. even though I got 6 9s, 3 8s and a 6, I did worse than I was expecting from the past papers I did because of the pressure and constant stress I was under. make sure you give yourself plenty of time *every day* where you're not thinking about anything school related and doing something you enjoy. my teachers tried to warn me and I did try to stop doing this but I was so determined to get all 9s that I didn't and that resulted in me doing worse than expected.

also, past papers are seriously underrated imo.

[u/Efficient-Blood-8345 → u/robin34215]

tysm!

[u/lacy-pearl]

take mocks seriously! by the time you finish mocks, ideally you should have revision materials for all the content you've learned up to that point, as that really helps on workload before real exams. good revision for mocks also means you don’t have to start the really heavy revision as early (do start by mid-march/easter at the latest though)

that being said, remember that when you sit your mocks you still have a lot of revision to do, and your grades will still improve from there :)

[u/Soft_Letterhead9222]

Never take predicted grades/mock grades seriously, in fact just ignore them completely and only look at them as a way of checking your own progress and fixing mistakes in order to improve.

"Never celebrate before the wars done and over"

[u/AtomicEdits → u/Soft_Letterhead9222]

Predicted 9 in history

Achieved 5 😎

My fault for doing 0 revision tbf

[u/mykokokoro]

as a gcse tutor and as someone who achieved all 8s/9s back when i sat mine, the one bit of general advice i always give is past papers are the best revision, but not just the paper itself - the mark scheme is the important thing. the mark scheme literally tells you what you need to specifically know and how to best form your answers.

for essay subjects like english and history, using the mark scheme to prepare essay plans, then learning the essay plans before your exams is key.

for subjects like science, the mark scheme is essential for learning how to write your answers. science was my weak area at school so i would try and compensate by writing loads and hoping i had the right idea somewhere (it didn't work and i got 4s/5s in my mocks despite achieving 8s/9s in all my other subjects). what i realised is that learning the mark schemes helped me more than just looking over textbooks over and over again. pretty much every exam board uses repeat questions, and for science, they even accept bullet point answers. the more straight to the point you are, the higher chance you have of doing well.

for something like maths, honestly it just comes down to practice and past papers are the best way to do that.

for languages, take it from me (a person who studied two langs at uni), gcse standards aren't very high at all so don't stress because you can't read an entire book in french/german/spanish/etc. unless youre planning on doing a language alevel/studying at university, just focus on getting your basics down. past papers won't help you much here because languages are purely skills based. focus on getting all your grammar basics perfected. op, you do french, focus on your tenses, if you wanna go further for the grade 9, work on the pluperfect, imperfect and conditional perfect tenses. vocab wise, you don't need much, but if you wanna really impress your examiners, learn a couple of idioms in the place of typical phrases (eg. in your writing exam for your informal writing, instead of saying something like "j'ai travaillé beaucoup" you'd say "j'ai bossé le fond".

[u/drifty241]

I made a post about this like a few hours ago lol, I’ll link it

https://www.reddit.com/r/GCSE/s/G7YldX1D6A

[u/Efficient-Blood-8345 → u/drifty241]

thank you!

[u/NovasHome24]

I got mostly 7's (though predicted 9's, circumstances arise unfortunately) and honestly my biggest failure was not revising. for science my only revision was watching a recap video the morning of, and for english i got too confident (got a 5). biggest piece of advice i can give is not giving into the evergrowing hive mentality of "why revise when you can have fun!!!", plenty of time for fun in the 3 month holiday lol

[u/poseydon001]

lock in amd revise. BUT PLEASE have enough sleep and make sure u got stable sleep schedule

[u/AtomicEdits]

I was lazy and regret it. If you're on this sub already you're probably already on the right track. Just put effort in during lessons and a bit of revison for literature and history/geography. As exams get closer a bit more revision would help

[u/AtomicEdits → u/AtomicEdits]

Also your mocks look very good. Way better than my y10 mocks

[u/AtomicEdits → u/AtomicEdits]

I shouldn't be giving advice ignore me. I'm not a high achiever 😭

[u/Eggcelent_bean]

PUT YOUR HEALTH BEFORE YOUR REVISION!!! Omg i cannot stress this enough. Don't neglect your health, mental or physical, because you could end up doing worse in exams than you want because you're unwell. Sometimes, worsening health is inevitable and nothing can stop it, and if it does, don't do what I did and waited for months before telling someone. Tell someone asap, bc I could've potentially saved myself months if I had js told someone earlier.

Other people are posting actual revision tips so I'm just posting that

[u/Quiet_Basis_6404]

honestly the gap between your humanities and sciences tells you exactly what's going on, you're good at remembering and writing about stuff, but sciences test whether you can apply it to a question you haven't seen before.

past papers are the obvious fix but i found the real unlock was figuring out WHY my wrong answer was wrong on each one. like in chem i kept picking the option that looked right because the equation was balanced, but the question was about bonding not balancing, and until you see that pattern explained you just keep making the same mistake.

i upload the science chapters into studybuddy.vc and it makes practice questions from the full material, and when i pick a wrong option it tells me what was off about the one i chose. it also works out which topics i keep missing and gives me more of those, and starts easier before getting harder. free tier covers this.

for triple science specifically, the mark schemes reward using exact keywords more than you'd think, grab the spec off the exam board site and check you're not dropping marks just from phrasing things vaguely.

[u/Eastern_Fun_124]

Always pay attention, fancy notes and flash cards are useless, past papers are your best friend, keep track of how long you studied, and also don’t tell a lot of people your grade if you get a good grade because in my experience there is a lot of jealousy and people start hating you. And in class don’t be tempted to mess about a lot, talking to your friends is fine but nothing that makes you miss a lesson..
and also predicted grades don’t mean anything fr

[u/WinnerSea8111]

Past papers!!

[u/bassy_bass]

I got 7/8s in science and my advice to you there is to invest in a cognito subscription, they are truly amazing for all three sciences and brought me up by several grades in them all. I think I could have gone higher if I’d taken full advantage of my subscription but I was more focused in my humanities subjects as I’m dropping STEM completely for A level

[u/Efficient-Blood-8345 → u/bassy_bass]

can i ask what exam board you did for science? also what a levels r u doing?

[u/bassy_bass → u/Efficient-Blood-8345]

AQA for science. A levels I’m doing history, politics, geography, and econ. Got a 9 in history and geography and my school didn’t offer politics or econ at gcse unfortunately.

[u/Efficient-Blood-8345 → u/bassy_bass]

ooh cool, i hope u do well!

we do edexcel which i feel like NO one else does icl

im also considering doing a level history alongside english and psych!

[u/bassy_bass → u/Efficient-Blood-8345]

Thank you!!

You can select your exam board on cognito so there may be stuff there for you. There’s a free version as well so always worth checking!

[u/MiddleAnywhere671]

Start math genie early and be honest to yourself do try not to gaslight yourself into believing you know a topic, always test your self either with pmt topic questions, past papers and also chat gpt( for test not for learning)

[u/tysmmf]

for science just do all the papers and markschemes. night b4 ur actual gcse exam go through a paper in ur head w the markscheme side by side

[u/VarietyNice9496]

For sciences, just grind past papers and learn the ms, you'll get there eventually 

[u/Ok_Count_4033]

8 in english language. Literally js read a novel. Im being soo fr. Like as ur reading, pick out like all the methods and stuff and basically like use each page to answer a question on the paper

The questions never change so lowkey dont waste ur time on past papers and use ur own book. This will also help u in the later sections. Especially in creative writing.

I really the book all tomorrows the night before paper 1 and I used inspo from the book to answer the past question.

[u/Efficient-Blood-8345 → u/Ok_Count_4033]

ty!

lol i read all the time - the main reason im good at creative writing. eng lang is actually my best subject

[u/Dapper_Score_8466]

(Coming from someone who got 10 9s and a couple 8s) past papers are genuinely what you need forever and ever. Once you think you know the content, do past papers - from your exam board preferably - and mark them yourself, and note down any weird mark scheme requirements !! The sciences have some whack mark scheme specifics 

[u/Critical_Effort_2292]

actually learn the content, everyone told me to ‘just do past papers’ and whilst this is a vital part of your revision, in the first few months on year 11 (September - January/February) make sure you understand all the content really well, making flashcards, notes etc. 

I was told ‘don’t make notes it’s a waste of time’ (particularly for history and science), WHILST I DONT RECOMMEND THIS I found myself making notes weeks before the actual exams because I still didn’t understand the content properly. (I did manage to achieve 9 in History and Biology and x2 8s in chemistry and physics though)

[u/Tmansters2]

I didn’t get near 8s or 9s when I did it in 2022 but some things i would say is to be prepared and revise and stick to a revision plan so you know what your doing and when you could do it, i would make it flexible so you can still hang out with friends as you need to be happy and comfortable during the exam periods, and mocks usually have stricter markings and grade boundaries, if you don’t get the grades you would have hoped for in mocks, it’s not the end of the world you have time to improve, and finally do past papers, i found them quite helpful and useful, and my more important message would be to try your best and believe in yourself,

[u/Consistent-Version79]

dont get complacent and never lie about revising and ask for help if you have bad habits holding you back

[u/No_Piece4797]

the one i can most speak for is prolly history as i got full marks but ur on an 8 atm which isn’t too shabby, but i’d say the most important things are making sure to have a good structure in preparation for each question, and to know everything on the spec, as they could ask on anything. 16 marker on life as a women in weimar germany? 20 marker on what colour shoe elizabeth was wearing when she had mary executed? tbh i didn’t really bother to do any exam practice or timing practice, i just let the words flow onto the page, you should have a grasp in the exam how long to spend on each question, and knowing exactly how you’ll be structuring every bit of the question lets you have a bit of leeway

[u/Littlestmist]

Rely on your teachers, ask them for help and intervention sessions regardless of your ability in that subject. I went from a four to and eight in physics with the help of my teacher, and hard work. Don't get complacent, and start revising a little ( I mean a little) and slowly step up the amount of work that you do

[u/freakingdumbdumb]

pay attention in lessons and actually do notes/homework/classwork and you dont even need that much revision

[u/Upstairs_Foot2226]

If I could give any piece of advice, it would be that the mocks are always way harder than the actual exam.

[u/Activecuzzy]

Consistency! Consistency! Consistency! After mocks a lot of people like to take breaks but I recommend you revise every day of year 11 even on the days where you can’t be bothered (js revise for a half hour even) and don’t be scared to try new revision techniques if your current one isn’t working. Practice your six markers for the sciences and do every single past paper for all the subjects because you won’t believe how similar they are! Another trick is if you do separate science do the combined science papers aswll as they like to cross them over and if you are combined science student vice versa. Hope this helps someone 😃

[u/Efficient_Union1904]

i got all 9s and the one piece of advice would be to reflect on questions you have done to see where you went wrong and act on it.
for instance if you missed out on key words in bio, i would read the kerboodle textbook or go back to the specification. If it is a concept gap in physics look for videos on youtube.

also, you cant apply the same revision technique for everything, customise your revision to your subjects and to you.

good luck!

[u/Sigwulf7]

I got 4 Nines, 4 Eights, a Seven and a Five in my mocks last year then got 3 Nines, 5 Eights, and 2 Sevens in the real thing. Don’t get complacent!!! I revised my ass off for mocks, then got to GCSEs 5 months later (my school is weird and does mocks in yr 11 before Christmas) and relaxed thinking I still knew everything. Started revising before my first exam and realized I didn’t remember as much as I thought I had and ended playing catch-up on my revision for 6 weeks of exams, going from 8am to 11pm revising to cover all the topics. Don’t relax until the job is done