Year 11 GCSE Tips For All 8s and 9s (What I wish I knew) | Back to School

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Sorry about the delay on this video however the year has just started and these tips should be useful for all new year 11s and maybe some year 10s.

⏱️TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
01:20 Know your direction
02:14 How to revise
02:49 Understanding content rather than memorising
03:45 Study smart not hard
04:43 Skillshare Sponsor
05:59 Study smart continued
07:06 Discuss the content
07:52 When should you start revising
08:53 Use your teachers
09:42 structure your revision
10:55 Bonus tip
11:26 Outro

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❓Commonly answered questions
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📚What Subjects am I taking for GCSEs?
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[udokafintelmann]

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[izi-ebyn]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Teachers never tell us how to revise they just expect us to know how to do it AND balance being teenagers! The most I've learnt is from my peers 😂

[lrd]

Anyone with good grades will revise. Easy option: do small amounts each day; Don’t fall behind!

EDIT: How you can become the near top, if not the top academic student in your year:

Study everyday, make sure you Pre-read material before it’s taught if you can. Learn the concepts, note what the teacher says, Use active recall and spaced repetition (flashcards, recall information). Do lots of practice, like an instrument you won’t learn or become better unless you practice (homework and past papers). Learn more in depth about the topic, look at material your not taught which links to the area (study guides, YouTube). You want to put in 3+ hours daily. I challenge you to do what Iv mentioned, study daily and really, really study hard for a test and see what you get.
(If you study like that from the start of a topic you should easily be getting A’s. You could even take the day off before a test and still get an A.

Good luck :)

[zara]

summarised:
1. know where you want to go with the subjects (long-term/short-term)
- do you want these GCSEs to do A-Levels or a specific job?
- GOAL SETTING, what grade/percentage are you aiming for?
2. know how to revise
- what worked for you in the past on the test you did really well on?
- e.g. mindmaps, flashcards, making notes, practise papers etc.
3. understand content > memorising content
- becomes more interesting, more memorable
- easier to answer and understand weirdly/differently-worded questions
- teaching someone else a topic develops your own understanding of it thus is is more memorable
4. work smart, not hard
- more effective revision > more revision
- active recall --> practise questions/papers, flashcards, questioned by a friend
- actively revise (not passively) otherwise you won't remember it
- DON'T PROCRASTINATE
5. discuss the content
- develops understanding (talking it through makes it clearer, other people help you understand)
- repetition cements knowledge
6. give yourself time to revise
- around 2-3 months (to understand, to give you time if you procrastinate, to give you time to figure out what works best)
- revise even when there's no exams (develops understanding, cements knowledge, reduces stress/difficulty later)
7. use your teachers
- ask for help in the lesson if you're stuck (instead of last minute panic and then you still don't understand)
8. structure revision
- prioritise the subjects you struggle with and the subjects most important for you
- make a timetable (topics, dates)
9. have fun
- chill sometimes, have 'me' time, unwind, relax, have fun
- have breaks in your revison
- make the revision fun (pretty flashcards, listen to music, get comfortable with setting/noise/NO distractions)

[miri]

i have my mock exams starting on the 15th of november - haven't revised at all apart from my homework. i'm such a bad procrastinator, and my grades aren't exactly where i want them to be. i'm going to start taking my revision seriously though, wish me luck guys!

update: guys i failed physics AGAIN. i feel so sick rn 🙁

update, 30th Aug 2022: hiii i received my GCSE results 5 days ago, i'll list them here;

eng lit: 8
eng lang: 8
geography: 7
french: 7
biology: 6
chemistry: 6
physics: 6 (i'm so happy abt that LOL)
maths: 5
art: 5 (i kinda gave up in the last two months lmfao)
h&c (theory+controlled assessment: d2* (9)
h&c (practical): d2 (8/9)

all in all, i'm satisfied with my grades. of course covid had an impact with everything, but regardless i think i did pretty well :)

[umxr]

Honestly for maths I use maths genie to revise its top tier📈

[Sam.Kramer]

2:58 This is so true: linking info to other bits of info was such a game changer for me - it is proven that thinking of information in 'linked systems'/batches reinforces the ability to recall any small piece of it!!

[finng]

just use seneca, hegarty maths etc. and you'll be fine

[idnjlll]

Can u show how many Anki cards and decks u ended up with at the end of year 11? Like a “Anki flashcards set up tour”

[iristuber]

I'm in year 10 (year 11 in Northen Ireland) and I have been using your tips and they really help! This video will help me even more. I have now started using anki for 2 weeks and I love it. Please add a anki tutorial video please! I study hard to get into medical school and hopefully I will!

[davelygate]

Some would say your gifted although I would say your success is all due To your amazing work ethic and dedication mate and working smarter not harder! No Innate Talent involved your incredible!

[harryhubbleday]

Pretty helpful all year 10’s and 11’s listen to him! I got eight 9’s and two 8’s all the tips I could think of, he said them 😂. Also, Seneca has courses on pretty much every subject at GCSE so use this (it’s a brilliant form of active recall).

[naeimaahmed]

for me, the best thing was 30 minute bursts of revision everyday and 30 minutes of exam prep with a 10 minute break in between for a snack or just to rest my brain (subjects like art, maths and english don't really require that obviously). bio on mondays, chem on tuesdays, physics on wednesdays, maths on thursdays, i alternated between english language and literature on fridays and on weekends i focused on art. and then i would do spanish for about an hour everyday. 

for the 3 sciences and history that i did flashcards for which were simple, short answer questions on each topic (physics and maths tutor does some really good ones for sciences). any questions i didn't answer correctly, i would put a star next to and i would add those cards onto the next day's revision set, regardless of the subject. between each big topic, i would have a week where i focussed solely on exam questions and getting a teacher to mark the long answer questions. 

for history, i used flashcards for dates but i also focused on finding notes on the exam technique as the answers that get full marks are very formulaic. i would ask my history teacher to mark any papers i did. make sure to pay attention to lessons focussed on exam technique, the notes they give u are probably all u really need.

for english literature, i found that mind maps did a really good job of helping me remember quotes and my analysis. i would have a page which would be an overview of each poem in note form and i would have a mind map alongside it for the key quotes. for my set text (i had to do macbeth), i would have an overview for each chapter. if i did any papers (usually when i had finished making notes for a chapter/poem) i asked a teacher to give me an overview of what needed improving the most and what went well.

For english language, i used a website called clovie7 which has all the past papers on it and i would just try and make an exam-style environment for myself and i would start by having time limits for each question separately. at the end of each month, i would do a full paper with the normal timings instead of separating. at first i would allow myself some extra time for each question but I gradually got stricter with myself until i was able to do the paper within the set time. i would also ask a teacher to mark these or at the very least, give me an overview of what needs improving.

for art, i just used my weekends to do at least one page of sketches, a couple of detailed observations on saturdays. and at least one artist research/analysis page and photos from the internet to stick in on sundays. i would take my own photos every other weekend.

for spanish, i would copy/paste my vocab onto quizlet and do every revision method they have. i would make my own flashcards for tenses and grammar points with the irregularities. i made sure to do the listening exercise they have so i got used to hearing the words. i also used kerboodle because they have some exercises that get you used to comprehension styles and they have a lot of exam questions you can do.
for the speaking prep, i had one sentence for each question with a connective, a few adjectives, some would have adverbs and i would try to incorporate my tenses and then 2 questions i intended to ask. i used normal flashcards for that and underlined in pencil whatever i missed. i practiced photocards from whatever was on kerboodle. keep in mind i only started prepping for this about 2 months beforehand.

maths was simply just doing any questions i could find and marking them. if i had a particularly difficult area in maths, i would focus more on that the next week or find notes on it. i would ask my teacher if there were any methods i could remember to use to solve certain styles of questions. i used flashcards for any formulae but i don't remember there being many tbh, i did have them for different types of angles in a circle tho.

all of this seems like a lot but it boils down to a minimum of 2 hours a day, it only dragged to 3 or maybe 4 hours in exceptionally rare cases because i preferred to spend some extra time on things like english, spanish and maths (or i spent a little too long on pinterest in between). i did this from november until my exams in march and may. i consistently got between 7 and 8 hours of sleep a day because i would do my revision from 7;00 and finish at 11:30 at the latest and 9 at the earliest. i got plenty of free time to eat and watch my favourite movies and shows. i honestly enjoyed it a lot.

but seriously, use your teachers. ask them what they think you need to focus on. ask them if they can see any patterns in the gaps. ask them to mark things. dont worry about whether they'll be annoyed because if they're decent human beings, they'll be happy to help.

i got 9s in all of them so i must have been doing something right haha. its hard to commit to a schedule but its defo worth it in the end when u see that ur first ever set of qualifications are immaculate. u can also rest easy before a-levels begin lol.

[arjunrambhatla]

Really helpful udoka even though I'm doing my AS levels I feel this would really help GCSE students

[II-ttrt]

This is super helpful I’m literally about to start studying😂 btw I love ur eyes they’re so pretty

[chvuvh]

“What I wish I knew” how’s man complaining when he’s got 8s and 9s in his gcse’s

[studylilly]

You really deserve a million subscribers already!

[theadventurer]

I like how he's so calmed all the time. Maybe, that's also one of the reasons he does good in the exams.

[jeff]

i just started year 11 a few days ago i SOOOO needed this

[connormaguire]

I finished my A levels in june 2020 but I really enjoy watching your videos. Look forward to seeing your A level content. Keep up the good work