- All of a sudden it's April.
That means there is one month until our exams start.
But on the plus side, it means it's two months
'til exams are over, yay!
(upbeat music)
Now the most important thing you need to focus on
at the moment is looking after yourself,
looking after your physical health
and looking after your mental health.
We do not want to get to the end of exams
or exam results day in August and
you be an absolute wreck so please please please
make sure you are taking breaks,
make sure you are doing things that you enjoy,
make sure you're socializing,
make sure you're seeing your friends,
make sure you are eating and
make sure you are sleeping properly.
All of these things are just as important as revising.
When you are revising you need to be doing in short bursts.
So you're spending 20 minutes, half an hour on one subject,
having a quick break, five minutes,
go make a cup of tea, if you don't drink tea,
go make someone else a cup of tea,
they will love you for it.
And then 20 minutes, half an hour on a completely
different subject or a completely different style.
So maybe spend 20 minutes doing a Chemistry predicted paper
go and have a break for five minutes
and then spend 20 minutes doing a bit of extended writing
for English, have a break, go back to Chemistry
and then spend 20 minutes marking the work that you've done.
Have a five minute break, go back to English
and then spend 20 minutes improving your extended answer.
You do not have to sit there for hours and hours and hours
on end just doing the same thing over and over again.
That is not good for anybody,
we need to be doing little and often, little and often.
At this stage most of your revision should
be based around practice questions,
whether that's the predicted papers
that I've written for you and available
for download on my website, whether that's papers
you downloaded from the example,
whether that's a workbook or whether that's some
multiple choice questions I've got up for you on my website.
Practice questions are the best thing
that you can be doing now for revision.
Flash cards and mind maps are brilliant things
but those things take time to make.
If you've got them made already,
then that is amazing, then use them.
But if you haven't got them made already,
then we need to about think and
start thinking about focusing on more high impact
ways that you can revise and that is by doing
practice questions, looking at the answers,
looking at the marking scheme, working out
which areas you need to improve on
and then improving your answers and trying it again.
There aren't that many practice papers out there,
I've written a load of predictive papers for you
on my website but just because you've doing a paper once,
doesn't mean you have to stop doing it and move on.
Put it to one side and go back and do it again
two weeks later to see if you've improved.
There are going to be a few topics
that maybe you're not 100% on.
And this is always a really really tricky thing
at this time of year, do you spend a long long time
trying to understand a topic you don't understand
and maybe getting to 50% on that topic
or do you take a topic that you're already 60% understanding
and improving your understanding up to 100%?
Now we know there is going to be quite a lot
of breath in the exam, if you're aiming for one of those
top grades then yes you do need to know
everything really really well.
But if you're not aiming for a top grade,
if you just need a good grade or if you just need a pass
then some of those really really hard topics
that you don't understand maybe, just maybe
you don't need to understand them.
Maybe there's a better use of your time.
Maybe a better use of your time would be
doing some stress relief, going for a walk,
taking the dog out for some exercise,
doing some yoga or going for a run.
Or maybe a better use of your time
would be improving your knowledge in
a slightly different area so it's up to 100%
so you're really really confident if that question comes up.
Now this is always going to be a risky situation
but you maybe don't need to know everything 100%.
There could be better things you could be doing
with your time as opposed to what feels
like banging your head against a brick wall,
doing a subject over and over and over again
that really really isn't sinking in.
Now we can't do this for whole topics like Maths,
but if there is a small sub-topic,
for example balancing equations in Chemistry,
it is not necessarily gonna be useful
doing a whole day's worth of balancing equations
for something that could potentially could be worth
two marks, three marks, four marks
out of your whole GCSE when you could spend that day
doing lots and lots of other things.
Now this is a slightly risky situation,
this is a risky decision to make
but with only a month left,
it is one that is worth thinking about.
I remember for my A Level Maths there was one topic
I literally did just not get, I can't remember
what the topic was now but I did so many, so many, so many
practice questions on that topic, I learned
what the answer should look like so when that topic
came up in the exam, I still didn't understand it
but I knew what an answer should look like
and that's what I wrote down.
So practice questions, exam questions
are really really the way to go guys.
Please remember to look after yourself,
and remember I'm here with you every single step of the way
I'm not gonna stop until you stop,
I'm doing all of this with you.
Ouch!
This is why in some videos I have unexplained scratches.
(upbeat music)