Insider Tips for Smarter GCSE Revision

As your GCSE exams approach, it's crucial to develop effective revision strategies that will help you retain information, manage your time, and perform at your best. In this article, we will discuss and provide you with insider tips and subject-specific advice to make your revision more efficient and successful. As a chemistry teacher, tutor and examiner with 14 years of experience, I’ll go through some top tips to help you make the most of your revision time. 

Start early and avoid cramming

The more time you can give yourself, the better. By developing the habit of completing small tasks consistently throughout the academic year, you'll find that preparing for exams becomes less overwhelming, allowing you to concentrate more on refining your exam technique. 

Make a timetable

Making a revision timetable is one of the most important steps in your revision journey. It will help you organise your time, keep you on track with your revision, and enable you to divide your time effectively across yourGCSE subjects and topics. Make sure you build in time for yourself to have breaks and take time away from revision. When building your timetable, factor in the Pomodoro Technique. This technique is a time management method that involves working in intervals of 25 minutes, followed by a short break. This method helps you stay focused and productive by breaking down work into manageable chunks.

Increase your stamina

An advantage of using past paper questions is that you’re able to time how long it takes you to answer a question. Some of the questions are long response questions, and it is important to practise writing a full answer so you can build up writing stamina. You’ll get used to writing concisely, accurately and quickly, which in turn means more time to prepare and plan your answer. Even writing a paragraph every day will help with this. 

Know your command words

Command words are the words in the exam questions (usually one of the first words) which indicate what the examiner wants from the question and the style of the response needed. Different exam boards will have different command words, and it is important to know what is expected of you. Two common command words are ‘explain’ and discuss’.

OCR define ‘explain’ as:

‘Set out the causes of something and/or the factors which influence it.’

Discuss is defined as:

  ‘Bring forward the important points of or set out both sides of an argument/issue/element of content, for and against.’ 

As you can see, these two command words are quite different. In my experience as an examiner, students often lose marks because they don’t fully understand what is required. For instance, a command word like "explain" demands a more detailed response and carries a higher weight in the exam. To improve your performance, use your revision time to review questions and mark schemes, paying close attention to the command words. 

For example, this question about electrolysis asks us to: 

‘Explain how the student could change the experiment to measure the amount of copper formed’. 

Therefore, we need to set out exactly what the student needs to do to gain the three marks on offer. 

Question on electrolysis from an OCR GCSE (9–1) chemistry paper

Take Care of Your Physical and Mental Health

Effective revision isn't just about studying; it's also about maintaining your well-being. Here are some top tips to help you keep happy and healthy throughout the revision period. During my teaching career, I took on pastoral responsibilities and saw how important it was to take time away from revision in the run-up to exams. Here are a few things that were very helpful for the students I taught:

• Get enough sleep: Aim for 8–9 hours per night to consolidate your learning and stay focused.

• Exercise regularly: Physical activity can improve your mood, reduce stress, and enhance cognitive function. A 15-20 minute walk will boost your productivity. What about arranging to meet up with friends to play some sport for a morning? 

• Eat a balanced diet: Fuel your brain with nutritious foods, including fruits, vegetables, and drink plenty of water to keep hydrated. 

• Take breaks: Regular breaks prevent burnout and help maintain motivation.

Prioritise Areas You Find Tricky 

Finding out what you don’t know when revising is key. There are two ways this can be done:

• Use the syllabus; work through the syllabus for a subject (double-checking you have the right one) and highlight areas that you find challenging. You can then focus your learning on these areas.

• Past papers; work through the past paper, writing answers in one colour. Then, using your notes, redo the past paper in another colour. You can then mark your answers using the mark scheme. Once you have done this, you’ll be able to see what you got correct with and without the notes. You can then identify areas of your understanding that require attention. Don’t worry about getting answers wrong, you will still gain valuable practice answering the challenging questions.

Choose a revision technique that that works for you

Everyone learns differently. Identify your preferred learning style and tailor your revision techniques accordingly. Below are a few ideas of how to help you get started, depending on your learning style. 

• Visual learners: Use mind maps, diagrams, and colour-coding

• Auditory learners: Record yourself summarising topics or use educational podcasts

• Kinesthetic learners: Create physical models or use hands-on experiments

It is really important to be active in your revision. Reading and highlighting notes is ineffective for long-term retention. For example, in geography visual learners may find it useful to create colourful mind maps of climate zones, while kinesthetic learners could build three-dimensional models of landforms. 

Exam technique is crucial for success

Most teachers and examiners will tell you that reading the questions carefully is crucial. It can also be really helpful to underline key words and make sure you understand what's being asked. Showing your working again is so important and is key for examiners as if you do make a mistake you can still gain the credit. This should be applied to any question where you are asked to calculate.

Chemistry question on atom economy

Each step has been shown clearly in the calculation so the examiner can see the specific working

For subjects where you are required to write essays, make sure you plan. Planning your essays involves spending a few minutes outlining your response before writing. Given the time pressure of the exam, there is always a temptation for students to write the essay without a plan, especially if they feel they understand the focus of the question well. However, this is a mistake. The exam board AQA states that “Where students have written a plan, there is often a sense of a coherent and organised response, for which references and quotations have been selected to support the student’s argument.” 

Here are some great tips written by the Save My Exams English team on essay planning for AQA GCSE English Literature. During your revision, practise writing timed essay plans from past exam papers (in roughly five minutes) - a bullet point summary of ideas organised in three or four paragraphs. 

Use past papers:

Past papers are invaluable resources for GCSE revision. Practice under timed conditions to improve time management and use mark schemes to understand examiners' expectations.  Perhaps for maths, you could complete at least one past paper per week, gradually increasing the frequency as exams approach. Analyse the mark schemes to understand how marks are allocated for each step of a solution.

Seek Help When Needed

Don't hesitate to ask for help if you're struggling with a particular subject or topic. There will be times when you just cannot get to grips with a specific section.

●     Consult your teachers: They can provide additional explanations or resources.

●     Use the videos on Save My Exams which talk through specific topics and go through worked examples. Hearing and seeing things explained from a different perspective may just be the lightbulb moment you needed.

●     Save My Exams’ TikTok have a huge number of videos to help you through your revision, and the content creators are on hand to answer any questions you may have. Get in touch!

In Summary

Effective GCSE revision requires a combination of smart study strategies, subject-specific techniques, and good self-care. Remember to be flexible and to avoid overwhelming yourself, don’t plan revision for every spare hour of your day and instead, set realistic study durations and leave gaps to be able to move things around if something crops up.

By implementing these insider tips, you'll be well-prepared to tackle your exams with confidence. Remember, everyone's ideal revision method is different, so experiment with various techniques to find what works best for you. Consistent effort over time is key – start early, stay organised, and don't be afraid to seek help when needed. The team at Save My Exams are on hand. Good luck with your revision and upcoming exams!

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