January Exams

Does anyone have any January exams?

I've got my English Language, Science Additional 1, Maths Unit C and History Unit 3 (Britain 1931-51)

I also got given my Photography exam paper today- which we will complete in April.

I have Biology 2 and Chemistry 2.

I had my retake of B1 this morning. It was dead easy but that's probably because it was foundation (Everyone retaking it was entered in foundation unless you asked to be in higher) but I heard higher was easy as well. I have B2 and C2 later this month too.

Good luck to you all, especially GeekChic!

I did my prelims in November - and don't have any exams until the final ones in April/May, although I have a top-up Maths prelim in March.

Scary wrote:I have English Language Unit 1 tomorrow, then Maths in February and then Chemistry 2 at some point.

I expect we'll be doing the same exam then tomorrow!
I don't mind the EL exam and don't think it's that hard. Its hard to revise for though. The most you can do is practice speed-reading to reduce time spent reading the texts and then learn the terminology. I find the section B a lot easier as-well as I am used to writing and find that I can naturally slip-in all the necessary requirements. Good luck to you if we are doing the sam exam

If I'm right in guessing that you are all in Year 11 then I think that everyone in that Year is doing English 1 tomorrow because I know somebody who's doing that tomorrow.

I'm doing English tomorrow too, looks like we're all doing the same one. :laugh: Not looking forward to it though. Best of luck, guys!

English is the second-to-best and easiest subject ever. Wish you all the best of luck!

Good luck guys! I don't have any English exams until the summer, which is a bit of a blessing for me.
Thankfully I've done well enough not to need to resit anything either, so there's only one exam for me next Monday. Unfortunately, it's A-level stuff!
It's the module of AS, and although it sounds scary, it's really not that hard once you get your head around it. I did a past paper a few hours ago, finishing it in an hour (you get an hour and a half) and only dropped one mark along the way, and I'm not brilliantly good at maths.

That's a good point actually - for all maths exams, the best way to revise is just to do tonnes and tonnes of past papers! It takes a lot of time and patience, but I guarantee that it will really help a lot, once you've leart the facts you need to know.
Also, if you're considering doing A-level maths, I'd say go for it. True, it's not the most interesting subject, but it gets really useful at some points, and the topics lead almost seamlessly on from GCSE, although it does expand upon it a lot as you get further on.

MarthaJonesFan wrote:I'm doing English tomorrow too, looks like we're all doing the same one. :laugh: Not looking forward to it though. Best of luck, guys!

Ah that's great! Our school call it English language, but some schools just do it as 'Core English'. I think this is because we do Literature as well as Language/Core.

In relevance to your post, Phoenix - are past papers really the best way to revise? It's not really a specific identification of testing yourself for the exam. There's no knowing whether you've revised what will come up in the actual exam you will be sitting on the day. Past papers have limited testing abilities, because they obviously don't cover everything from all topics.

I personally find the best way to revise being looking through my maths notes jotter - where all of our notes (obviously) and examples of questions for each and every topic are kept, and we also have pointers to singular pages or sections in the textbook where we can go back and revisit certain questions/problems.

But even still, at the end of the day, myself, I find an exam paper to be an extremely poor way of testing one's abilities in a subject. Because, if somebody performs poorly on the day of the final exam - yet have shown clear and strong ability throughout the two years of study, how is that fair for their final grade to be poor? Obviously, teachers can apply for appeals for certain pupils if they believe that there was a problem on the day of the exam, but surely that could happen in - or should happen - in every case, then? I myself believe that exams are a bit of a waste. Yes, end of unit assessments make sense for each subject (should they require them), but final exams covering some of a whole year or two of study is not a good way of testing ability - it's more a way to check whether one has revised or not.

I find doing past papers good after you've read through your notes so you can go back through and work on areas you've done badly in. There's no point in doing just one as if you've done all of your theory, then when it gets to the exams you won't know how to answer the questions to get the marks. But if you've only done Exam papers, then you wouldn't have covered everything. Also, courses change every few years so there are limited amounts of papers.
They're good to do as a checkpoint every now and again, but I wouldn't use them as your only revision source, nor would I not use them. Its best to get a range of revision techniques. Obviously not all of them would suit you, but if you do the same thing, over and over, then it won't be as effective. If say you do mind-maps, then by the end of it, they will all look the same and you won't remember the difference and content. In fact, I think this calls for a separate thread

Yeah, it'd be nice to set up a different discussion thread for this. I find it interesting arguing against exams.

I have my science retake on Monday along with another science exam next thursday and a geography one the week after. Not best in the world but suppose some people have got a lot more, its just more stress leading up to that big final load in the summer when I go on study leave. Not looking forward to it at all

In short, yes, they ARE the best way to revise for maths, and in fact, it becomes really obvious. My maths teacher notices it in all of the years she teaches (she's head of maths, so she mainly sticks to upper years), and she says that the people who do the most, if not all, of the past papers do the best on the day, and the same thing happened when we did our GCSE.
As I said, once you've looked through all your notes and methods, what then? All of that info won't stay there, and by testing it, it sticks in there better when you're made to use it.
True, not all papers cover every topic, but if you do enough past papers, ALL of the topics and their little complications come up at some point, and it's usually the little nooks and crannies that catch people out.
That leads me on to my next point - catching out. The examiners LOVE to use ways of disguising a question, albeit real-life questions, simply setting it out differently, phrasing it differently, or even merging two topics together. When you do lots of papers, you get used to this and see patterns in the ways in which they use this. With that in mind, you're able to dispel the illusion they're trying to create and give them a perfect answer. If I may use a simile when talking about maths, it's like a battle, and you get to analyse the enemy's tactics they're going to put in place to destroy you - you simply can't deny that this will help!
Practice makes perfect too, and maths is a skill more than anything else. Like all skills, you need to have practice with tools of the trade, and papers allow you to do that. It's all very welling remembering how to do something, but actually doing it yourself takes your understanding to a whole new level, and an UNDERSTANDING means that you can really commit it to memory.
Papers also highlight patterns in your own work too, and you see where you keep going wrong. The mark schemes are clear enough, showing the answer and the method you should have used, and if you still don't get it, you can ask your teacher. It's all very well know what to do and how to do it, but you tend to find that your personal method you use can sometimes not work properly, or even just your thought process behind it! This gives you a chance to correct it, and it's a problem you may have not even been aware of when you looked through your notes and methods.

You may not see what I'm getting at, but I find that getting as much practice at actually having a go once I've committed the facts and figures to memory really helps, and if memory serves, my marks have gone up 20% since doing my first ever paper a while back. It's helped me, so I think it will help all of you too!

Well, that's your opinion at the end of the day. You think they're the most appropriate way to revise for exams, fair enough. Everybody has their own technique.

Our maths teacher offers a range of ways to revise - and fortunately, past papers aren't at the top of her list. Maybe I'm a bit bias because I dislike them (given that I find them a little bit of a false way of practising).

I did the 2 1/4 hour English Language exam I enjoyed it…is that bad? Again there were lots of points to make and I got all my timings spot on! The Section B Writing was also Ok and I think that if I ever get asked to write a blog post, then I will write a letter to the exam board telling them to be more imaginative!

I think I did the same one as GC. Question 5 was about your favourite time of year, right?

It went fine for me, thank goodness.

Yes, and 6 was about Travelling and whether its worth the risk etc.?
I thought the articles were really interesting!

It's fine to enjoy the exam.

Glad you all feel happy about how you've performed!

GeekChic112 wrote:Yes, and 6 was about Travelling and whether its worth the risk etc.?
I thought the articles were really interesting!

Yeah, that's right!

They were more interesting than normal. TBH.

No, I sat higher, hence why I said I am not nervous and look forwards to it and that I find it a relatively easy subject Its a different paper My friend in another school did the same exam as you. But the one we sat was the English Language which is 2 and a quarter hours long

Oi, that's an insult, of course I wasn't doing foundation. :laugh:

Hope everyone did well. Skipped a science revision session today, prefer doing it on my own anyway they never help. Got 2 looming now, hope I pass this retake