Exam stress and revision tips!
It’s April, and exams loom over the year elevens like a large and ominous storm cloud. The GCSE exams will represent two years of hard work, not to mention play a big part in determining the final grade for the subjects. It’s no wonder, then, that students are stressing out!
‘Have you started revising yet?’, ‘I did no work over the holidays!’, ‘How do you even revise for this subject?’. These comments are commonplace with year eleven at this time and all of them show the sense of paranoia but also the sense of competition. Especially among boys it seems; it appears to be ‘cooler’ to claim that no work is being done towards their exams, so that it looks as though they have been passed with minimal effort; or else there is an excuse for not doing well. As for students claiming that they don’t know ‘how’ to revise for a subject, this is more often a scapegoat for slacking off with their revision.
Really, you just need to get on with it. It’ll only be for around a month of your whole life, and it’ll be worth it when you get the grades. Sort out a revision timetable to decide when you will do work on your various subjects. If there’s a subject you find more difficult, I’d recommend you do it in small doses but as often as you can. If it’s a subject like English, where there are not actual facts to learn (a common ‘how do I revise?’ subject) it’s best to do timed practice or to simply read the texts that you are studying. According Noreen Dunnett, a former A level English teacher, the best way to succeed in the subject is to be very familiar with the texts that you are writing about in the exam so that you can find quotes easily and at least have something to say about them. As for subjects like maths and science, I find going through the revision guides helpful and then getting someone to test you on the facts or to set you a question (you could ask a teacher to do this. Fortunately, I have two former teachers in my house but we’re not all that lucky!).
If you’ve taken more creative subjects like art, drama or music then how to revise or prepare may be less clear. The art exams are early on and apparently students are told to do a lot of prep work; so I suppose that it would be wise to keep up to date with this. As for drama, all coursework should be completed by now so it’s just the final piece that you should be worrying about. I find the best way to make sure your drama is up to scratch is to have regular practices after school and try to get teachers to give you feed-back so that you can improve your piece even further. For music the same applies for the coursework; it should be done! However, for the listening exam I find the best way to revise is to practice. Borrow past exams and the accompanying CDs and go through them. Also, if you have a revision guide trying to learn key facts is always a good move.
So get revising, don’t put it off any longer because the longer you put it off the bigger the task will be. Good luck and I hope that everyone gets all the grades that they wanted come August!
