AQA GCSEs: How to Ace ‘em
Hello Millenials!
What’s with the long faces? Let me guess…Bad breakup? No! Well, then are you sick? No!
So what’s up then? AQA GCSEs eh?
I see. So you want to change the cycle of bad grades and disappointment. You want to dig yourself out of the metaphorical hole. Fear not, that’s exactly why I’m here. Let’s jump into all the important stuff.
Any average student finishing up with their AQA GCSEs will want to go to a good university and do well for themselves. At the same time, as a student, YOU don’t want to spend hours sitting in class without anything coming out of it.
At this critical juncture, different people orbiting around you will have different things to say, which basically mean the same thing.
The teacher…
“These qualifications will improve your prospects for the future.”
The politician…
“GCSEs will help you get a good job and therefore a better lifestyle while also contributing to society and the economy.”
The friend…
“It will help you get into college and then university. Do you know how many hot girls there are in those top universities?!”
What are AQA GCSEs really about and how do they impact your future?
If you are someone who wants to be serious about your education and want to utilize your qualifications to live a sophisticated life, keep the following in mind:
- Receiving five or more A* – C grades, including English and Maths, is often a requirement for taking A-levels or BTECs at the end of Senior School.
- GCSE grades are a huge consequential factor towards you being accepted to the University or not. A lot of emphasis is often placed in subjects like AQA Biology and English, as these are stem-oriented.
- Many high paying jobs ask for decent grades in AQA GCSEs like English and Math.
Why should you learn something you’re never going to use?
You might be having the teenage version of “A Mid-life Crisis”. The constant pondering of what is it that you’re doing, studying something that doesn’t really matter like Pythagoras’s theorem or biological cell mitosis.
However, there are two found benefits to this:
- Learning how to teach yourself – Yes, you have teachers who help you along. However, over time you have to teach yourself. This not only means building learning processes to store information in your head, but also developing ways to find information on your own without a teacher telling you where it is. This is a skill you will use for the rest of your life.
- Finding out what you’re good at – You have to try everything to find out what you excel at and are truly interested in.
Standard of Education Received
It’s always helpful to have a good teacher especially for subjects which require oral exams and lots of essay writing, such as English. So, what makes a good teacher? In order of importance a good teacher is someone who…
- Knows their subject inside out
- Can explain complex concepts in a simple and digestible way
- Ensure that the full syllabus is covered multiple times before exams
- Do multiple AQA GCSE Past Papers, especially AQA GCSE English papers. This helps you to understand the overall format of the exam, as well as prepare for potential question that might be repeated.
Conclusion
Finally, here’s a few important tips, that you can use for yourself to ace your GCSEs and any exam that you will be encountering throughout your life.
You probably switch off when it comes to devising a strategy on how to revise, instead you feel the time would be well spent…revising
The first phase of this is when to start revising?
Answer: As early as possible. If your exams were to start in May, ideal time would be November. When you first start out, DO NOT be discouraged if you cover a single page for 20-30 minutes. Rushing too quickly is a sign that you are not comprehensively digesting the syllabus content.
To avoid this, within each topic, ask yourself, “do I really understand this?” If not, break it down and take your time. When it’s close to the AGA GCSEs commencing, maybe 10 weeks before the exam, set up a timetable.
At certain points, learning the same information repeatedly, can be a little mundane, however this helps with retention of the data, that can make a lot more easier down the line.
Summary
Phase 1
- Cover one subject at a time or all together “in sync” with school. It’s okay to not be ahead of the syllabus and don’t rush to do so.
- Work through each subject thoroughly,making sure difficult parts are not skipped over.
- Use the correct study technique for each specific subject.
Phase 2
- Spend approximately 5 days per subject.
- Cover one subject at a time.
- Work on past papers after completing each subject.
Phase 3
- Spend 2-3 days per subject.
- Skim read or scribble down key points
- Do not learn any new material
- Complete ALL remaining past papers.