Not a GCSE Student? This guide could still help you but why don't you click here to see my general study guide to ace your exams (no matter what board you are studying!).
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Click here to see my personal study tips you probably haven't thought of!
Welcome to part 2/2!
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Notes
Base your notes mainly on study guides, notes from other resources like a better textbook than the one you own or the internet, and the syllabus. Your original textbook should only be used when you cannot get the same topics in another resource that fulfills the syllabus requirement. Study guides contain all the required information but in a condensed form and sometimes topics are even explained better! Make sure you use a certified study guide/textbook!
Here's a Venn diagram to summarize the above:
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Past Papers
Solve
all past papers! Learn from the past papers. The best way you can score more in your exams is to understand how the Marking Scheme answers questions. Okay, now I know this will sound extremely weird, but
You have to think like the Marking Scheme. You have to learn what keywords are used, etc. The questions that have a total of 3 or more marks are the ones you should absolutely know on the tip of your tongue because these questions could get repeated. A lot of the long-answer questions
have gotten repeated in previous papers - you'll see them at least twice. Even if you don't see a similar question twice in the whole past papers bunch, learn it because it could come in your paper. The best site for all papers in one place is
xtremepapers.com. Hands down.
Just in case you didn't know this already: if a question is for 4 marks, the examiner expects four points from you in the answer.
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Updating your notes
Update your notes once you finish solving past papers or, even better, while you are solving your past papers. Write down the long-answer questions and their answers. If there are variations in the answer of a question that has come twice in the past papers, you can do one of two things: write the combined answer in your notes (i.e. write duplicate points only once and then add the different points below those) or write down the answer to the question which is in the most recent paper. For example, if a similar/same question has appeared in a June 2012 paper and January 2015 paper (with slightly different answers in the marking scheme) write down the answer from the January 2015 paper. Be careful and don't mistake to similar looking but completely different questions as the same! GCSE papers can be tricky like that!
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Other things to keep in mind
Definitions are also important and even though they usually carry 1 or 2 marks there are a LOT of definitions to know and you should know all if you really want to snag every mark you can. If you are good at memorizing things, excel at whatever you know is important to memorize!
I probably still have my biology and/or chemistry & physics definition on my flashcards so comment below if you'd like me to update definitions on the IGCSE sections for the respective subjects.
Some papers require special preparation. For example, the Biology ATP paper usually asks for a magnified diagram of a picture provided. In that question you should know to make clear lines, not to shade, and to label parts according to your syllabus (for example if it is a plant, label all plant labels that you can recollect from your textbook or if it is a finger, label nailbed, keratin, etc).
Science ATP papers are usually specific when it comes to questions and if you spend a little extra time on the past papers you'll realise there are only a bunch of questions that keep repeating and you should basically just know all of them if you wanna ace your Science ATP paper.
