Exams are right around the corner now (Sorry to anyone this stress out). Here are some last-minute revision tips and some exam top tips to make sure the exam will be the least stressful possible.

knowing how to revise last minute means you can make the best use of your limited time and go in to the exam as confident as possible.

All Exams

These first two bits of advice apply to all subjects so everyone should have a read of these.

The first piece of advice is to read the question carefully. I know everyone says it, but it is super important. If you miss-read the question and do the wrong thing you get no marks. I would recommend that you underline keywords, this forces you to read the question properly and as a bonus when you come back to check your answer (if you have the time of course) you can more quickly see what you did and check for mistakes.

The second piece of advice is also exam technique. If in the unfortunate circumstance, you know you won’t have time to finish a paper, focus on the first half of the remaining questions (this applies to questions with two or more parts) these marks are usually far easier to pick up than the other half’s marks. It is just how the exam papers are written. This means you can maximise the marks you can get in the time you have left.

Now let’s move to some more specific advice for Maths and Science

Maths

Always check your answer makes sense, so often people lose marks for a calculation, where upon looking back at it you realised it was impossible for your answer to be correct (It happens to me more times than I can count). Things like, you can never have a negative area, a value of sinx/cosx will never be greater than 1 (or less than -1) or in the question it says find solutions (plural) and you only found one solution (this nicely circles back to read the question). Just spend 5 seconds looking at your answer and ask yourself, does that make sense?

This second point is more of a mentality to have. The percentage needed to get a 7/A in maths (GCSE and A-Level Respectively) is about 57%. This means if you get 100% in the first half of the paper (this is very doable)  you can just work on picking up the marks where you can in the second half of the paper to get the 8/9’s and A*’s. Following this, since you are just trying to pick up any marks you can, don’t get hung up on questions. If you are stuck move on and come back to it, a fresh pair of eyes can help you understand how to do the questions (there may even have been a clue later in the paper).

This is some more niche advice for certain types of questions, still worth knowing though (otherwise I wouldn’t add it)

• When comparing data (usually box plots), always make a reference to an average (the position of the median, a certain point) and a spread (the interquartile range or range) you have to make reference to both and you can’t, for example, make a reference to two single points and not the spread and vice versa. You need to make reference to one of each
• Make sure you know the trigonometry hand rule. Obviously, this is super important in a non-calculator paper. But it is also handy in a calculator paper, it will help you estimate answers which is incredibly helpful when checking if your answer makes sense.

This final point is possibly the most important. Write out any calculation that you do on the paper no matter how small it is. This is important to do for two reasons. One, you are less likely to make mistakes if you write it out. It doesn’t matter how good you are at mental maths this is always the case. Two, it gives the examiner more to work with, there are more likely to find marks to give you if you get the question wrong and for some show-style questions you need it to get full marks.

Science

The same applies here, always check your answer makes sense, especially the maths questions. Often you will be asked to calculate a wavelength, these are always in certain orders of magnitude if don’t get an answer in/near that you are almost certainly wrong. Some questions even ask you to calculate an estimate for a known value, these will be again close to the known value if it isn’t you are wrong.

Check your units, units are the single biggest clue to help you get an answer if you are stuck. Often you can derive entire equations from just looking at the units. They are also there to create extra steps in questions so don’t forget to convert if you need to. Every time you get a question involving units, they should be the first thing you check when reading the question and the first thing you look at if you have the time to look through the paper again.

For multiple-choice questions, if you are struggling you can rule out the impossible and increase your chances of getting the correct answer. Units are a big help here.

6-Markers (there are 9 markers in biology, don’t know exactly how these work, but probably the same) are often considered the trickiest questions in the paper. However, there are a few techniques to help you get much better at them. What we first need to understand is that there are two forms of 6 markers, calculations ones and describe an experiment one’s. Let’s begin with calculations ones, which I believe are way easier since it is just doing lots of analysis of results, they will often ask you about errors in these questions too (A-Level only) just beware. They might also ask you how to improve results. Stuff like; take multiple readings and obtain averages, take a wider range of readings or use digital equipment is good stuff to throw in here. The Describe an Experiment kind are more difficult but follow the steps and you will always get full marks

• Begin by writing the method, always list the piece of equipment you use when taking a measurement, these are easy marks to avoid losing
• Describe how to analyse the results: Will you need to get average results, do you take a gradient are you just getting a number, are you just stating what relationship is shown
• The question will then ask one of two things, occasionally both. How could you reduce the errors created in the experiment, the easy answer here is to get more results for a more accurate gradient or take multiple readings if you haven’t already said to. The other thing they might ask about is what are the safety precautions you must take, easy answers here: If anything is going to be hot were gloves, in chemistry (potentially biology too, rarely physics) wear goggles and lab coats. When working in the dark, be extra aware of trip hazards. The list goes on, just apply common sense.

Finally, know your equations, even the ones on the datasheet. Knowing what each equation does and when to use it is so important, for this start practising now, both by flash carding them and doing loads of calculation questions.

Hopefully, out of all that advice you find some of it useful, remember to stay calm in the exam and keep an eye on the time. Good luck to everyone from the Studytrix team.

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