Planning is important in any endeavour, let alone revising for your GCSE maths exam. Planning ensures that you complete all of the things you intend to do, by a set date. To achieve a top grade in GCSE maths, you must plan your revision in advance. You need to give yourself enough time to go through all the material before the exam. You do not want to enter the exam knowing (in the back of your mind) that you did not cover all of the material.
The best place to start is your resources. What resources do you have access to? Resources include revision books, online websites, worksheets, exam papers etc. Any material that is relevant to your exam. Gather as many past papers as you can because it is important that you complete as many as possible, especially in the run up to your exam.
Then, you will need to choose an appropriate resource to learn from. The size of the resource will depend on the timing of your exam. If your exam is in a couple of weeks time, you will need to choose a small resource; if you decide to revise online, you would search for ‘GCSE maths notes’. You would search for ‘notes’ because you need to refer to something concise. You cannot afford to read tonnes of information. If you want to revise from a textbook, choose one which is not too big. A large textbook, which is 300 pages long, is not wise.
I am a very efficient person so I tend to choose a reasonable-sized resource. I prefer to revise from a book because I don’t like to stare at a computer all day. I like to move freely when I am revising. I will not choose a textbook which is too big; for example 300 pages, because I find it difficult to read heaps of text. On the other hand, I would not choose a book which is too small because it may not be detailed enough to grasp all the content. Usually, I would revise from books which are around 100-150 pages long. I feel this is a good length to absorb all of the theory. Also, I like to go for textbooks that contain a batch of practise questions so I can test myself along the way.
The next thing to do is look at the topics. A quick way to do this is to view the contents page of your revision guide. Get a feel for the topics. How many pages are there in a single topic? Once you establish the number of topics, you can begin to draw-up a revision schedule. You need to compare the number of topics and exam papers with the number of days until your exam. For instance, suppose you had a revision guide which had 10 topics, a collection of 8 exam papers and your exam is in 10 days time. This is how I would structure my revision:
- I would study 2 topics a day so on the 5th day, I would’ve completed the theory section. I would do practise questions in that time too.
- From the 6th day onwards, I would complete 2 exam papers a day. On the 9th day, I would have finished my exam papers and be ready for the real exam on the next day.
This is a small example but you should get the idea. Keep in mind that exam papers are very important. You should spend extra time on answering exam papers and checking if they’re correct. You want to perfect your exam technique so when you enter the exam-hall, you will be confident on what grade you will get. Those practise papers will give you a good indication on how you will perform in the real thing.
The important point to remember here is whatever plan you draw-up, make sure you stick to it! Don’t give up half-way through. Sometimes, you may draw-up a plan which is difficult to follow at the beginning. This is because you haven’t had much experience in planning before. If you feel that your plan is very unrealistic to begin with, then make some minor changes. Remember, it is all about trial and error. See what works best for you. Only you will truly know if you’re doing enough.
And don’t spend days planning your schedule. As long as you have a rough idea on what you’re going to do, that should be good enough. Do you see how brief the one is above? All you need is a brief list of things to do and just tick-off each thing at the end of day. Then, start over!
For a ready-made revision schedule, I’d highly recommend my GCSE Maths in 4 weeks program: www.passgcsemaths.com It will show you how to achieve your target in GCSE maths in the most efficient way possible.