GCSE exams are no longer a test of ‘how intelligent’ you are anymore. These days, they’re a test of ‘how much you can remember’. Students who perform the best in their GCSE exams tend to have very good memory retention skills. The exam boards don’t do you any favours. They give you all your exams in one go, some of which fall on consecutive days. This means your memory retention skills have to be strong in order to perform well in all your GCSEs, let alone maths.
The best memory retention techniques are those that store concepts into your long-term memory. Why can you remember lyrics of a particular song for years on end? Simply because it’s stored into your long-term memory. I wouldn’t advise ‘cramming’. Cramming involves attempting to learn heaps of information ‘last minute’ – just days or weeks before an exam. Cramming is only stored in the short-term memory and hence, there is a chance you could forget it come the exam. Although it may work for some, I wouldn’t highly recommend it because as you can see, it’s a riskier approach.
In order to utilise your long-term memory, begin revision early and set-up a routine. The reason why you can recall the password to your Facebook account every time without fail is because you follow a routine of logging into your Facebook account on perhaps a daily basis? This is how you should approach revision. Revise in a systematic way so on this day, you are going to read through this many pages of this textbook and complete this many past papers. Continue this pattern and what you’ll notice is after a while, the key concepts will begin to stick into your long-term memory.
Also, you shouldn’t revise topics in isolation. This means revising algebra one week and then, trigonometry the next. There is a danger that by learning individual topics, you may not be able to recall the key concepts of several topics at any one time. This happened to one of my students I tutored recently. Remember, your GCSE maths exam is on every topic. That’s why past papers are a great revision tool because:
- Your exam will be almost identical to this.
- You are tackling a number of topics at the same time.
If you would like a set-routine for your GCSE maths revision, I would highly recommend my GCSE Maths revision program. As part of the program, I give you a bonus guide called: How To Maximise Your Result In Every GCSE Exam. In there, you’ll find the most critical areas to focus on in your revision. I also provide a revision schedule, built around your school timetable, so you can achieve top grades in all your exams whilst having enough time to enjoy leisure activities too. To download this guide, visit www.passgcsemaths.com.