
In all my years of teaching, few students have a clear idea of the most efficient, effective way to revise for their Maths mock exams. For this reason, I have put together a short guide, free of waffle, for you to follow step-by-step. Here it is:
1. Search for (for example) 'AQA Maths GCSE Higher Paper' on YouTube.
Obviously, replace 'AQA' with the exam board that you're revising for (although it doesn't matter all that much if you do papers from other exam boards; the content is still the same) and 'Higher' with 'Foundation', if you're studying for Foundation.
2. Pause the video at the first question and try it...
If you're confident in your answer, skip a few seconds into the video and check your answer against theirs. If it's correct, repeat for question 2. If it's wrong, or you're stuck go to step 3.
3. You answer a question wrong, or you don't know what to do.
Play the video and watch the explanation. You may or may not understand the explanation. If you do, go on to the next question and repeat step 2 for the next question. If you don't, go to step 4.
4. Search for the topic on YouTube.
Open a new tab, go to YouTube and search for the name of the topic, followed by GCSE (for example, 'Standard Form GCSE'. Pick the video with the most views (there's a reason they've got the most views - they're the best) and follow along. Most of them will give you an opportunity to pause the video and answer a couple of questions on the topic. Admittedly, it may not be obvious what to search for for some questions, but if you search for some of the words contained in the question on YouTube, I bet something relevant will come up.
5. Try the question you were stuck on before again.
By now, chances are you'll correctly answer the question you were stuck on.
6. Repeat this process from Step 2 and finish the paper.
7. Do another paper!
Revision Guides and Workbooks are also great - Don't get me wrong. The above is just another means to revise. Some people learn better from videos than they do from books and video explanations are more thorough a lot of the time.
Above all else, don't just print a past paper and do it. Revising in this manner means you are simply answering the questions you can already do and leaving out the ones you can't. This is not revising.
You'll do great ;)
This article was compiled by Marek Swistun, Head Tutor at ‘Oxford Mathematics Tuition’. Rated 5.0 out of 5.0 by customers. Click here to see our reviews. OMT are proud to offer exceptional Maths Tuition at a reasonable, accessible price.
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