GCSE Maths Week 2 Exam Preparation Tips

GCSE Mathematics Exam Prep

Countdown Till Exams. Time Remaining: 3 weeks

First off, let’s remember what we said last week – chill. I know its easier said than done but its particularly important when we look at the topic of this week, which if you remember from the handy timeline below is ‘Learn’.

Figure 1 - Run up to GCSEs, the timeline!

You’re not going to understand the things you’ve yet to understand over the past 2 or 3 years or learn the last few things you can’t yet get into your memory if your brain still looks like SpongeBob’s did in ‘Squilliam Returns’ when he forgets his name.

So first off, before I go over what you can do to learn (and by this I mean understand what you have not yet understood and/or memorise what you still cannot remember) content for your maths GCSE, lets go over a few tips for the actual process:

1. Make sure you’re in a quiet place.

2. Get rid of all distractions.

3. Actually sit down and do it.

You’ve got to make sure it’s peaceful and quiet because chances are if you’ve not learnt it yet it’s because you find it harder to understand/retain or you just have a tonne left to learn. In either case, you want to make sure you’re somewhere quiet with no distractions. This means no parent knocking on your door asking you if you want to come downstairs and watch a film, your phone off/on silent mode out of reach, all the fiddly bits on your desk cleared away.

For some people that will be a lot easier said than done, so try your best. And if your environment at home is not suitable and you’re able to, try going to a library and seeing how that helps.

Once you’ve optimised your environment, then comes the hardest bit, sitting down and doing it, and my main tip for this is: just do it. Bribe yourself with games after you do some stuff, with a 10-minute walk after a 45-minute slot, or absolutely whatever – just sit down and do it.

Okay, great. You’ve got the right environment, but now what?

To learn everything you need for your maths GCSE, there are only 2 key things you need to do:

1. Make sure you understand – this week

2. Make sure you practice (past papers!!) – next week

Yes, it’s really that simple but I’ll go into more detail about number 1 this week and will leave the bulk of number 2 for next week’s post.

1: Make sure you understand

You may be thinking “Duh Seyi, this is obvious”, but you’d be surprised by how many people either don’t know this or choose to ignore this. If you’ve ever said or thought “I give up, I’ll never understand” or “It’s fine if I know everything else but not this” or “I can’t be bothered with this topic” or anything similar to this then I’m looking at YOU.

Sorry to call you out like that but you *need* to understand what’s going on to do well in your Maths GCSE. It’s important to understand content in all your GCSEs but particularly for Maths. The students getting the top marks are those who understand all the content and so don’t get thrown off by questions asked in slightly different formats to that which they’re used to.

“But Seyi I’ve tried so hard, and I just don’t understand.” “But Seyi there is just so much to learn and understand - I don’t get anything!!” “But Seyi, I just can’t be bothered!”

To person A I say, I really relate to you but keep reading and hopefully you’ll find something you’ve not yet tried which will be the golden key. To person B I say, that’s okay – doing something is always better than doing nothing, so take it one topic it at a time and see where you get to. To person C I say, ‘cap’ (slang for ‘lies’), if you truly 100% couldn’t be bothered then you wouldn’t be reading this blog right now – the road is long, I know, but some small part of you wants to do well, so just humour it and try – what’s the worst that could happen?

So, what can you actually do to help you understand?

1. Use class notes

2. Use revision guides & textbooks

3. Use revision websites & videos

4. Ask friends & family

5. Ask your teacher

I would suggest you start from 1 and move down if the stage before hasn’t been useful or if you still need more help/information. Once you’ve gone through a few of them you may realise some things are good for some topics and some things are better for other topics but going through it one by one helps you to know where to start.

#1 – Use Class notes

This one won’t be possible if you didn’t take any/very good class notes during the year, but even if they’re not the most perfect, have a look through your book/folder/online learning platform and see what you did or at the example the teacher used. You may find that just by going through it you remember (or realise) for the first time what is going on.

#2 – Use textbooks & Revision guides

So, your school notes weren’t great or led you no further to understanding the gibberish you’re supposed to know. No worries. Try using any textbooks or revision guides you’ve been given at school or have at home. Revision guides are often better as they explain things in a succinct way, but if you have no idea about anything in that topic, they may not be detailed enough for you. Personally, I really loved the CGP maths revision guide but anything you can get your hands on works! (Don’t feel like you have to buy any new books! There are so many free resources online – see the next point – and your school or local library may also have some you can borrow so ask about that!)

Textbooks have a lot more information in them and also have lots of questions which is great for practice, so see if the examples there can help you understand.

#3 – Use revision websites and videos

This is probably my favourite way of learning and the one out of the first 3 I find most useful when I truly have no clue on a topic. There are lots of free websites and videos around that explain different GCSE maths topics. I’ve listed a few below to get you started but even just googling ‘Free Maths GCSE resources’ or the name of the topic you’re struggling with in YouTube e.g. ‘Quadratic equations explained’ may lead you to some real gems. It may take a few searches to find your favourite resources, and you may use different resources for different topics, that’s okay, just don’t spend all your learning time looking for the ‘perfect resource’ – if you can learn from it, go for it!

RESOURCES

If you have a school login

· MyMaths

· MathsWatch

Free Resources

· Mr Barton Maths

· CorbettMaths

· OnMaths

· Maths Genie (also has a YouTube)

· Khan Academy

· WooTube (bear in mind it’s Australian based so their year 7 is our year 8 etc!)

· YouTube: Mathantics, Hegarty Maths

#4 – Ask friends & family

I can’t lie, this point all really depends on how well your friends and family understand maths. Some of them may be more suited towards other subjects, and if that’s the case, then just jump to #5.

However, around you may just be some maths boffins. Or at least, people who understand a topic more than you and so much more so that they can explain it to you. Sometimes just having someone else with you going through the different steps or watching how they approach a question can make you realise where you’ve been going wrong this whole time.

#5 – Ask your teacher

The real MVP of this whole list. It may seem basic but it’s true, if you still truly don’t understand after going through everything ask your teacher! That’s why your teacher is there, to answer questions and to help you learn.

“Oh, but Seyi, my teacher doesn’t like me!” – I mean this in the nicest way, but so what? You don’t need your teacher to like you, you just need them to help you understand. My mum told me something growing up I’ll never forget “They’ve already got all their qualifications, you’re still trying to get yours” and then she said something about therefore not letting anything stop me getting the help I need. However, I do understand that it can be a bit more complicated than that, and if that’s the case, see if there are any other Maths teachers who can help you out. Also, in most cases, even if a teacher has shown they don’t like you before, that can change when they see you’re trying to learn and do well in your exams.

“That’s great Seyi, but the whole reason I am in this situation is because I have a bad Maths teacher – I just don’t understand anything they teach!” – I feel for you, I really do. But my advice to you is very similar to that of what I gave our friends in the situation above – ask another Maths teacher to help you through. And if that’s not possible then really try to push through with points 1-4 and you should see some progress.

#6 - Bonus tip: Work on your basic maths skills

As well as working on all the topics that you’ll be tested on for your Maths GCSE, spend some time, even just 5 minutes working on your mental maths skills. Go over your times tables, go over doing some additions and subtractions in your head etc. So many marks are lost each year by very smart students - not because they don’t know the hard bits but because they’ve fallen at the easier bits. By spending some time on your mental maths skills, you can avoid making these same mistakes and also save yourself some time when doing the actual paper.

(If you don’t get this meme, I am well and truly old. It’s from a song by Big Shaq called Man’s Not Hot – check it out on your revision break).

2: Make sure you practice

Hopefully you’ll have been covering this already by improving and testing out your understanding, but the best way to learn maths is to do lots of maths – lots of questions from textbooks, revision guides, school, websites and most importantly past papers, but we’ll get on to those next week.

So, there you have it, a quick rundown on how to learn everything in your Maths GCSE. And before you go, a few more quick-fire tips. Revise topics in rotation, if you find one topic is getting boring to revise, revise 2-3 others and then come back to it. If you want to push yourself, use resources not only from your exam board – it helps ensure you understand the concept not just the formula of how to do it, but make sure you’ve done everything relating to your exam board first! Find a regular time to do it, maybe you’ll do 30 minutes before school every day or 1hr before dinner each night; getting into a routine helps train your mind on what you’re doing and makes it easier to sit down and study each day.

A long blog today, but there’s lots to know. I hope that’s useful, and I’ll see you next week!

Have any questions about how to prepare for your GCSE exams? Having problems with any hard to understand content or tricky past exam questions? Then ask Seyi. Seyi will be hosting a series of Q&A webinars in the 2 weeks before final exams. Post your questions here, and Seyi will answer them in these sessions.