How to Revise for Science GCSEs

Are you studying for GCSEs and thinking:

            “I don’t know how to revise.”

Or are you a teacher searching for more revision strategies to tell your students about.

If so read on…………

Mr B has been teaching chemistry and preparing students for their exams for over 25 years in a school which achieves some of the best academic results in the region, year after year. Here’s his revision strategies for anyone preparing for their science GCSE exams:

1. Use online revision videos. 

Check out the huge number of video tutorials on Revise Chemistry with Mr B on Youtube. The videos are helpfully arranged topic by topic and in a logical teaching sequence so that each video builds on what you have learned from the last video.

For shorter snippets of revision that you can watch on the bus going to school check out Revise Chemistry with Mr B on TikTok.

2. Revision cards

Either make your own revision cards or purchase them ready made. The best ones have questions on one side and answers on the other.

When you think you have learned what’s on the cards get someone else to test you on them. You can test yourself and then put the cards into 2 piles- the ones you know and the ones you need to go over again. Keep working on the pile of ones you don’t know until they end up on the pile of cards that you do know.

The staircase method: I tell my students to put a revision card on each step going up the stairs. If they get the question right they move up a step. If they get a question wrong they go all the way back to the bottom and start again. When you finally reach the top, shuffle the cards and put them in a different order and try it again.

3. Post it notes

Write key information like the definition of an endothermic reaction and an exothermic reaction on post it notes and stick them around the house in prominent places such as the fridge door or the bathroom mirror so you can read it as you brush your teeth. After a few days if you think you know the information on a particular post it note you take it down and put it in a box or a drawer and replace it with a new post it note. After a week you go through the box of old post it notes and if there is one that you once knew but have since forgotten about, put it back on the fridge door.

4. Practice exam questions

There are 2 parts to preparing for science GCSE exams:

a)Trying to memorise all of the subject content such as the reaction of alkali metals and water.

b) Understanding how to use that knowledge when faced with an exam question.

So it’s important to have a go at GCSE exam style questions, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes and improve next time round. There are lots of past paper questions available on the internet and your teachers in school should also be happy to print some off for you. If you would like an experienced teacher to talk you through the best ways of answering these questions then check out the exam question walkthrough videos. Look out for the black and yellow thumbnails on Revise Chemistry with Mr B on Youtube.

If you are a busy teacher, why not use the best in EdTech to provide your students with targeted exam question practice. Learning by questions is an excellent online resource that you can use within lessons or as a home learning activity. Students are provided with personalised feedback after every question in order to improve their knowledge and understanding.

5.Revision Guides

Revision guides are great for having “everything you need to know” all in one place. Again, make sure it is active revision by having some way of testing yourself. This could be highlighting the key points on a page and then using the look/cover/check method. This is where you cover up the page and then see if you can write down the key points on some scrap paper or say them in your head. If you can’t remember all of them, you have another look at the page in the revision guide and then try again. You only move off the page when you can remember all of the points. For my recommended revision guides, click here.

6. Make a revision clock.

This is where you try and get all of the topic onto one side of A3 paper.

The reason it is a clock design is you spend 10 minute on each section to make the clock. You can then spend 10 minutes trying to memorise each section. Again, make it active by testing yourself. Cover up a section and can you say all of the points to yourself or write them on some scrap paper.

7. Make it fun!

Pair up with a friend and turn your revision into a quiz using your revision cards. You can even do it via text or whatsapp. Each day text your friend a question and they have to text the answer back along with a question for you to answer.

8. Repeat Repeat Repeat

Don’t make the mistake of revising the night before your exam and trying to cram everything into your short term memory. Instead start as early as possible. The first time you revise a topic it may take you an hour. Repeat it the night after and it may only take half an hour because you already know a lot of the information. The night after it may take you 15 minutes. The more times you go over the same information, the more chance it has of going into your long term memory. This is the point where you just “know it!” 

The good news is you don’t need to use all of these revision strategies, find 2 or 3 that work for you. The other good news is that revision isn’t as bad as you expect it to be because if you use strategies that work you can tell when you are making progress. So don’t delay, start revising!