Tests & Exams

Hey! Quite a different post today. Recently I have been having many tests, and all the revision had gotten a little bit too much, I didn't really know how I was going to do all of it, and I was very generally worried about the tests themselves. They were not really too important (I don't think) they were really to get my year (like my class etc of this year) ready for the end of year exams, and these tests we did now would be put forward to 'assessment B' which is a grade for each subject that gets sent home, and is fairly important. I did say that I have been having "many" tests, but compared to what others get in lets say year 10, year in the U.K , it wasn't really a lot, just more than my friends and I were used to. Tests always take place before something exciting like GCSE'S (thank God they are not happening this year for me), are taken before the summer holidays, and the tests I did were taken before Christmas! Perfect for ruining the festivity, as briefly mentioned in last weeks post. I took a few more tests than I'm going to mention in this blog post; as the ones I am going to mention, I think I can give a few tips on how I revise for them.

So I am going to be talking about three tests, French, science, and Maths. Starting with the one I was least nervous about.

1) SCIENCE.
Science has obviously got three parts to it, Biology- my favourite, chemistry, and physics- my worst nightmares.
So the test I just had was on chemistry, we have been doing chemistry in class, so my first tip is to listen in class, however boring it may sound, I mean you should do it anyway, but just listen, and if you do not understand anything then ask, answers won't always necessarily reach you on their own. In class you will have obviously have written work in your class books, before the test try to take as many notes down as possible as well as doing the class work set, as then when you take your book home you will have all these revision notes that will be a huge help!
If this is not a help and you would rather have a textbook with everything written in it for you, and one that explains everything easily, includes facts etc, then I would choose the GGP Science study guide, there are many versions of these, the one I have is for KS3 as that is what I am now but there is also a GCSE one. These are surprisingly quite fun to read, they contain many information and facts too, everything inside is colourful, and very easy to understand. You can find this in shops such as WHSmith, I got mine for £5.00.

Snazzy periodic table. :0

Another option are so called "summary" sheets which my science teacher gives the whole class a week before the test, on the summary sheets there is most of everything we have been learning in class, and the bases of what we need to know for the test, these for me are really helpful, you can always ask your teacher for some sheets or you can find them online and print them of yourself. I honestly for science, revise the night before and I do fine, however you might want to start revising two-three nights before, unless your really struggling with the topic.

2) FRENCH

I'm not a big fan of french , I have had a french reading test and a french writing test, I'm going to quickly tell you how I revised for the reading one first. I found the reading one okay...The main topic flowing though the test was fitness, food, and exercise. So I revised on mostly french vocabulary , such as body parts, and food in french, Cognates are always the main help in french tests but it's always good to know as much vocabulary as possible! A part of the reading test was to translate a paragraph from french into english, I had a shaky start but gradually I got better and i'm proud of what I managed to translate, can't wait to find out the results, but I'm still scared. So all I can for french reading is to take little quizzes online to get vocabulary stuck in your head, and during the test look out for cognates. For the writing test however I had to memorise a paragraph in french that I had written and then write it from memory in the test, OMG I literally thought I actually could not do it, I tried everything, make a song out of it, write it out several times until I remembered it but nothing, and I mean nothing worked, but then I had an idea, probably the best idea ever (lol) and it was to split the paragraph into ten parts, and then make ten cards, on each card write a part of the paragraph and learn one card at a time, gradually adding a card until I learnt the whole thing! And I did, I learnt it all! I can still recite it now, and I was so happy and I'm still happy that I remembered it all as it was quite a large paragraph! So if you ever need to memorise something in another language use that method, it works!

3)MATHS

In my opinion maths tests are the worst! The one I just had I don't think turned out too well, I missed quite a few questions due to time, and didn't understand a few either. I'm not the best at maths, it's probably one of the worst subjects ever, but my tip is to look through your class work thoroughly, and try to practice some questions as well. But this can also be a waste of time, you could be practicing questions you already know, so the best thing to do is to go on a website for example bitesize, here is a link to KS3 bitesize: http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/subjects/zqhs34j

There is more than just maths, there is also science etc, so it's very helpful. Here you can choose the topic you want to revise on for e.g. percentages, and it will give you, a revision thing, an activity or video, and a small test, this is realllllyyyyy helpful and I love it!

I hope you enjoyed this post, and I hope it gave you some tips for revision! I think the only test I have got next week is an english essay, but I'm okay with that. SEE YOU NEXT WEEK FOR A MORE FESTIVE POST! BYE X X X