When it comes down to it, there’s one mark difference between grade boundaries.
Just one mark can make the difference between a D and C grade, one mark between a B and an A grade. Therefore one word can make the difference between a grade, as one word in an answer can mean getting or losing a mark. I’ve talked about this when tackling compare and contrast Qs before.
And this is why I’m a big believer in ‘every little helps’.
Because one little tip, one strategy, one minute of revision of one fact that’s asked in an exam, can make a whole grade’s difference.
I’ve been making a point lately to recommend to my personal coaching students that they do just one or two questions for practise and revision each day because many of them have Term 3 exam blocks in a few weeks.
We’ve been coming up with some specific plans for them based on their personal priority points and your teen can do this for themselves too.
For example in Maths, putting in place a daily bare minimum over the school holidays, to do just one or two Maths practise Qs on top of any other study (or on top of their relaxation!).
That’s perhaps 14 questions over two weeks of a school holiday.
Which would be approximately two or three questions per topic for a term’s worth of content.
Two questions on every topic is just about enough to keep everything fresh in their mind and not let anything become totally buried so that it has to be dug out from the depths come revision for exams.
Or… how about we make this REALLY easy and a long term plan.
How about in Y11 and 12, making one revision card per week, and doing one practise exam Q per week?
Not a whole practise paper, just one practise question. That’s maybe 15mins for the revision card, and 10 mins for the practise Q. That’s just 25 mins once a week. If they’re a morning person, that’s getting up at 6am instead of 6.30 on just one day, or that’s one less episode of a TV program just once a week.
That’s going to give them 46 revision cards if we don’t count the summer holidays, over the course of one year and 46 practise Qs completed.
And that’s a LOT of revision resources at the ready, a lot of exam practise and familiarity with exam Qs and that equals a lot of potential extra marks in an exam 🙂
#winning
I’d love for you to have a think about what one little thing could be done once per day, or once per week.
It won’t feel like a lot on it’s own, but add it up and it can make a big difference.
And then let me know in the comments below – what is the one small thing and what big result would it give?
I’ll see you next week, let’s go make this a fantastic week.
Katie
