GCSE Chemistry Study Tips
Bookmark this page? Pop your email into the box below to receive a link to this article so you can easily refer back to it later.
Table of Contents
Introduction
As your GCSE Chemistry exam approaches, you’re probably wondering how to make the most of your study time. At Exam Papers Plus, we publish GCSE Chemistry revision packs, so we have a few useful tips up our sleeve. Remember, the sooner you start revising, the more time you’ll have to improve any weak areas before the day of the tests.
Here are our top GCSE Chemistry Study Tips:
Understand Your Learning Style
Before you begin your studies, it can be useful to know what approach to learning will be the most effective for you. Generally speaking, most people have a preference towards a particular style of learning, whether it be visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic. Let’s look at each one in more detail and how it could help you with your GCSE Chemistry studying:
Visual – Visual learners respond best to images and other visual representations. If you learn by visualizing or imagining, then you may want to try creating flashcards to help you memorise reactivity series and ionic charges. Wall planners and mind maps can also be useful for organising topic revision and recalling facts and processes.
Auditory – Some students learn best through sound. Auditory learners prefer to hear information spoken aloud. If you’re an auditory learner, you may want to try making an audio recording of your chemistry notes and playing them back during study sessions, or while you sleep. If you find yourself struggling to answer a chemistry practice question, you might find that verbalising your thoughts helps you to arrive at an answer.
Kinaesthetic – Kinaesthetic learners usually learn by doing. For example, they may process information quicker through conducting experiments, rather than simply reading about the theory. If you’re a kinaesthetic learner, you may find that using GCSE chemistry practice tests are the most effective way to study, as you’ll be putting theory into practice.
Put Yourself in the Examiner’s Shoes
One of our favourite GCSE chemistry study tips is to put yourself in the examiner’s shoes. When tackling practice test questions, try to imagine what the examiner wants to read. First of all, check how many points are up for grabs. If the question is worth 2 marks, you’ll know that the examiner is expecting two separate points. This can help you structure your answer to ensure you gain maximum marks.
Make sure you fully understand the question before tackling it. Try to identify the command word that’s being used and how it will impact your answer. For example, if you’re being asked to ‘state’ something, you’ll know that the examiner is looking for a relatively short answer that recalls a fact. Whereas if the question asks you to ‘compare and contrast’, you can expect to write a longer answer, outlining multiple steps.
When it comes to revising your answers, imagine you’re the examiner marking it. Where would you award each point? If you can only identify 2 marks in a 3-mark question, then you’ll know that you’ve probably missed a step.
Chart Your Progress
It should go without saying, but charting your progress is a great way to boost your confidence ahead of the exam. One of the best ways to measure your attainment is to use practice test papers. If you introduce them into your studying early, you’ll be able to see which areas need improving. As your studying progresses, you’ll start to see higher marks, which will hopefully motivate you to keep improving.
By the time the exam comes, you should aim to sit full practice tests under exam conditions to get you used to answering quickly and under pressure. Check your scores using the mark schemes and see if you can improve your overall score with the next test that you do. The more timed tests you practice with, the better your time management skills will become.
Invest in Good GCSE Chemistry Resources
Reading through coursework notes is all well and good, but there comes a point when you need to put theory into practice. At Exam Papers Plus, we publish GCSE chemistry revision packs that help students prepare for the exam. Our practice test papers can help you become familiar with the types of questions you’ll be asked on the day. They’ll also help you become familiar with the layout of the tests.
As part of the process of creating our CSE chemistry packs, we thoroughly analysed reports from previous years to make sure our questions cover all the topic areas of the exam. We also studied the types of questions that students find most challenging and included examples in our packs, so you’ll have every eventuality covered.
All of our GCSE packs have been written and developed by former chemistry examiners and markers, so you can rest assured that our questions are tried and tested. They focus on the key skills that students need to develop to perform well in higher tier GCSE exams and they include detailed step-by-step answers and mark schemes for every question. Each question is labelled to identify the relevant exam boards.
We’d highly recommend the following resources to boost confidence in GCSE chemistry tests:
All of our GCSE packs are available immediately after download.
Related posts:
How to Revise and Practice for the GCSE Chemistry Exam
GCSE Chemistry Test Format: What to Expect on the Day
GCSE Chemistry Games to Help with Your Revision
Bookmark this page? Pop your email into the box below to receive a link to this article so you can easily refer back to it later.
