What is the best way to study for IGCSEs?

1. Note taking.

Your brain is not going to remember every bit of information so don't even try to walk into the exam hall thinking you're an expert because 'you remember everything from class'. You may think you do, but you probably don't, unless you're a genius, which I by the way am not. When you are in class, Listen! We are not saying take down detailed notes in class or write down every word the teacher says... No. Just listen, listen, listen to what the teacher has to say and take down very brief summary notes of what is most important such as a key concept or an equation for example. Your exercise book should not be filled with more than a page and a half every lesson. Anymore than that, and you probably have not been absorbing or listening to what is going on as much as you should. When you are at home, Write! Once you get home, everyday, review your work and what exactly you have learnt in class, refer back to the textbook or whatever you did that day and refresh yourself on what you learnt. From that, and referring back to the textbook and your school notebook every now and then to grab the key takeaways, write or type up a document of what you should know for that topic based on what you learnt that day. (You probably won't be able to 'take notes' for Maths as you'd do for Science for example, so for that, doing practice papers is probably the best way to go) Do this everyday and it should not take more than half an hour. Leave it to the last minute just before your GCSEs and you are going to be swamped with 101 topics from 101 subjects and its just not going to work at all. Do not carry on with your notes if there is something you are unsure about, only move on if you understand everything you write. If you are writing page 3 of your notes, you should understand Pages 1 & 2 inside out. If not, stop, re-read the chapter and seek help from your teacher. Regarding the notes, they absolutely do not have to be colourful, in your face mind maps or exquisitely designed flow charts (Depends on what works for you though).

Remember, your notes is not a graphic design project. .

2. Practice Papers

We are not an advocate of textbook questions, they are usually too simple and are nothing like what appears in the exam, so only do textbook questions to test your really fundamental understanding of the topic at the beginning, but bear in mind, simply acing textbook questions is not going to get you very far in the exam. We think you should just jump into the real deal of practice papers because they are actually what has come out rather than doing and acing the basic stuff and lying to yourself

In terms of these minor tweaks we feel you should cover, this is what We think you should focus on

you may be asked to write an informal letter to a friend or family member. Often, the qeestion will require you to describe or explain something, or it may ask you to say what you think about a suggestion or a plan. The exam question will give you some ideas, and will tell you what you should include in your letter. android eur IOS.

When you do your practice papers, have a copy of the answer sheet too. The point of this is because what you may begin to notice is that the questions they ask tend to repeat and be pretty similar across the years, therefore, their answers will also tend to be very similar too, the answer sheet will expose first hand to these 'model' answers that will come up and again and again and will also show you exactly what answers Cambridge wants to specific questions, hence, even if you go into the exam and have a familiar question but you don't fully understand the concept, you should know the model answer and therefore could just put it down and have a high probability of getting it right simply because you've done your background work. This also puts you at an advantage above the people who may understand the concept but lack the ability to articulate it in the way Cambridge wants you to do so.

After finishing every paper and learning from your mistakes, file it away somewhere so when you need to refer back to it or refresh yourself, it will be easily accessible.

And Finally…

Do not be lazy, Do not try and cut corners, just put in the damn work, you will reap what you sow, and you will thank yourself later when you get your reward. Start early, Finish early, and most of all, Enjoy the journey. Good luck, and if you need any extra help or advice, do not hesitate to drop me a message, We'd be happy to help anytime! :)