Common GCSE study mistakes - and what to do instead - video Dailymotion

Common GCSE study mistakes - and what to do instead

Transcript

00:00The summer exam season is now just around the corner, with this year's GCSEs beginning the

00:05week of May 5 and ending in late June. Now this can quite naturally be quite a stressful time

00:11for young people, and it's easy to get swept up trying to cram everything they've learned,

00:15which can actually lead to some pretty ineffective study techniques. A tutor from Open Study College

00:21has shared with us some of the most common mistakes she sees students make while they're

00:25revising. Here are a few of them, and what you could try instead. Secondary school pupils will

00:31have no doubt been working towards these qualifications for quite some time, and will

00:35be using these final weeks for revision. Some students might feel like it's a good idea to be

00:40up with the lark, getting up super early to study, but this might not be doing them any favours.

00:46Research suggests that actually studying in the evenings and at night time, specifically right

00:52before bed, is actually the best time to study, as this can boost memory consolidation and recall.

00:57This is because the brain will process and solidify the information while you sleep.

01:02How you study also matters. Your team might want to read over their notes, but continuously reading

01:08them in the lead up to exams is not an effective way to study. Instead, write down some questions

01:13relating to the notes, take a study break, and then go back and answer them. This will help to absorb

01:19the information, and it will also give you a better idea of how much you actually understand

01:23the topic. Finally, don't look for shortcuts. It might be tempting to use tools like AI to help

01:30with revision, but our tutor told us that this can undermine your actual knowledge. If you use

01:35AI to summarise your notes, for example, then it could miss something important, or misinterpret

01:40a crucial point that you're going to need for your exam.