GCSE Geography Week 1 Exam Preparation Tips

Hey guys!

My name is Dharaa and I’m currently in my first year at university studying Geography! For the next few weeks I am going to be writing these GCSE Geography blog posts, giving topic specific as well as general tips and advice to help make these final few weeks slightly easier. As we all know the past few years have been tough, what with a little thing like a global pandemic causing some disruption. In-person teaching has been on and off, and there have been a couple of *surprising* exams changed. However, as we slowly return to normality, hopefully these blogs will make help the process as smooth and stress free as possible.

The main focus of today’s blog is Lead Up Preparation. The first, and extremely critical, part of the revision process in these last few weeks is being organised. This blog is going to tell you exactly what you need to do to ensure you’re all set.

Having your resources organised

Ignoring the fact that I am a complete neat freak, keeping all my notes, past papers, stationary all in order made a massive difference to my revision process. It helps to keep your mind clear as well as accessing your work easier.

Start by splitting your work and notes into human and physical geography and create two different folders for them. This will help keep the two separate which will help focus your revision, as most exam boards have two separate exams for human and physical. Next split your material for each topic within the folders using dividers so it is easier for you to quickly flick to whichever topic you are deciding to work on that day.

What you are going to do next is make sure you have printed out the specification for each topic which you should be able to find on your exam boards website. Take the time to go through your work for each topic and put it in the order that the subtopics are listed in in the spec. Additionally, go through the specification with your notes by your side and highlight what you do have notes on and leave blank the areas you don’t have notes on. This will help outline what subtopics you need to address first.

I will cover this in more depth in my next blog post but, making notes is the first method of revision you need to complete before tackling past papers and questions. You need to know the content. By this point you should have a few notes on certain topics but no worries if not because by sorting out what you have and don’t have against your specification, it will be easy to find you have left out because it will all be there clearly.

Time efficiency

With only a few weeks left to go using your time as wisely as possible is critical! Speaking from personal experience, I know it can be so easy to say you are taking a ten minute phone break and end up blacking out and spending 5 hours scrolling through your TikTok not knowing how you got from your desk to your bed. Now I am not at all saying don’t take breaks because that is so important to let your brain rest. But scheduling and timetabling your work sessions and limiting your break times will help prevent the procrastination spiral many of us know all too well.

By now you will know what topics need more attention than others and after organising what you do and don’t have notes on you also know which ones need more time to complete. So using this information and being honest with yourself decide in advance how long you are going to spend on each topic and which ones you are going to focus on each week. In my expert opinion of someone who was once in your place, choose two topics to go over notes each week and then in the weeks left after doing that use it for focus on practical revision such as past papers.

I know some of you might say “Oh but I might end up doing coasts for the whole time and run over so I can’t plan how long I should spend”. I can understand this, and I too used to have this mindset however in the exam they are going to test you on all topics so you have to make sure you have covered each one to a good level. Now, as I said earlier, there are going to be topics you find harder than others and need more time for. Plan for this ahead of time to help force yourself to cover all the topics. Otherwise, it can be so easy to get carried away and know one topic really well to then find you only know tectonics at a basic level. It would be sod’s law that the topic you know flawlessly comes up as a 2 mark question, whereas the one you missed pops up as a nasty 6 marker! Don’t let yourself walk in with blind spots as it’s the easiest ways to throw marks away.

And finally…

So, what you want to do is decide by when you are doing what. As for breaks, decide a few activities that aren’t going on your phone all the time and how long your breaks are going to be. It may even help to put time limits on certain apps if you know you tend to go on your phone a lot which is totally relatable!

I know the next few weeks seem daunting but with the help of this blog hopefully the process will be a tiny bit easier on you.

See you next week!

Have any questions about how to prepare for your GCSE exams? Having problems with any hard to understand content or tricky past exam questions? Then ask Dharaa. Dharaa will be hosting a series of Q&A webinars in the 2 weeks before final exams. Post your questions here, and Dharaa will answer them in these sessions.