Tuesday 10 January 2012

January Revision

Good luck to those of you who are taking exams over the next couple of weeks!

You have (more than likely) sat your mock(s) and received your feedback already. There will invariably be a range of results, even within your class. It is how you work with these from here that will determine their benefit.

Did you get more than you expected?
Excellent! Keep up the good work. Providing you didn't get a tip-off from your friends about the mock paper you were going to be sitting, you are in a very strong position! There will probably still be areas that you are feeling less confident with, make sure you go over these so that you feel happpier about going into the real exam. Writing out full worked solutions to the mock you sat along with keeping on top of past exam papers with certainly help you with this.

Did you get less than you expected?
The key here is: do not give up! If you do you will scupper any chances you had of making a go of this. Start by building on the positives: what did you answer well? Which questions did you know how to do but made small mistakes on? Go over similar questions to these in other past papers. Then you can start working through the other areas. Make a list of the topics starting with the easiest, ending with the hardest (this should be your interpretation of difficulty, not anyone else's or even the book's). Work through questions from these topics in this order for your revision. This will help to build your confidence.

Any last minute help needed?
1. Make sure you ask your teachers for help.
2. Ask your classmates, maybe try and arrange a revision session. These can be really productive if you are with a group of equally willing and keen students.
3. Check out the websites I gave in my previous post.
4. Check out this website that my students have really taken to for their revision: www.mathtutor.ac.uk

If you have used any other techniques and methods to revise for your maths exam, please let me know. It is always good to hear how you guys are doing things. Just as a parting comment, one of my students came to our lesson last week with a wadge of A3 paper. I asked what she had with her and she said they were her revision posters. She had made one A3 poster for every topic of her maths module. They were very colourful and included key information, formulas to learn and worked solutions to questions. She had even highlighted common pitfalls! I know that posters are not everyone's cup of tea but if you get on with them, they are a great idea!

All that's left from me is to say:

Thursday 5 January 2012

Happy New Year

I am sure that this is a familiar sight for all of you currently studying for exams at the moment. Heads in books and past papers, sitting mocks in class and revising like crazy. I know because my students are doing the very same thing... or at least I hope they are! :)

I have started this blog to widen the audience of people I can help with their maths. My teaching experience has been in the UK education system and I have worked with students from the age of 7 through to students aged 73! The bulk of my experience has been working with students studying for GCSEs and A levels.

I am going to begin my blog by introducing some websites to you and because of the A level modular exams looming I am going to focus on sites that could help AS and A2 students.

The Student Room (www.thestudentroom.co.uk)
An educational social networking site that has forums for all subjects and you can often find worked solutions on here and students share help and advice. You do not need a login to read posts so check it out and see what you think. Many of my students have found this very useful in the past. A good tip if you are searching for help with a particular maths paper is to search very specifically e.g. "Edexcel Maths C1 January 2010".

Exam Solutions (www.examsolutions.co.uk)
A vast array of videos providing help on many topics of the A level syllabus. These are also available through YouTube but here they are split nicely into the topics that you are used to seeing from your books.

S-cool (www.s-cool.co.uk/a-level/maths/)
An underrated, nicely presented site that has a great deal to offer in the way of revision notes and exam style questions.

Let me know how you get on with these and if you know of any more that would be worth sharing with others.