Most revision time gets spent on the topics you already like, in the way that feels easiest, which is usually rereading notes. The steps below are about spending the same time on the things that will actually move your grade.
Find out what you don't know yet
Before you plan anything, find out where you are.
Every GCSE has a specification: the exam board's list of everything that can come up. Your teacher can tell you which board and which specification you are on, and each subject on DoRevision's revision pages is organised by its specification.
Go through the list for one subject and mark each topic:
- Green if you could answer a question on it now without notes
- Amber if you half remember it
- Red if you don't know it, or have never been taught it
Be honest. A topic you recognise when you see it written down isn't green unless you could explain it with the page covered. The ambers and reds are where your revision time should go first.
Test yourself instead of rereading
Reading your notes again feels productive because everything looks familiar. Familiar isn't the same as remembered, and the exam asks you to produce the answer from memory.
So revise by recalling:
- Answer questions on the topic, then check them.
- Cover your notes and write down everything you can remember, then compare and fill the gaps in a different colour.
- Use flashcards: say the answer before you turn the card over.
- Explain the topic out loud to someone else, or to yourself, without looking.
Getting things wrong is part of how this works. The answers you struggled to remember, and then corrected, are the ones that stick. If a session felt easy, you probably weren't recalling much.
Interactive activities do the same job. A module that makes you put stages in order, match terms to examples or work out a value, and tells you straight away whether you were right, is testing you rather than showing you the answer.
Spread topics out over weeks
Doing a topic once, however thoroughly, doesn't last. You'll remember far more if you come back to it after a few days, then after a week or two, then again later.
In practice:
- Keep each session short and on one topic, around 20 to 40 minutes, with a break after.
- When you finish a topic, put it back in your plan for a few days' time and again for a couple of weeks after that.
- Each time you come back, start by testing yourself on it before you look anything up. That shows you what has faded.
This is why starting early matters. You don't need to do much each week in Year 10 or the start of Year 11, but you need enough weeks to come back to things several times.
Mix topics once you know them
When you are learning a topic for the first time, stick to that topic. Once you know most of a subject, mix it up: a session with a few questions from three or four different topics.
These sessions feel harder than single-topic ones. In the exam, the questions don't tell you which topic they are on. In maths especially, a lot of marks are lost by using the wrong method, and you only practise choosing the method when the questions aren't grouped for you.
Use past papers properly
Past papers are the closest thing you have to the real exam, so use them carefully rather than all at once.
Early on, use single questions. Pick questions on topics you have just revised. Answer them, then mark them yourself with the mark scheme.
Read the mark scheme properly. Look at what earns each mark. You'll often find you knew the content but missed marks by not explaining enough, missing out units, or not using the key word the question was looking for.
Later, do whole papers under timed conditions. This is practice for timing and stamina as well as content. Do one, mark it, and spend at least as long going over your mistakes as you spent sitting it.
Turn every lost mark into a topic to revisit. A past paper is most useful for telling you what to revise next.
Past papers, mark schemes and examiner reports for each board are collected on the past papers page. The examiner reports are worth reading: they describe the mistakes students commonly made on each question.
Make a plan you will actually follow
A revision timetable only helps if it's realistic. When you make one:
- Put in the things you can't move first: school, work, sport, family.
- Plan short sessions, with the red and amber topics appearing more often than the green ones.
- Build in the return visits, so each topic comes back a few days and a few weeks later.
- Leave some sessions empty for catching up, because some will slip.
Check the plan once a week and move things around. If you keep skipping a subject, that is usually the subject that most needs a session.
In the last few weeks
- Keep testing yourself. This is not the time to make new notes.
- Do timed past papers for each subject and go over every mistake.
- Check what equipment, formula sheets or set texts each paper needs.
- Sleep. Memory needs it, and a tired brain recalls less on the day.
The night before a paper, do a light test on a few key topics, get your things ready and go to bed at a normal time. Cramming late usually costs more in tiredness than it gains.
For parents
You don't need to know the subject to help.
- Ask your child to explain a topic to you. If they can explain it without notes, they know it.
- Test them with their flashcards or a list of questions, and let them check the answers.
- Help them keep to short sessions with real breaks, rather than long stretches.
- Ask what they got wrong on their last past paper and what they are doing about it, rather than how many hours they did.
Where DoRevision fits
DoRevision is free. Every module is mapped to a real exam board specification, so you can find the topics on your own course and practise them. Most steps make you do something, such as answer, sort, label or calculate, and your answers are checked as you go, so it works as the "test yourself" part of your revision. You can try a sample question without an account; you need a free account to work through a whole module and save your progress.
Start from your subject on the revision pages, or try one of the modules on this page, such as Quadratic Quest for maths or Cell Explorer for biology.