Revise for success: how to ace your A Level exams

Exam season is looming on the horizon, with it comes exam anxiety. We often get questions from students about the best exam techniques and strategies to improve their grades. In this article our founder Kevin, who won a full scholarship to study at University of Cambridge and was ranked top 10 out >300 students in his course, shares his personal advice on revision and taking A Level exams.

Plan your revision

It goes without saying that to achieve high marks in an exam you need to come prepared. When you are just starting to revise it can seem pretty daunting especially when you have to go over stuff covered the last two years. However, with correct planning, you can achieve your desired grades without exhausting yourself in the process. 

First, you should start planning for revision early. Some people might claim to have a photographic memory, but this rarely plays out in real life especially for A Level exams. You should manage your time wisely during the revision period. Plan your revision according to the dates of your exams and level of difficulty for you. Do this early enough so that you can actually execute the plan. Creating your own revision timetables can help. Based on your previous homework marks and teacher’s advice, figure out your weak points and prioritise those in your revision plan. 

Second, breaking each subject down to sections can make the whole revision task more manageable and trackable. Psychologically it can also reduce the pressure level. You can end a busy day realising that you are moving forward section by section. You should aim to do at least one full pass over all the key textbook materials.

Lastly, during your revision time, sit past papers at the time of day your exam will be. Go through all the motions of what you will be doing on exam day. This will not only get your brain used to working at full capacity at the right time, but can also mentally prepare you for the stresses of the exam.

Study specifications, past papers and mark schemes

Exam boards publish a lot of resources on their websites. This includes specifications, past papers and mark schemes. Make sure you use them to your advantage. Specifications tell you what you need to know for the exam and can be a goldmine when you revise. You can just go along the topics mentioned in the specification and tick them off. This way you won’t waste your precious revision time on things that won’t be tested. For certain subjects, you can even find “standardised” answers from the specifications. You know you have grasped the specification when you understand exactly what each bullet point is about. Even better, if you can write a short teaching material for each point and your teacher likes it, then you likely have mastered the specifications. 

Past papers and mark schemes help you see the types of questions asked in the exam and what examiners are looking for in an answer. More often than not questions repeat themselves with a slight variation so if you have practised them before you are likely to nail it in the exam. Another very useful strategy is to collect all the questions that you got wrong or weren’t exactly sure in a notebook. Going through your past mistakes regularly helps avoid those same mistakes in real exams. This can be more effective than simply doing more passes through all materials.

Getting a low score at the beginning is frustrating. This can happen at A-levels and university as well, so you’ve got to get used to the frustration early on. Have confidence. Trust yourself. The amount of improvement after persistent exercise can be astonishing. This process can be much easier when accompanied by a personal tutor who would explain the mistakes you make and help you improve step by step. They also help you stay focused—a low exam score is rarely a statement about your innate capabilities, but just a lack of practice and confidence. 

Be tactical in the exam

You put in all that hard work over Easter and now you are sitting in the exam hall. What other tips can you use to up your game? One thing seems obvious but often neglected by students is time management. This is especially relevant for essay based subjects where students tend to run out of time when they are answering big mark questions at the end because they wrote too much for small mark questions at the beginning of the exam. A good way to overcome this problem is to work out how much time you can spend per question at the start (total exam time divided by total marks available and then times by the number of marks in the question) and stick to it throughout the exam to make sure you have enough time for high value questions. In addition, if you see a question that you are not sure about, move on and come back to it later when you have finished the other questions. Most of the time your mind goes blank because of nervousness and once you have completed the other questions you will be more calm to think about the trick question. Things do tend to come back and you will solve the question!

Get professional help

Nothing beats professional one to one tutoring to boost your scores. Apart from the guidance on learning the technical material, you can also expect personalised hand-holding and motivational support, making your revision more efficient even outside tutoring sessions. Simon in our team spent 10 years at a private school and was bumped up to A*AA from a predicted ABB after just 6 months with a professional tutor twice per week! Please do get in touch with Pebble Partners if you consider getting a personal tutor.

Pebble Partners is an education consulting firm specialising in one-on-one provision of UK university/school (including PhD and Postdoc) admissions consulting, career coaching and A Level/GCSE tutoring.