Eight years ago, I was a 15 year old eager to do well in my GCSEs but with little idea how to prepare. At the start of Year 11, I felt like my friends were already way ahead, and I worried that I was bound to disappoint my parents. It came as no surprise to me that I was predicted mostly Bs and Cs.
Ten months later, I walked away from GCSEs with 11A*s, all because I discovered and followed these six simple steps. I followed these same six simple steps to get a first-class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. They work for revising any exam.
Imagine you are alone in a cold, dark forest. You know there is a safe hut in the southwest corner, and you wander this way and that, desperately trying to find it. You realise the obvious truth: you can only reach the hut if you first figure out where you are. You start searching for clues, and once you find them and learn where you are, you can move towards your destination with a sense of purpose.
Wherever you want to get to in life, the first step is to discover where you are beginning from.
GCSEs work the same way. Before you can plan how to improve, you need to know your starting point. That doesn't just mean predicted grades — it means understanding, in each subject, which topics you're strong in and which ones you struggle with.
Your best strategy is to give yourself what I call a 'confidence score' for each topic — based on what you think you'd get if your entire GCSE exam were just that one topic. Each time you sit a test or complete a practice paper, note down your percentage for that topic and use it to adjust your confidence score.
For example, if you just scored 50% in an end-of-unit test, you might give yourself a 4 for that topic. If you scored 100%, you'd give yourself a 9. A confidence score is the quickest way to glance at a sheet and instantly see where you're weakest.
This works slightly differently in each subject. For English, your column might list all the different essay types, and you'd rate your confidence in each one.
Over time, this tracking sheet becomes your personal map of the forest — a live snapshot of where you are in every subject. Instead of revising blindly, you'll focus directly on the areas that need the most work. And when you see those weak topics turning into strong ones, the change will be right there in your scores.
Before we talk about the biggest challenge for GCSE students — actually sitting down and working — we need to discuss how to improve at every subject. If you don't know how improvement happens, you're much more likely to get distracted. So, here it goes…
The way to improve at anything in the world is simple: practice directed by feedback.
Practice, I'm sure you understand. You can't become a good pianist, footballer, or student without putting in the hours. But imagine being told you need to practice piano without hearing the notes, or learning to be a striker without seeing whether your shots go in. Without feedback, you have no idea whether what you are doing is working — or if you are just wasting your time.
This is the most important problem for GCSE students to solve when revising: for each subject, ask yourself, how do I get the right feedback?
Luckily, in many subjects, this is easy. If you want to revise for a Biology test, find practice questions similar to the exam, complete them, and check what you got wrong — that is your feedback — and go again.
Essay-based subjects are trickier. You cannot mark your own work, so you don't know whether you are on the right track. There is little point writing essays if your teacher is not going to mark them. That's why I created www.gcsewriting.com, the only platform where you can write English GCSE essays and receive feedback from the very people who mark the exams. If your aim is to improve your creative writing essays, there is no better way than to practice them with feedback directed by the examiners themselves.
My philosophy is that practice and feedback are not separate things you do at different times – but actually that you need to incorporate feedback into every study session to give yourself the best chance of improving.
Before any revision session, ask yourself three questions:
It's as simple as that. I followed this approach before every single study session.
For a Biology revision session, I might fill in the answers to these questions like this:
A key part of this process is knowing where to get feedback for each subject. For Maths and Science, there are websites offering unit tests. For English essay feedback, of course, you would use gcsewriting.com. Once you have a reliable source of feedback for each subject, there is little to stop you from practicing effectively.
The most difficult question for any student is: How do I sit down and actually do my work?
We've all been there. You start the day with a plan to do focused work, and you end the day cursing yourself because you got nothing done—you tried your best but ended up watching ten hours of YouTube instead. Because the evil people that designed these apps have done such a good job at keeping us hooked, the steps you need to take to actually sit and work without being distracted by them might seem quite extreme. I do hope you try them and see the incredible benefits.
There's a famous Greek myth about a hero named Odysseus. He and his crew were sailing toward an island that was home to the Sirens. Rumour had it that the Sirens' songs were so beautiful that anyone who heard them would go mad, jump off their ship, swim to the island, and never leave.
The sensible thing to do would have been to cover their ears. But Odysseus ordered his crew to tie him tightly to the ship's mast. He told them that no matter how much he begged, yelled, or commanded them to untie him and let him swim to the island, they had to refuse.
Because he was tied up, Odysseus was able to do the thing he wanted to do (hear the famous songs) without doing the thing he did not want to do (get stuck on the island forever).
By tying himself to the ship, he removed the possibility of making a bad choice when he was weakest.
In this article, I outline 3 ways you can tie yourselves to the ship and make it impossible for you to swim away from your work and get distracted online. These are the three ways that have worked best for me and that I keep coming back to whenever I am struggling to concentrate.
If you sit down to study and don't know what work to do, your brain is likely to wander and you are at your most vulnerable to get distracted. Not knowing what you are going to study is like not even knowing where the ship is supposed to go. If you don't know where it's going, then much harder to avoid the temptation to go straight to the Island.
My advice is to not only know what subject and topic you are going to study, but to know exactly how you are going to study it and for how long. I always set timers for each of my study sessions, so that I don't take a break until the timer runs out. These things ensure that I always know what I am supposed to be doing, and make it much easier for me to avoid distraction.
When I was in university, I came up with a weird deal with my flatmate. We agreed that if I went on my phone during our defined study sessions, I would immediately have to pay £30 to a charity I disliked. It was a lot of money for me at the time.
My flatmate, Michael, would check in with me every day, and since it was impossible to lie to him, I had to be honest. I broke the rule once, paid my £30, and then, just like that, I realised the consequences were real and stopped using my phone during the sessions.
What I was doing was increasing the cost of going on my phone and using social media to the point where it was so painful that I wouldn't do it.
You don't have to use money to do this. You could:
Whatever it is, the more you don't want to do it, the more effective it will be. The key is you need to do this with someone who will check on you, and to whom you will be completely honest. It is cool to have a friend that you do this with. Michael and I agreed that we could not change the terms of our agreement except during a conversation once a week. That meant that if the rules were not helping we could change them, but also that I couldn't say to him during a study session that it was time for me to stop.
It takes creativity and adjustment, but I have found this incredibly effective. Michael and I used to increase the amount of study time without phones on weeks when it was more important for us to be working.
My favourite technique when I was studying for my GCSEs was to leave distractions behind.
Here's how it worked: First, I would figure out exactly what work I needed to do. I'd download every worksheet, file, and reading material onto my laptop so I didn't need the internet later. Then, I'd head out to a café or library.
I'd make sure my phone was switched off and buried in my backpack and I wouldn't connect my laptop to the Wi-Fi. The only reason my phone was even with me was for a real emergency, and I never, ever took it out of the bag. I'd pay for my drink with a card, not my phone, and then get to work.
The rule was simple: I would decide in advance exactly how long I was going to be there, and that's what I would do. I had no internet on my laptop and I was out of my house. There was nothing I could do to distract myself.
During my break time, I would just sit and relax, walk around, or do whatever I wanted—but I would not open my phone. It's so difficult to go on your phone during a break and shift back into a work mindset.
This approach was massively better for me than working in my room. It might sound obvious to say, but working in your room is bound to be distracting because your room is supposed to be a place with lots of stuff that you like in it. It's full of things you like to do, which makes it a terrible place to try and focus on work.
Think about whether there is a place you can bring your work to that you do not find distracting. It will be a major upgrade over your room.
Some GCSE subjects are more important than others, and it's worth keeping this in mind when making your revision schedule. Here are four rules to guide how much time you spend on each subject:
The three most important subjects are Maths, English Literature, and English Language. Many universities have a minimum requirement for grades in Maths and English — sometimes a grade 4, sometimes a 5. At the other end, top universities look for very high grades as evidence of academic competence. If you're aiming for a humanities degree at Oxford or Cambridge, they'll expect at least a grade 8 in both English Language and Literature.
It's tempting to focus only on your weakest subjects. After all, that's where you can gain the most marks. But you should focus on the subjects you enjoy most — these are likely the ones you'll pursue at A-Level. Education narrows as you get older: from many GCSEs, to three A-Levels, to one or two university subjects. Universities will care much more about your excellence in the subject you plan to study than about unrelated GCSEs. So even if you're unsure about your future, doing really well in subjects you could see yourself continuing is the safest bet.
While you shouldn't spend all your time on the weakest subject, you should focus on the weakest topics within each subject. These are the areas where you're losing the most marks and can gain the most improvement. See Step 1 — Know Where You Are to learn how to track your weakest topics and instantly know what to focus on.
GCSEs are a balancing act. If you leave a subject untouched for too long, there's a startup cost when you return — you have to remember where you left off and what to work on. The best strategy is to spend some time on every subject each week. This keeps your progress steady across the board and ensures no subject falls behind.
A schedule is one of the most powerful tools for GCSE revision. It keeps you on track, makes sure you cover all your subjects, and helps you avoid distractions. Your schedule will look a bit different depending on the time of year, but every good schedule has five important parts:
Take one hour at the start of each week to make your weekly plan. This gives you a fresh start. I used to do this every Saturday evening before bed. By planning your week, every revision session has a purpose.
Don't just guess what you'll do. Write down exactly what you'll study in every session. As I said in Step 3 — How to Sit Down and Work — knowing what you will do before you start makes it much easier to focus.
For each session, choose the exact topic to revise. Step 4 — What GCSE Subjects Should I Focus On? shows you how to pick the right subjects and topics. Your schedule locks this in so you don't waste time wondering what to do.
Decide what practice and feedback you will do for each topic. Step 2 — Know How to Improveexplains why practice without feedback doesn't help much. Your schedule should make sure every topic includes both practice and feedback.
At the end of each week, look back at what you've done. Check your confidence scores (Step 1 — Know Where You Are) and see which topics still need work. Then use this to plan the next week.
By sticking to a weekly schedule like this, you turn revision from random and stressful into organised and manageable. You'll make steady progress, improve your weak topics, and cover every subject without feeling overwhelmed.
The most important part of your revision should be doing past questions. But don't just do them for the sake of it — use them to guide your revision.
Past papers are a great way to see exactly where you are in any subject. After you have revised a subject a lot, do a past paper and mark it. Most students make a big mistake here: they only look at their score and move on. That isn't enough. You need to look closely at which topics you did well in and which topics you struggled with.
This will help you see if your revision is working. You can then use your past paper results to adjust your tracker in each subject (see Step 1: Know Where You Are). This shows clearly which topics need more work and helps you focus your next revision sessions.
For Maths and Science, you can usually mark yourself using the mark scheme. But for essay subjects, you need feedback from a teacher or examiner. That's why we created gcsewriting.com, where you can submit English GCSE essays and get feedback from real examiners. The system works like this:
Here's an important story: when I was at school, there were lots of students who always got top marks in essays in class. But on exam day, they walked out looking like they'd been hit in the face. Why? They had never practised timed exams.
Knowing your stuff isn't enough. You need to get used to the exam format. Practise timed questions in every subject so that when the real exam comes, it feels normal and you don't panic.
Past papers aren't just tests — they are a roadmap for your revision. Use them to see where you are, find your weak points, and make sure you are improving in every subject.
gcsewriting.com is the only platform where students can submit GCSE English essays and receive feedback from the very people who mark the exams. 10x cheaper than a tutor, our examiners give students all the feedback they need to get top marks in their English GCSE.