#caie

Heyy everyone

So did CIE's IGCSE and *hair flip* got an A* in all my subjects.

So yeah I'm just tryna help. Fr.

Now listen u dont need to get an A* to be happy with ur grades. If those are ur goals then u go girl. If those are not u still go girl.

But my mum always says "Always aim higher than what u can get. Then you will reach the farthest u can go. Now go make another omelette for me."

Now a major thing I would do before an exam is open a candidate response, the qp, the ms and the examiner report.

Do each question, check with the markscheme, check the candidate response and assess where u are and then the examiner report.

I love this so much: https://paper.sc/

Examiner reports are a really underrated resource and are REALLY HELPFUL.

Use the 'IGCSE' reddit and discord server

IGCSE Notes – Soumya Pandey

Here are some of the resources I used and each subject tips

Maths:

Past papers past papers past pAPERS PAST PAPERS PAST PA-

Girl i cant tell u enough

Also makes sure to learn all the calculator tricks including the linear equations one, differentiation (the only ones I can think off the top of my head)

Make sure to practice past papers have good time management. Calm down during the exam. It'll all be fine.

(trust me i went and got bangs cause i was depressed about the way i wrote the exam and here we are)

Sciences:

Use the examiner report tip. Always always use the syllabus of each subject. And ofc past papers

Skill for Science Packs - Google Drive

Bio:

Drives:

IGCSE Biology (0610) notes from MS - Google Drive

bio

Chem:

Heather Houston - YouTube

IGCSE all chemical tests - YouTube

Drives:

chm

0620 Chemistry – Google Drive

Phy:

physics resources

Business:

Bs is one of the easist subjects cause of the repeated questions and the low thresholds. If there is one subject u wanna chose for fun let it be BS or EVM

EVM:

Smallest syllabus ever

Just do past papers you'll be fine

Ik everyone says that but thats cause its true

The same advice goes to ICT. Like the practicals are the easiest shit u can think of but a big mistake that people do is forget theory.

Study for theory and u get good marks.

English (1st language) :

My fav subject in IGCSE

It was sooo good

Always choose descriptive its just easier to score in

Go read books from good authors like Madelline Miller, Katherine Arden, and Ocean Vuong. Get phrases that u really like and copy them into a word document. Go through it before the exam and use it in the writing

You can also use: https://www.descriptionari.com/

Examiners' Secrets: Descriptive Writing (Mr Salles) - YouTube

Paper 1 video

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AND THATS ALL

To everyone doing their GCSE's

All the best

Just remember that it isnt everything. Year 10 and 11 is all about finding urself and having the time of ur life. I sure as hell did. And at the end of the day these results dont matter half as much as u think. Its not that they're not important. Its just that there are more important things in the world.

Part 1: tips + what I did + resources

These tips are for A-Level chemistry but can be used for any other course as well! A-Levels are generally considered tougher than AP exams, but in my experience are much easier than Indian boards such as CBSE, for example.

Before I get into the tips and what I actually did to improve, I would like to give a little bit of context about my situation, and why it might have been easy for me to pull my grade up so drastically. You can skip to the tips directly if you want! I’ve broken this down into three segments:

tips + what I did

resources

special tips for AS Practical (part 2!)

Some Context

I gave the CAIE examinations. I took the staged A-Level route, where you give your AS Levels papers and A Levels in separate, consecutive years. I received a C on my official transcript for AS-Level, to be precise. I changed my school right after AS-Level (11th grade) was complete, partly because of the grade I got (basically I didn’t trust my school enough haha). This gave me the opportunity to retake my exams – not sure if this is the equivalent of resitting the exam, as I had a special situation – as long as I would completely forgo my previous grade. So if I gave the exam again and got a grade even worse than the one I got in AS-Level, I couldn’t go back to the original grade. But this gave me a chance to start over completely.

I decided to give my exam in the February-March 2021 series (which is an India-only series), which fortunately didn’t get cancelled as it was before the second wave here in India, meaning there were no predictions and grade assignments based on coursework/school year performance (phew). Also, I have reason to believe the grade thresholds were lower in this series, as the board may have considered the effect of the pandemic, though the improvement is still significant. The switch to online school also meant that I saved commuting time, but that may have been cancelled out by the fact that I get tired by looking at screens for a long time, and that I spent an ungodly amount of time on Pinterest during my classes.

Tips + what I did

I don’t mean to be rude and ungrateful, but my teacher wasn’t exactly the best. So all these things only rely on you and not the teacher!

One thing I knew I did not do was put in enough effort into my studying, mostly because I was the best in my class even if I didn’t perform that well – I thought that’s just how good you can be in Chemistry. When I changed schools, my “best” was the average and there was this one guy who was just exceptionally smart, and that motivated me. So I decided to put in more effort and not give in to being lazy or saying “this is enough” for 3 hours of studying a day (not a competition, but I did around 6-8 hours for IGCSE, and that paid off really well).

Paid attention to my weakest points. For me, this was organic chemistry. I tend to be the person who goes on solving problems only on concepts which I know really well, which is obviously a problem since I couldn’t improve. I started making more notes, revising my notes, rewriting my notes in different formats (charts, mind maps, summaries, etc.) and really practiced my weakest points. This is especially useful if you, like me, have trouble remembering things with no logical backing, which is pretty much all of organic chemistry.

Practiced, practiced, and practiced even more. This helped me consolidate my weak areas and all the theory-heavy concepts (again, organic chemistry and parts of inorganic chemistry) and also realize what the most important topics/concepts were. Past papers (site linked below) were my must-have study technique. In almost every exam series, there was one question about the thermal stability and/or solubility of group 2 compounds – and after so many corrections I memorised it. This is a handy tool, as you know where to focus and which are the important questions; you don't need exact topic-wise content percentages to know what's important, in my opinion.

Corrected past papers not too long after I did them. This was immensely helpful, as I remembered my thought process while answering questions, as I could pinpoint exactly where I went wrong, and what part of my working I needed to change. For inorganic chemistry it wasn’t very helpful, but it was game-changing in organic and physical chemistry. Also, I added really detailed corrections, including points I missed (even though I had enough points to score full in that question), and some vocabulary corrections (key words matter!).

Used Multiple sources if I didn’t understand a concept. I didn’t rely on them too heavily, mostly only to consolidate concepts. Again, these will be linked in below.

Made a “corrections journal”. Basically, I wrote down all the things that I didn’t know, hadn’t come across before, or found important in this journal. This was especially helpful for MCQs, as writing helps me consolidate information, and in last-minute revising,

Picked up on + researched how to answer the questions. Remember how I mentioned vocabulary corrections? These, along with certain phrases that I found were common, I wrote down (or just remembered, this was natural). I also looked up sample papers and saw exactly where marks were awarded, in addition to knowing the mark scheme (which only comes with practice).

Did not repeat papers. Now, everyone is different, but I never repeat papers until I get a perfect score (I never got a perfect score). There is effect called the mere exposure effect which states that we prefer/perform better when we have already been exposed to something, even though we don’t consciously remember it. So my second attempt, even if it will be better, will not be a true representation of how I perform.

Resources

OpenStax Chemistry 2e for some physical and inorganic chemistry (especially coordination compounds/transition elements), though this book doesn’t have organic chemistry.

For my fellow Hindi-speakers, Physics Wallah and Vedantu NEET made EJEE are two of the best channels out there, especially if you understand better by learning the mechanism

This past papers site (better than PapaCambridge as there’s no funny little ribbon at the top right corner, especially for the later papers)

Khan Academy, the MCAT section has some good lectures on biomolecules

NCERT Chemistry for some Physical Chemistry questions

Hodder Chemistry and Cambridge Chemistry textbooks (these were the basics; I had to have both of them because I changed schools and I’m an analogue person) – the Cambridge one had a pdf for my syllabus, though I’m sure that there’s newer versions’ pdfs too, just look them up according to your syllabus/prescribed textbook

Be on the lookout for part 2, where I talk about tips for the AS Practical paper! This was my downfall, so I learned a lot.

Main: @nerdartsy

Di-Gata 30 Day Challenge

Day 3: Self insert or an OC

Not much of a day 3, because this is a REALLY old oc from when di-gata was still a thing, and my sister was the one who drew her cause i couldnt ;u;

so ya, i need to fully redo her outfit and shit-but the face is fine -u-

Part 2: AS Level Practical Tips

The first time I got a C in my entire life on a final exam was in chemistry (C for Chemistry, amirite kiddos?). Though my other papers weren’t great either, I believe it was primarily my AS Level Practical paper that sank my grade like the Titanic. So, for A Levels, when I had the chance to give chemistry all over again, I paid much more attention to the finer details

I know, I know. I posted part 1 of this post, like, half a year ago. But hey, the wait is over, and (finally) here are some tips that helped me in AS Level.

know how to answer the questions. This is the most important part, because you don’t need any practical experience for this, and you can lose a great many marks if you don’t do this properly, even if you carry out your practical perfectly. It’s best to ask your teacher about this, or look up the mark schemes of recent papers.

know what to expect. This changes quite often, but every year has a fixed pattern for the paper, which you can use to practice questions and plan your time. I knew that my paper had three questions which had to complete in two hours, and that the first question was almost certainly going to be titration, the second one about enthalpy changes, and the third one about qualitative analysis.

speaking of titration, know your indicators. What colour is methyl blue in acidic solution? Neutral solution? Alkaline solution? What about phenolphthalein? More importantly, what is the colour of the solution when the titration has been completed?

manage your time well. As I mentioned before, knowing the question paper really helps. For the first time I practiced for the practical paper, our teacher gave us question papers with only two questions – bit of a shocker for us when we realized we had to do three questions on exam day! I gave myself an hour for each question and practiced accordingly, never reaching the speed I needed to. For my second attempt, I gave myself 40 minutes per question, give or take, and practiced accordingly. This way, I knew I could complete all three questions, while still redistributing time if anything goes wrong (the second question usually took less time than 40 minutes and the first question usually took more time).

try not to waste anything. If you’ve read any set of Confidential Instructions, you understand that student’s get a limited amount of each compound or element. If you ask for extras, it is noted down in the supervisor’s report, and can affect your overall grade.

know your equipment. How do you use a burette? What is a pipette and how do you use it without swallowing acid? How does your timer work – where are the start and stop buttons? What’s the best way to clean each piece of equipment.

keep your equipment clean. Contaminated substances are the worst sort of hindrance to efficiently and accurately completing your question. During my exam, I had contaminated beakers and burettes and had to repeat my titration from scratch – twice – which really threw me off. The best way to make sure this doesn’t happen is to clean your equipment with distilled water, and then rinse it with a little bit of the substance you’re going to be putting in it (use only a little!).

Qualitative Analysis

qualitative analysis can be a pain in the ass if you don’t know what you’re looking at. So, have a thorough understanding of which tests to use and when. Is this white precipitate for aluminum or magnesium? Wait, I don’t see any changes – could it be a gas I need to smell?

when you’re heating a test tube, always have damp litmus paper (both red and blue) at the edge of the test tube. This is especially helpful for qualitative analysis, but heating may be a part of other questions too. It works best when the paper gets bleached – you know it’s chlorine. Some of my classmates put litmus paper too, but I felt that my test tube got too crowded because of that, so I just dipped litmus paper to the solution directly (not a good piece of advice, but it worked – I never needed to use the litmus paper all that much anyways).

write down all your observations, but with pencil. Write down if you see any fumes, or steam collecting on the edges of the test tube. Write down if you see a small change in colour before a bigger change in colour. Write it down. Then, you can fair it out after you’ve done the proper analysis

Photo by Daniel Olah on Unsplash

Part 1: tips + what I did + resources