Eyes of the Cosmic Whale
“…leaving the heavens naked, glistening blue-black, like the belly of some cosmic whale…”Archive for Exams
IGCSE Resources: to students, by a student
I’ve posted before that my IGCSE exams are over. They involved lots of preparation, and so I have lots of valuable resources that took me some time to discover and that could help others very much.
This is why I’ve decided to create this IGCSE Resources list. I want to share these links with the world! Of course, you’ll need more than this to get an A or A* on your IGCSE’s. I recommend you to grab syllabuses and create summaries, objective by objective. If you make them by hand, much better. That’s how one learns!
Before we go to the link list, I’d like to add a not-so-fine-print. If you do think this list is useful, please leave a comment. So I know I am actually helping someone. Besides, I don’t have to do this. A little appreciation would be nice.
And now…to the links!
ALL SUBJECTS:
http://www.cie.org.uk/qualifications/academic/middlesec/igcse/subjects - Click your subject and download the available past paper, markscheme and examiner report.
http://www.cambridgestudents.org.uk/examtime - Exam tips from Cambridge
HISTORY
http://www.activehistory.co.uk/igcse/paper_1a.htm - All Paper 1 past paper questions, very useful to identify patterns and practice
http://www.crampuppy.com/1/IGCSE/history/complete-igcse-history-summary.shtml - History summary, very brief and summarized but good if you already know the info. Other pages in this site have past paper questions, too.
GEOGRAPHY
http://www.geographyalltheway.com/igcse_geography.htm - Very friendly, fun to use, with lots of exercises and pictures
http://www.cambridgestudents.org.uk/subjectpages/geography/igcsegeography/ - Geography past papers and resources
BIOLOGY
http://e-subjects.co.uk/mod/resource/index.php?id=55 – Fabulous link!
http://www.cambridgestudents.org.uk/subjectpages/biology/igcsebiology/ - Biology past papers, examiner tips, useful sites…particularly check the “model answers” bit!
CHEMISTRY
http://www.docbrown.info/page10/page10.htm - Sometimes confusing to use, but if you search and search, you WILL eventually find the answers to the more obscure, horrible objectives.
http://www.cambridgestudents.org.uk/subjectpages/chemistry/igcsechemistry/ - Lots of chemistry resources, including past papers and model answers.
PHYSICS
http://physics.greengates.edu.mx/igcsenotes.htm – Equations and objective-by-objective tips. Great resource!
http://www.cambridgestudents.org.uk/subjectpages/physics/igscephysics/ - Once again, past papers and physics resources
For English LIT, there’s lots of sites out there with book analyses, and character and symbol insights…
For Spanish Lit there aren’t, so know your books and try doing some analysis yourself before the exam.
For French…it’s hard for me to say here, because my personal belief is that you either have it in you or you don’t. I had it in me, so it was all good. Still, review all your tenses and the “formule de politesse” used to close formal letters.
English and Spanish language…here it’s your writing skills that are tested, so no helpful site there. Practice, practice, practice. Check markschemes. Learn the strategies. And write!
Now you’ve got the base knowledge and a place to return to when in doubt. Work hard and use the resources well, young padawan.
It will have been worth it when it ends!
CW.
My IGCSE’s in a nutshell
Now the IGCSE examinations are finally over, I feel relieved and relaxed and a lot freer than before. The whole moving thing dawns on me more too, and makes it all the more hard. The intention of this post is to record what the IGCSE experience has been like. (For IGCSE resources, click here)
The IGCSE’s began on Oct 15, with the Spanish first language exam. The exam went ok, though I left with big doubts that made me truly uneasy, like having called someone a cretin in a letter and having given an introduction and a conclusion to my summary. It was a very boring exam, too.
Tuesday was the Spanish literature exam. I had prepared pretty well for it, but the questions can be hard sometimes, so I was panicking a bit. I suddenly felt I no longer had clear what had happened in Doña Barbara. As I was going in, though, I reminded myself something that Mr Andrews told us during his History revision sessions: don’t go in scared to the exam, take it as an intellectual challenge. You have no idea how much that worked. I instantly felt relieved of a lot of pressure, and knowing that I knew the books quite well helped too. When I went in, it was hard to choose what asterisk question to do, because I thought all the essay ones were easy. I chose an asterisk one for Doña Barbara, one on dramatic irony in El Sí de las Niñas and one on Impía, a poem I had done a project on. I was amazed and happy with myself that I could do well the question on Los Heraldos Negros, since Vallejo and his suicidal tendencies can be my weakness. It went well. Read the rest of this entry »
