Eyes of the Cosmic Whale
“…leaving the heavens naked, glistening blue-black, like the belly of some cosmic whale…”Archive for IGCSE
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 »
Writing: my anti-drug
Nanowrimo is fast approaching and I’m enjoying every second of the preparation.
The cons is that I’m spending less time studying and focusing in my IGCSE’s.
The pros is that I’m having so much fun, it’s hard to put it into words.
The brainstorming in the last few days has been neverending. Today, while in the library, the character on mine who is a conspiracy theorist suddenly became an avian flu conspiracy theorist. And then I could just see him, in the Biblioteca Nacional (which I’ll have to visit, since it’ll be a recurring setting), flicking through old archives and suddenly screaming out loud “I knew it! It’s all because of the chicken exports!”. And then I saw Marlene, telling her mom to stop buying chicken, and her mom asking why, and she saying “I’ve got this half Swiss friend that told me. The embassy keeps sending them stuff”, and of course her mom would be like wtf? (And she doesn’t even know he’s like 50!)Naughty Marlene would have to fake knowing him from the public speaking classes, because the truth sounds way surreal.
The truth is way surreal. Their truth. This truth. Read the rest of this entry »
Nanowrimo, here I come!
Oh yes. This year, I’m going to try Nanowrimo. I say “try” because there’s a million impediments. For a start, the IGCSE exams. They’ve already started and I can barely believe it. The ones I’ve had so far haven’t been so hard, but then there they were Spanish and French and those are easy subjects. The ones that scare me are those that are coming up…history and sciences. Yikes.
The IGCSE’s finish on November 16th. So let’s say I don’t write anything until the 16th- I still have half a month to go. Today I realized I’ll also have the retiro de confirmación and stuff…but I hope it works out. I hope I get to write. Which is the whole point. Man, I’m going to have so much fun!
Today I reached a point in which I can say: Nanowrimo, here I come! I’ve got a plot and it’s slowly piecing up. Well, it’s not a complete plot, either, but the ideas come in the form of patches and patch by patch, I hope I’ll be able to make the quilt.
So far I’ve got 4/5 main characters and most of the plot. I need a twist and I need the end. But it’s working out.
My plot in one sentence: a failed psychologist decides to try and help people by putting motivational quotes on the back of a fake dollar in the street.
It sounds…weird like that (it’s hard to put it in one sentence, there’s so much I’d like to say about it). But it’s going to work. I’m going to make it work. I hope so.
I’ll keep you updated 
.
And now, ahoy, I’ll do more Paper 1 History questions.
C:
