This week's reflections
There is a trend on TikTok at the moment called the PPP method. Students who got an A* film themselves explaining that they did nothing except past papers. The comments fill up with younger students saying they are going to do the same. I actually had a chat with one student this week who said he was planning to do exactly what he saw on TikTok.
I understand why it appeals. It sounds simple. It promises you can avoid the hard part and still get the grade.
On my mind this week
There is a name for what is happening here. It is called survivorship bias. You only hear from the students who made it. The student who did nothing but past papers and came out with a C does not film a video about it.
You also don’t see what else was behind that A*. A one-minute video leaves out two years of lessons. It leaves out the teacher who explained osmosis four different ways until it finally made sense, the practicals, the marked essays and the lunchtime sessions before mocks. Past papers worked for that student because the knowledge was already there. Past papers test what you know. They cannot teach it to you.
Every student gets a different school experience. Some have the same specialist teacher for two years. Others have a run of supply teachers or a teacher who leaves at Christmas. I have taught in an inner London comprehensive and in a high-performing grammar school, so I have seen both ends of this. Copying the revision method of a student who had a completely different two years to you makes no sense.
I see the result every single year. Students predicted an A* end up with a C and lose their university place. Most of them were not lazy. They worked hard on the wrong thing because someone online made a shortcut sound like a strategy.
Study Tip
What you do outside your lessons matters enormously and it needs a system. Past papers belong at the end of that system, not the start.
First make sure you understand the content. Then test yourself on it without your notes open. Once you can recall it, answer past paper questions on that topic. Mark them against the mark scheme and find exactly where you lost each mark. Go back to the content you got wrong and fix it before you move on.
Save full papers for when you have covered most of the specification. A full paper in October on topics you have not learned yet only tells you that you have not learned them.
For parents
If your child tells you their revision plan is “just past papers”, ask them one question: what do you do when you get something wrong?
If the answer is that they read the mark scheme and move on, the gap is still there. They will lose the same marks in June.
Quote of the week
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
– Beverly Sills
