This summer’s IGCSE results reflected the hard work and commitment of our students. With 32% of students scoring five or more A-A* grades, students and teachers at Yew Chung International School of Beijing have a lot to feel proud of.

Among our cohort of exceptional students are Eunseo Park and Hyunju Ju.

The Cambridge International Examinations board recently gave Eunseo a High Achievement Award from for her performance in the First Language Korean paper.

The exam board have awarded Hyunju the prestigious title of Top in the World for her 100% score in Additional Mathematics.

Rested after a hard-earned summer holiday, Eunseo and Hyunju to share their tips for preparing for IGCSEs.

Keep on top during the year

Try to stay on top of work during the year. Catch up on things you didn’t understand and keep careful notes from lessons. This will help you when it comes to revising in the summer.

Use past papers

Past papers are really useful. Do all of them, then go over everything you got wrong and find out how to do it right. Once you’ve completed the past papers from the last few years, you’re pretty set for the real exam!

Practise writing under timed conditions

Exams are all about writing and thinking under time pressure. As exam term approaches, start writing your essays or doing past papers under timed conditions. At first it’s hard, but you will find that you get better at planning and structuring your answers in short time.

Start a new notebook for revision

When you start revising, start a new revision notebook for each subject. On each page, write out a topic title and brainstorm all of the themes to do with that topic. Then you can flick through and have a one-minute overview of every topic.

Use sticky notes

To help you memorise quotes or formulae, write them on sticky notes and stick them around your home or at your desk so you see them every day!

Use your formulae

Rather than just memorising formulae, make sure you’re using them all the time. The same applies to quotes too. Put them in essays to see how useful they are.

Make a revision timetable

When your exam timetable arrives, work out when you should be revising for each subject. Some exams have gaps in between them – that’s a good time to revise for the upcoming exams.

Make sure you have allowed enough time to revise for each subject – around two or three days each.

Use the teachers

Teachers run revision classes to help go over topics. It’s important that you use this time to ask them about things you don’t understand.

Don’t overthink

We found that after you’ve sat an exam, you spend ages thinking about everything that you might have got wrong and dwelling on mistakes. Try not to! It’s not a good use of your energy!

Allow time to unwind

Exam term is really tiring and it’s easy to burn out. Give yourself time to exercise, listen to music or watch a movie so your mind can empty! Also, sleep is really important.

Our warmest congratulations to Eunseo and Hyunju for their brilliant IGCSE results. We wish them the best of luck forthe next two years of IBDP!