Most resit students are closer than they think. The Foundation tier is designed so a grade 4 is achievable from the middle of the paper — you do not need the hardest questions at all.
Target the high-frequency topics
- Fractions, decimals and percentages, including reverse percentages.
- Ratio and proportion, including recipes, sharing and best value.
- Solving linear equations and substituting into formulas.
- Area, perimeter, volume and basic angle reasoning.
- Averages from lists and tables, and reading graphs accurately.
- Rounding, estimation and standard form.
These reappear on every paper. Getting them right consistently is worth more than partial knowledge spread thinly across everything.
Change how you use past papers
- Timed, closed-book, in one sitting — otherwise the score means nothing.
- Mark against the official mark scheme, exactly as written.
- Classify each lost mark: didn't know it, knew it and slipped, or ran out of time.
- Fix the biggest category first. If most losses are slips, the problem is checking, not knowledge.
Build the habits that hold in the exam
- Always write the working line before the answer — method marks exist even when the answer is wrong.
- Underline what the question is actually asking before you start.
- Attempt every question; a blank scores nothing and partial method often scores something.
- Leave five minutes to revisit anything you flagged.
Six weeks of focused work on the list above, with two properly marked past papers, changes most resit outcomes far more reliably than another full pass through the textbook.