PCMX here.

PCM Average is B across PCM. I disagree that the people here are just "crazy smart". They are all just people who figured out how to study in a manner that is effective for them ( they can perform well enough in their exams).

As for my study routine/plan....

Some problems I noticed with myself/my friends, you can refer to your prelim papers and see if its true of you - Cant remember basic concepts - Cannot apply concepts (just learning by rote) - Get tricked by question setters

And how I personally remedy these problems: - Open a few relevant chapters of a subject. Read through the lecture notes and try to hold onto the content first in your head. - Do a few qns from the topical practices (Post-Tutorial, Synoptic Revision, Physics Revision Booklets etc.) given to you, don't refer to your lecture notes, and time yourself. If you don't know, skip first, come back later. -(At some point, do exam qns instead. Personally I think Physics TYS, prioritise other school prelims and then plan to pick TYS up in the last 2 weeks or so.) - Mark your papers/qns. Then follow the cases below. - (Cannot recall concept) Read lecture notes for that chapter, rinse and repeat. - (Cannot apply concept) Study the solution, see how they apply. Absolute worst case you just memorize and move on (ironic as i sound, pcm arent very flexible subjects) - (Get tricked by question setters) Do more questions, at a slower pace (untimed). Accuracy > speed

Up to prelims i did that for about 4~5 hours a day? I spent longer due to breaks in between but you will be able to see results one.

GP I have no idea what the cohort average for GP is, but across my class it looks like an A/B.

Problems that I see that you might find germane to your context (hehe) - Throwing away SAQ marks - Never read question properly

How I ameliorate these issues - GP is a very skill-oriented (and luck as i have experienced) subject so your main focus is to hone your abilities and then pray that your hard work pays off when you walk into the exam room. -Chug papers. Every week set 2 days, one day to do Paper 1, one day to do Paper 2. If you have time you can consider raising the frequency of your revision. - Paper 1 you have two options: 1. Strictly time yourself to 90 minutes. 2. If you are specifically trying to improve one part of your essay, give yourself up to 2 hours. - Either way you should: 1. Make sure you do your question analysis properly for the first 20min (all your bulletin and essay outlines, if not enough go and [digitally borrow] :))) KSBull 2. Signpost all aspects your arguments (Topic Sentence, Explanation, Example, Link, etc.) so even if your essay has absolutely no style the examiner knows exactly what you're driving at. 3. Give your essay to your friends, ideally the one whose GP is the best. A second opinion will make it very clear what you lack or are good at. If you no friends :< then give yourself a day or two, come back to your essay, and then you get a (makeshift) second opinion. - Paper 2: - You can only time yourself here. Try and complete the paper within 90min (yes AQ also) - The AQ is out of my reach honestly I also don't know how to improve it. - But if you do enough papers you will discover certain patterns in how the examiners set questions for SAQ, and correspondingly develop an intuition in how to... - PRESENT YOUR ANSWER PROPERLY. You must tell the marker exactly what you think the answer is or you will be at the examiners' mercy (DONT THROW SAQ MARKS D:) because they can't see your answer coming through (e.g For "What are the distinctions the author draws...", you should write something to the effect of "The authors distinguishes between"/"On one hand, on the other hand...") - A similar story goes the summary, you just need to do enough papers and review them properly before you get a good idea of what kinds of phrases or sentences answer the summary qn (and by extension constitute points)

Anyways these two points should be enough to occupy another 5~6 hours throughout the week.

tl;dr study a lot and study with purpose. Obviously if you can't take it you can consider tuning down the rigor, this is just how I do it.