How to use this site

ICT Revise helps you revise for Pearson Edexcel International GCSE ICT (4IT1) a few minutes at a time. This page explains how it works.

Finding your way

The home page has four sections. The menu at the top of every page has the same pages:

  • Learn (menu: Topics): short learning units and revision notes for every subtopic.
  • Practise (menu: Practice): Smart Practice, activities, the Revision Challenge and the questions you got wrong.
  • Exam preparation (menu: Practice): exam-style questions, longer written answers and practice papers.
  • My progress (menu: Progress): your scores, what to revise next, and saving your progress.

For teachers, also in the menu, has a lesson plan, homework ideas and a link to set work on every subtopic.

The magnifying glass searches the whole site, and the moon button switches dark mode on and off. On a phone, both are in the Menu when there is not enough room.

Learning units

Each subtopic is split into short units of 5–10 minutes. In each unit you:

  1. learn one idea at a time, with a photo or diagram;
  2. check yourself straight away and read why each answer is right or wrong;
  3. remember the key terms;
  4. pass the quick check at the end to complete the unit.

The home page’s Continue revising bar takes you back to the unit you were working on.

Each subtopic also has a page of revision notes. The learning objective at the top says what you need to be able to do. The In this topic menu jumps to each part of the notes. After each part, Key ideas sum it up and a Check your understanding question tests it. Common mistakes lists the mix-ups to avoid, and the Previous and Next links at the bottom take you through the subtopics in order.

Practice

  • Smart Practice chooses questions for you. A question you get wrong comes back soon; one you get right comes back after a few days, then less often.
  • Review my mistakes lists every question you got wrong, with the right answer and similar questions.
  • Activities and the Revision Challenge help you remember key terms and facts.

How marking works

  • Multiple-choice and other quick questions are marked right or wrong straight away.
  • Short written answers (1 to 4 marks) are checked against marking points, like the ones an examiner uses. You see what you got right (with your own words quoted), what was missing, how to improve and a model answer. The mark is labelled Estimated mark, not an official Pearson mark, because a computer cannot read an answer the way an examiner does. If you think the estimate is wrong, read the marking points and change the mark.
  • A point needs a whole idea, not just a keyword. Write full sentences, put each point in its own sentence, and for “explain” questions add the reason or effect, for example with “because” or “so”.
  • Longer answers (6 and 8 marks: discuss, evaluate) are marked by level in the real exam. Here you mark them yourself, using the level descriptions, a checklist and a model answer. The site shows which ideas it can spot in your answer, and tips on how to improve it, to help you.

Only Pearson can give an official mark, in the real exam. The questions on this site are written for it and are not Pearson past-paper questions.

Display settings and accessibility

You can make the text larger, use high contrast colours, turn off animations and make the keyboard focus outline thicker. Your choices are saved in this browser and apply to every page.

The Display settings button is also at the bottom of every page. Every page can be used with a keyboard alone (Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter and the arrow keys), and your browser’s zoom (Ctrl and +, or ⌘ and + on a Mac) works too.

Saving your progress

Your progress is saved automatically in this browser on this device only. It is not sent anywhere. That means:

  • it will not appear on another computer, tablet or phone, or in another browser;
  • clearing your browser data, or a school computer that resets every day, deletes it;
  • in a private or incognito window it is lost when you close the window.

To keep a copy, use Save my progress. It downloads a small file. To carry on later or on another device, open the site there and use Restore my progress to load the file.

Both are also in the Progress menu on every page and at the top of My progress.

Getting help

Found a mistake, have an idea or a question? Use the Contact page: report a mistake, suggest an improvement or send a general enquiry. Teachers can read the Teacher guide. How the site handles your data is explained under Privacy.