Please help, method for GCSE science questions?

Iv'e just done my first year of GCSE's and I was hopeless at the beggining with the application questions, i could barely get half the marks!! But we did lots of practice using previous exam questions and so I knew how to answer those application questions, you can get copies of past papers from the website of the course you are doing (AQA, OCR, EDEXEL). The way i approach them is to circle the command word (for example explain, describe) and highlight the thing they want you to talk about. Then you will focus your answer on the thing they want instead of writing lots of babble! Also don't try and complicate things, just approach them in a methodical way. Seriously, it gets wayy easier the more you practice and you have lots of time before the final exam. If you are doing AQA, the same as me, feel free to ask anymore questions :)