How?

How do I get A/A* in A levels this September and how can i completely ace them?
Subjects going to take hopefully:
Biology
Chemistry
Psychology
not sure for the last one.

It's not going to be an easy challenge, and don't be disappointed in yourself if you don't get straight A*s, particularly in 3 difficult subjects. An A* at A-level is much more difficult than an A* at GCSE.

Once you've got a textbook, I would suggest reading ahead by a chapter or so ahead for each subject, so that when it's being taught to you it's the second time you'll have seen it and you can ask questions if necessary. Don't worry if you get stuck or don't understand bits as you self teach, that's what the teacher is there for.

Do all of your homework on time (as silly as it sounds, but I've been there, staying up til 2am the night before because I was being irresponsible, and it wasn't really helping me learn). Fun comes as a reward after doing what is necessary, not before.

And do more than just your homework - make notes, practice other questions available, maybe some research/videos online etc.

With Chem, you'll need to memorise / understand how certain things work, and then be able to cope with the maths parts (which comes through practice).

And at the end of it all, practice essay questions (where you know they will be asked), make notes for as many possiblities as you can, be familiar with mark schemes and what you need to be doing to get A*s, particularly in Psychology - Chem and Bio are slightly different, but as you do past paeprs you'll become familiar with what is expected of you.

You're off to a good start already by justing asking what is required of you.

Thank you for all of your advice, extremely useful. I wanted to ask how long do you revise for, or how long do you recommend as i know the work load at a level is very high?

I would not recommend setting any kind of quota for hours or a rigid timetable. Timetables work for some people but not for me - how I work is that I start around a fixed time, take breaks regularly when I feel that I've accomplished enough, have a bigger break for a meal and continue to do a bit afer that, but not a huge amount.

The thing is that it's not about putting in x amount of hours for y days to get z grade. It's about doing enough work, however long it takes, until you've done all the work that is required of you for your exam. One person could achieve in 3 hours what another could achieve in 4. If one person is doing something in 4 hours and someone else is doing the same amount of work in 10 hours(pretending that there's a way of measuring understanding and work and all of that) then the second person needs to look at their method and think of what they could improve.

So to answer your question in some sense, for me I just had rough goals and the rest was played by ear. Not the most organised method but it suited me best, rather than having a strict timetable or a strict number of hours that needed to be put in. Some weeks the number could increase, some weeks I might take easy or even do little work at all just as a break.

Yeah that i true, i find myself spending a lot of time tbh. So when you revise like what is your method? how do you start off? Do you start off by writing notes or what is that you do?

Thanks again!!

I study maths at uni now, and it's different to Maths at A-level, and there are some kind of 'note taking' elements of it. (pardon the very obscure maths joke).

With writing notes, it's not something that you just copy out and copy again until you absorb the information - in such situations, I read through the information first, try to understand what it's meaning, picture an image of what's going on, and then write out notes, perhaps copied directly from the textbook. This process is much better than just reading 1 word, copying it, reading the next word... and so on until you've written notes for something but have no idea what they mean.

The other thing I would say is to practice questions as much as you can. This applies a lot more in Maths, where you can answer loads of different questions. Questions in the textbook, questions online (that are relevant enough, don't go trying to tackle something that's only vaguely related and requires much more knowledge)to test your knowledge is what helps you to remember/understand things. Past papers are a useful tool for this.

Oh, and I would say that if you liked Maths at GCSE and you think you'll get an A*-B then that is something to think about.

I put Maths as an option but im not sure if i want to do it because i dont feel like i did quite well for the Gcse exam, but i will find out in August. Is it very hard at A levels?

It is a difficult A-level at first, for most people. For the people that work hard enough throughout the year, and practice enough questions, one day it all 'clicks' and you understand how to do well in it. The key is to appreciate that, for Maths and for other subjects, you need to work at home rather than just in class, and that with Maths in particular it's largely independent, in that your textbook will have loads of questions and your teacher is only going to tell you to do some sets of questions (from the textbook or otherwise) and it is up to you to do as many more as you need to.

I put Maths as an option but im not sure if i want to do it because i dont feel like i did quite well for the Gcse exam, but i will find out in August. Is it very hard at A levels?

Yeah very true, what other subjects did you take for your a levels?