What's the essential piece of advice you'd give to someone starting their A-levels?
Scroll to see replies
Original post by samiz20891
I do apologise if I didn't understand this correctly, been years since studied any French.
*I think it really depends if you enjoy a course at uni tbh, I feel if you like your degree, you tend to do better. I did Bsc economics and found the calculus and core economics fairly straightforward but thought that the third year econometrics in particular was challenging. Well econometrics overall was probably the hardest part but I did okay and got a first overall..
I am studying my professional accountancy qualification atm and working as a management accountant.*
*I think it really depends if you enjoy a course at uni tbh, I feel if you like your degree, you tend to do better. I did Bsc economics and found the calculus and core economics fairly straightforward but thought that the third year econometrics in particular was challenging. Well econometrics overall was probably the hardest part but I did okay and got a first overall..
I am studying my professional accountancy qualification atm and working as a management accountant.*
Yh you got it 👍🏾; thanks for the reply, I'm going to do economics at a-levels never done it before and I also considered a course called "maths with economics" for degree
How much do you earn? (If you don't mind me asking)
Posted from TSR Mobile
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by AdeptDz
Yh you got it 👍🏾; thanks for the reply, I'm going to do economics at a-levels never done it before and I also considered a course called "maths with economics" for degree
How much do you earn? (If you don't mind me asking)
Posted from TSR Mobile
How much do you earn? (If you don't mind me asking)
Posted from TSR Mobile
My brother does the degree. What A-levels are you going to do?
Original post by OGGUS
My brother does the degree. What A-levels are you going to do?
Maths further maths economics biology
Where does he do it? And do you know his career goal?
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by AdeptDz
Maths further maths economics biology
Where does he do it? And do you know his career goal?
Posted from TSR Mobile
Where does he do it? And do you know his career goal?
Posted from TSR Mobile
He studies at Aston and he doesn't know what he wants to become. He's on placement these days. Working. He's done 2 years
Original post by OGGUS
He studies at Aston and he doesn't know what he wants to become. He's on placement these days. Working. He's done 2 years
Cool, good luck to him
How about you?
Posted from TSR Mobile
DO NOT tell yourself that you'll get your work done later, or that you'll learn what you don't understand/catch up on what you missed later, DO IT NOW!!
Also, if you've started your a levels and found that one of the subjects that you're studying isn't enjoyable, switch it ASAP. You won't begin to enjoy it later, no matter what you think. Studying that subject will be dreadful and creates a negative impact on other subjects too.
Also, if you've started your a levels and found that one of the subjects that you're studying isn't enjoyable, switch it ASAP. You won't begin to enjoy it later, no matter what you think. Studying that subject will be dreadful and creates a negative impact on other subjects too.
Original post by AdeptDz
I'm in college, gonna do engineering ideally mechinal or mechatronics or something.
Original post by OGGUS
I'm in college, gonna do engineering ideally mechinal or mechatronics or something.
Cool cool, good luck to you to
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by AdeptDz
Thanks
1. If you don't really enjoy a subject, drop it early and try something else.. Or if you are finding it particularly difficult, ie not just a little challenging.. Definitely drop it or change it. I tried to carry on with maths and ended up learning the whole spec then dropping it, afterwards my other subjects improved and I felt a lot better about my AS grades, however I didn't do as well as I could've and wish I'd have swapped/dropped maths sooner.
2. Use your time wisely, my first year I spent my free blocks talking with friends, going into town etc.. I didn't really start my revision until quite late etc and because of this my grades suffered (ADD). 2nd yeah I started my revision at the start of the year, using my frees to go over everything, rewrite notes etc.. I ended up rewriting everything I learned in biology and psychology at least twice, with full books of hand written notes. I came in early and stayed late when it got to around March, and for me this made all the difference. The very end of exam time I spent entire days rewriting everything, I did every past exam I could find, made up my own essays and wrote them and got them marked etc.. I had to do 3 resits which I paid for out of my own money and if I had a better work ethic in first year I probably wouldn't have had to. This year my past papers are consistently A* and I'm looking at getting a much better set of grades, which I worked my a** off for haha.
3. If there is a teacher you think isn't up to par, don't just sit and moan about them to your friends/classmates, make a formal complaint. We had a very new inexperienced teacher for history who wouldn't take feedback on board and barely knew the spec, really damaging all our grades.. I spent quite some time just hoping things would get better but in the end I just had to do the right thing and tell the subject leader what was going on, getting others to voice their problems too. I also told my tutor what the problems were, just to try and make sure something could be done. After they'd received all the feedback, lessons were better and the teacher actually paid attention to the comments we were making.. Unfortunately this took so long, it happened once the spec had been fully learned and we were all doing independent revision. If you have a serious problem, tell someone as soon as you can!
4. Get to know the UMS system pretty well, it'll help you in the long run (At least it did for me). Every past paper you do, look up the UMS to raw marks conversion for that particular paper and see how close you were to the next grade boundary, in the end UMS are all that matters :/. Find out how many UMS each unit is worth, for me in 2nd year I could estimate how many UMS I needed in certain exams to get the grade I wanted, such as for history.. learning that with my other grades for AS and my coursework, I'd be able to get a B overall just by getting a D in the A2 exam, which definitely took some of the pressure off. I'm not sure if it's the same for the new spec but it'll at least help when you're doing past papers and want to know exactly what grade it would be.. It also shows you easily how many marks are needed for an A*, and how many marks would get you max UMS.
Enjoy your time at college/sixth form and even if you do screw up there's always something you can do to try improve your situation, be that exam resits, an EPQ, or spending a year doing work after to improve your prospects for university
.
2. Use your time wisely, my first year I spent my free blocks talking with friends, going into town etc.. I didn't really start my revision until quite late etc and because of this my grades suffered (ADD). 2nd yeah I started my revision at the start of the year, using my frees to go over everything, rewrite notes etc.. I ended up rewriting everything I learned in biology and psychology at least twice, with full books of hand written notes. I came in early and stayed late when it got to around March, and for me this made all the difference. The very end of exam time I spent entire days rewriting everything, I did every past exam I could find, made up my own essays and wrote them and got them marked etc.. I had to do 3 resits which I paid for out of my own money and if I had a better work ethic in first year I probably wouldn't have had to. This year my past papers are consistently A* and I'm looking at getting a much better set of grades, which I worked my a** off for haha.
3. If there is a teacher you think isn't up to par, don't just sit and moan about them to your friends/classmates, make a formal complaint. We had a very new inexperienced teacher for history who wouldn't take feedback on board and barely knew the spec, really damaging all our grades.. I spent quite some time just hoping things would get better but in the end I just had to do the right thing and tell the subject leader what was going on, getting others to voice their problems too. I also told my tutor what the problems were, just to try and make sure something could be done. After they'd received all the feedback, lessons were better and the teacher actually paid attention to the comments we were making.. Unfortunately this took so long, it happened once the spec had been fully learned and we were all doing independent revision. If you have a serious problem, tell someone as soon as you can!
4. Get to know the UMS system pretty well, it'll help you in the long run (At least it did for me). Every past paper you do, look up the UMS to raw marks conversion for that particular paper and see how close you were to the next grade boundary, in the end UMS are all that matters :/. Find out how many UMS each unit is worth, for me in 2nd year I could estimate how many UMS I needed in certain exams to get the grade I wanted, such as for history.. learning that with my other grades for AS and my coursework, I'd be able to get a B overall just by getting a D in the A2 exam, which definitely took some of the pressure off. I'm not sure if it's the same for the new spec but it'll at least help when you're doing past papers and want to know exactly what grade it would be.. It also shows you easily how many marks are needed for an A*, and how many marks would get you max UMS.
Enjoy your time at college/sixth form and even if you do screw up there's always something you can do to try improve your situation, be that exam resits, an EPQ, or spending a year doing work after to improve your prospects for university
.Original post by kerryrevie
1. If you don't really enjoy a subject, drop it early and try something else.. Or if you are finding it particularly difficult, ie not just a little challenging.. Definitely drop it or change it. I tried to carry on with maths and ended up learning the whole spec then dropping it, afterwards my other subjects improved and I felt a lot better about my AS grades, however I didn't do as well as I could've and wish I'd have swapped/dropped maths sooner.
2. Use your time wisely, my first year I spent my free blocks talking with friends, going into town etc.. I didn't really start my revision until quite late etc and because of this my grades suffered (ADD). 2nd yeah I started my revision at the start of the year, using my frees to go over everything, rewrite notes etc.. I ended up rewriting everything I learned in biology and psychology at least twice, with full books of hand written notes. I came in early and stayed late when it got to around March, and for me this made all the difference. The very end of exam time I spent entire days rewriting everything, I did every past exam I could find, made up my own essays and wrote them and got them marked etc.. I had to do 3 resits which I paid for out of my own money and if I had a better work ethic in first year I probably wouldn't have had to. This year my past papers are consistently A* and I'm looking at getting a much better set of grades, which I worked my a** off for haha.
3. If there is a teacher you think isn't up to par, don't just sit and moan about them to your friends/classmates, make a formal complaint. We had a very new inexperienced teacher for history who wouldn't take feedback on board and barely knew the spec, really damaging all our grades.. I spent quite some time just hoping things would get better but in the end I just had to do the right thing and tell the subject leader what was going on, getting others to voice their problems too. I also told my tutor what the problems were, just to try and make sure something could be done. After they'd received all the feedback, lessons were better and the teacher actually paid attention to the comments we were making.. Unfortunately this took so long, it happened once the spec had been fully learned and we were all doing independent revision. If you have a serious problem, tell someone as soon as you can!
4. Get to know the UMS system pretty well, it'll help you in the long run (At least it did for me). Every past paper you do, look up the UMS to raw marks conversion for that particular paper and see how close you were to the next grade boundary, in the end UMS are all that matters :/. Find out how many UMS each unit is worth, for me in 2nd year I could estimate how many UMS I needed in certain exams to get the grade I wanted, such as for history.. learning that with my other grades for AS and my coursework, I'd be able to get a B overall just by getting a D in the A2 exam, which definitely took some of the pressure off. I'm not sure if it's the same for the new spec but it'll at least help when you're doing past papers and want to know exactly what grade it would be.. It also shows you easily how many marks are needed for an A*, and how many marks would get you max UMS.
Enjoy your time at college/sixth form and even if you do screw up there's always something you can do to try improve your situation, be that exam resits, an EPQ, or spending a year doing work after to improve your prospects for university.
2. Use your time wisely, my first year I spent my free blocks talking with friends, going into town etc.. I didn't really start my revision until quite late etc and because of this my grades suffered (ADD). 2nd yeah I started my revision at the start of the year, using my frees to go over everything, rewrite notes etc.. I ended up rewriting everything I learned in biology and psychology at least twice, with full books of hand written notes. I came in early and stayed late when it got to around March, and for me this made all the difference. The very end of exam time I spent entire days rewriting everything, I did every past exam I could find, made up my own essays and wrote them and got them marked etc.. I had to do 3 resits which I paid for out of my own money and if I had a better work ethic in first year I probably wouldn't have had to. This year my past papers are consistently A* and I'm looking at getting a much better set of grades, which I worked my a** off for haha.
3. If there is a teacher you think isn't up to par, don't just sit and moan about them to your friends/classmates, make a formal complaint. We had a very new inexperienced teacher for history who wouldn't take feedback on board and barely knew the spec, really damaging all our grades.. I spent quite some time just hoping things would get better but in the end I just had to do the right thing and tell the subject leader what was going on, getting others to voice their problems too. I also told my tutor what the problems were, just to try and make sure something could be done. After they'd received all the feedback, lessons were better and the teacher actually paid attention to the comments we were making.. Unfortunately this took so long, it happened once the spec had been fully learned and we were all doing independent revision. If you have a serious problem, tell someone as soon as you can!
4. Get to know the UMS system pretty well, it'll help you in the long run (At least it did for me). Every past paper you do, look up the UMS to raw marks conversion for that particular paper and see how close you were to the next grade boundary, in the end UMS are all that matters :/. Find out how many UMS each unit is worth, for me in 2nd year I could estimate how many UMS I needed in certain exams to get the grade I wanted, such as for history.. learning that with my other grades for AS and my coursework, I'd be able to get a B overall just by getting a D in the A2 exam, which definitely took some of the pressure off. I'm not sure if it's the same for the new spec but it'll at least help when you're doing past papers and want to know exactly what grade it would be.. It also shows you easily how many marks are needed for an A*, and how many marks would get you max UMS.
Enjoy your time at college/sixth form and even if you do screw up there's always something you can do to try improve your situation, be that exam resits, an EPQ, or spending a year doing work after to improve your prospects for university
.I like reading these long posts, always helpful! Thanks for the advice and I'm guessing you're awaiting your A2 results so good luck!
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by AdeptDz
I like reading these long posts, always helpful! Thanks for the advice and I'm guessing you're awaiting your A2 results so good luck!
Posted from TSR Mobile
Posted from TSR Mobile
Yeah I am, eagerly waiting to say the least but as expected a little nervous :3. Hopefully it will help someone! I have a close friend who will be starting A-levels and I'm telling her everything I can to prepare her, thought it would be a good idea to share some of it on this thread. Thank you!
Original post by kerryrevie
Yeah I am, eagerly waiting to say the least but as expected a little nervous :3. Hopefully it will help someone! I have a close friend who will be starting A-levels and I'm telling her everything I can to prepare her, thought it would be a good idea to share some of it on this thread. Thank you!
No problem, if you have anymore tips may you post them (they are helpful and I need AAAA) of not your original post was helpful anyway and I'm sure it'll help someone else, and that is good of you
Posted from TSR Mobile
I admit that i didn't put my full effort into mine and regret not doing that now. i would advice that you at least put your full effort into them, especially knowing that if you do well you can receive a bursary from your university usually. i could of received that and i could of gotten onto the original course i wanted to do at university. 
Original post by She-Ra
Your A-levels are done, you're now officially a little bit older and a little bit wiser 
So what's the essential piece of advice you'd give to someone starting their A-levels?
This is a golden thread. Join in with the discussion before 26 August 2016 to be in with the chance of winning an iPad air 2!
Other golden threads:
1. List the fibs your teacher told you at school
2. What's your ultimate summer tune?
3. Which GCSE subject can you not wish to ditch?
4. Sum up how you’re feeling about results day in a meme or gif
5. How do you plan to celebrate your exam results?
6. Starting uni: what are you most excited about?
7. One essential piece of advice you'd give to someone starting their A-levels
8. What's the one thing will get you through results day?
The competition runs from 3 August to 23:59 on 26 August 2016. The random draw will be made on 30 August 2016.
So what's the essential piece of advice you'd give to someone starting their A-levels?
This is a golden thread. Join in with the discussion before 26 August 2016 to be in with the chance of winning an iPad air 2!
Other golden threads:
1. List the fibs your teacher told you at school
2. What's your ultimate summer tune?
3. Which GCSE subject can you not wish to ditch?
4. Sum up how you’re feeling about results day in a meme or gif
5. How do you plan to celebrate your exam results?
6. Starting uni: what are you most excited about?
7. One essential piece of advice you'd give to someone starting their A-levels
8. What's the one thing will get you through results day?
The competition runs from 3 August to 23:59 on 26 August 2016. The random draw will be made on 30 August 2016.
Make sure you take subjects you genuinely enjoy, not just ones your parents like, or subjects that will look 'impressive'!
Kill yourself before it's too late
Nah, but in all seriousness, do something you enjoy. If you do, then you'll probably find it less hard to revise and are more likely to do well rather than choosing something to get onto a certain course as you enjoy it, and you know what they say.... time flies when you're having fun.
I enjoyed Sixth Form. The studying part was ok, but the freedom and liberty you had was good. Also, the social aspect. I miss it where everyone was sat in their groups around tables during break and lunch, everyone relaxed and chill.
Nah, but in all seriousness, do something you enjoy. If you do, then you'll probably find it less hard to revise and are more likely to do well rather than choosing something to get onto a certain course as you enjoy it, and you know what they say.... time flies when you're having fun.
I enjoyed Sixth Form. The studying part was ok, but the freedom and liberty you had was good. Also, the social aspect. I miss it where everyone was sat in their groups around tables during break and lunch, everyone relaxed and chill.
(edited 7 years ago)
Start working hard from the very beginning of the term - that means doing all the homework you're set as soon as you can, doing extra reading (for me it was textbooks and other scientific books). This sets up a good pattern for the rest of the year, and means you feel more on top of your workload when mocks/exams are approaching 
I need advice on these a level choices, I have chosen maths, chemistry, biology and physics, I will most likely drop physics after a year, but is this going to cause me to be too over worked? There are really no other subjects I enjoy so I am very unsure on what to do, any opinions welcome! Thank you
Posted from TSR Mobile
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by blueribbons99
I need advice on these a level choices, I have chosen maths, chemistry, biology and physics, I will most likely drop physics after a year, but is this going to cause me to be too over worked? There are really no other subjects I enjoy so I am very unsure on what to do, any opinions welcome! Thank you
Posted from TSR Mobile
Posted from TSR Mobile
Extremely common combination, work hard and you'll be fine.
Try to have an idea of what course you want to study in university.
Make sure your courses are relevant to that course.
I made the mistake of assuming that a Computing A Level would be required for a Computer Science course, which seems logical. However, only maths was required.
This led to me struggling through two years of a Computing A Level which I didn't need to actually do, with WJEC, a notoriously strict board when it comes to mark schemes and examiners.
And now results day awaits...
Make sure your courses are relevant to that course.
I made the mistake of assuming that a Computing A Level would be required for a Computer Science course, which seems logical. However, only maths was required.
This led to me struggling through two years of a Computing A Level which I didn't need to actually do, with WJEC, a notoriously strict board when it comes to mark schemes and examiners.
And now results day awaits...
Quick Reply
Related discussions
- Art GCSE final piece
- Junior IT role/job
- No portfolio for Uni! Help please?
- Year 11 advice?!
- is epq useful at all?
- graphic design portfolio query
- Digital Marketing Student needing some advice!
- Student finance urgent help
- Question about uni applications
- Newcastle partners
- abrsm or trinity for piano
- worried about a-level choices
- Cambridge MML Application Advice
- My university teachers are so bad
- I don't know what A- levels to drop/switch
- Getting into teaching without a degree?
- Applying for composition - some advice
- Need help with starting a essay for uni
- Biochemistry without maths?
- Can't decide on a 3rd A-Level!
Latest
Last reply 9 minutes ago
My boyfriend left me because he said my breasts and butt were too smallLast reply 54 minutes ago
Official University of Strathclyde Applicant Thread for 2024Posted 55 minutes ago
What were the Modern Poetry questions from last year? (Edexcel)Last reply 1 hour ago
Official London School of Economics and Political Science 2024 Applicant Thread
