What's the essential piece of advice you'd give to someone starting their A-levels?

Ok here is my advice

1) dont fall behind. It is very easy to do so and you dont want to add to your stress come exam period. Make sure if you miss a lesson you catch up.
2) always keep ticking over with revisiom. For example you may learn unit 1 my december and then unit 2 after then. After december every now and then you should be ticking over unit 1 so its fresh in your mind. HOW MANY people telling me in april "oh i havemt touched unit 4 chem in 3 months i forgotnit all'. Make sure you are not one of them
3) Long term plan should be made. This means that plan what you want done by next week maybe instead of wvery day. A good example is "my next week i want to be solid in the content of kinetics and nmr"
4) be specifc in your targets. Its no good saying "ill do 2 hours of revisiom". What revsiom do you mean? A better mentality is "today ill attempt an m2 paper and do some polar equation questions from fp2" - this way you know exactly what you are doing
5) know your progress for all modules. For example i was fine in every maths module and chem u4 bit was weak in chem u5 and econ u3 and u4. Therefore i knew i needed to work more in these modules.
6) do harder questions and TOPIC question. This is important. How many times have you heard people say after an exam "oh that exam was so hard". You have to be prepared for worst case sceanario and harder questions helps your understanding. Topic questions are the boss as they help you know which topics you need to work on
7) do stuff beyond the classroom. This is so important if you want an A*. The teavhers can only guide you and teach you the content but end of the day its up to you to take resposibility. So what if you havent been taught c4?why cant you learn it at home? This way its easier to get back to it when they teach it to you
Thats all for now!!!

My advice:

If you think that you will not do well in one of your options but are picking it because you 'like it' - drop it now. Do not take it. Seriously you will fail. (I did this for a subject and dropped it after 3 hours.)
Pick subjects that your uni course requires. Please :/
Don't pick essay subjects if you won't read the books...and also, English Literature is not that bad if you are able to interpret what you read in more ways that one (in case you were contemplating taking it)
Make notes from before the lesson has begun. Trust me, I had done this for Sociology and then during the lessons I barely paid attention at all because it was just repetition of what I already know (Don't worry, I came out with an A for AS).
Use your frees wisely. If you're like me and can't revise during frees that I have to be in school for, do homework during it or read examiner reports/look through past papers/make notes. I had done this towards the end of the year and saved all my revision for home where I work best and I had no homework or lack of notes in the way.
Buy a **** tonne of notepads from now if you're doing essay subjects. No joke.
You will hate your mocks but when exams come will be thankful for every single one.
ALWAYS aim for an A. Never aim for anything less because if you aim for a B you will probably end up with a C etc. etc.

Finally, don't be afraid to revise when nobody else is. This is one skill I had learnt towards the end of AS when I had revised during form time and had gotten so many looks and giggles as I was 'supposed to be relaxing' during that time. If you have nothing to do and feel mentally ready to learn/go over information - do it. It will benefit you and show in your results, I promise.

Very good set of points, and I would recommend anybody who hasn't already read them. It surprised me how few people I saw in my school who did not do this. If I may add to some of the points:

1) If you do find yourself falling behind, try not to panic, because (unless it is just before exams) there is usually time to catch up if you work hard enough and focus on the subject. Of course, do try not to fall behind, but panicking will only make it worse and it's all about knowing how much time you actually have and being able to manage it well.
5) Specifications are your best friend. Go through the specifications even as you are first being taught the subject (and don't just use the half-specs the teachers give you where you have to either write a smiley face, a straight face, or a frowney face next to each part of the topic. They tell you to do it even before you have started covering it in class, so anybody who hasn't previously covered it at home is not going to have anything but frowney faces, and I just hate that because I don't think that's very good for learning...).
6) Understand the topics. Again, they are not really going to ask anything outside of the specification, so if you understand all the topics in the specification then you should be able to answer the questions even if the question is approached from a direction you have not seen before. (That does not stop some exams being hard, but it makes you better able to handle the hard exams.)

I can't believe how many times I have heard people saying things like 2) and 7). It should be obvious, especially at A level. It's YOUR life, YOUR grades, so YOU are the one who has to put the work in, in order for you to get where you want to go.

Again, good list.

Do NOT take 4 A2s and an EPQ in year 13. No matter how confident you feel after AS, just don't.

Oh sheet... im taking 4 A2's, 1 AS and an EPQ. please advise.