If you got A* at A level could you give us tips?

I got an A* in English literature and an A* in my EPQ, but A*AB overall. I studied Literature, History (A), and Psychology (B).

In honesty, I wasn't very well-motivated during the year. Started off strong (achieved BBCE at AS and needed to do resits, so wanted to work hard) but dropped off after Christmas. From my experience, try not to work too hard at the beginning of the year, as you'll lose the flow when it gets more important.

I'm not sure which subjects you are taking, but I found that I just needed to have an understanding of the topics really well. You have to attend all your lessons (missing one or two isn't a major deal, but try and keep attendance up) and keep everything organised so you know what goes where and how it all links.

Start looking at past exam papers right now and see how the questions are structured and what they expect from the answers. As the year goes on and you learn the content more, practice by answering some of these past papers, and you can always take them to your teacher who will (hopefully) have time to mark them for you.

When it got to exam period, I was able to work constantly most days, because I was determined to improve on my BBC. Try not to throw your life away to do A levels, but make sure it is your focus.

If you work hard, you will succeed. I wish you good luck

Hi, I'm currently doing Alevels and got BBC at As. I'm doing similar subjects also (English literature, psychology and sociology and dropped history). Could you please advise me on how to revise for psychology and English?I've got two English teachers and the one I'm studying hamlet with really can't teach so essentially I have to study the play myself. I would appreciate it greatly if you have any tips on how I can get A*?

Title ^ thanks

I got A*'s in Math, Further Math, Physics and Chemistry. For these subjects I would say a really good understanding of AS is vital. i.e. if you still need to think in order to c1 differentiation at the begginning of year 13 your really going to struggle with c4 integration. With sciences and maths make sure you DO question throughout the year. Don't think year I get that and move. PRACTICE. Don't waste past papers when you still don't understand something. When you start doing practice papers, make sure you realise where you went wrong on each and every question. If you can't do papers to time at the beggining thats fine. In maths there isn't really such a thing as revision. You learn something and practice that. Then near exams you practice some more you might need to look something up but there should not be enough stuff that you have to sit down and "revise". Do a paper instead. Physics and chemistry had more stuff to know. So around Christmas, (for mocks) and February for actual exams I started doing papers and everything I didn't know , or understand, went onto blank paper which I stuck using bluetack to the wall. Repeating this process fairly steadily to exams. When I realised the same topics, or question, kept coming up on the wall I would take my text book read through the relevant topics and put relevant infomation on the wall as well. The important thing with the wall was the fact it wasn't notes it was a list of things I hadn't understood in the past couple of weeks, Anything which I had relearned and now knew/understood properly for a couple of weeks came down. Meaning I only had a small amount of stuff to read through rather than pages and pages of notes. Any other question just ask.

Got A* in History and A* in Economics (100 UMS).

The one thing I can perhaps put forward is that Set the foundations with a lot of revision for the mocks. You don't have to start revising now, but just make sure you have solid notes/knowledge for the mocks. Make it an aim to achieve an A in them. As once you have that you can work towards increasing your skills from that A to an A*, which from Jan/Feb to June is achievable.

For history I first learnt the whole syllabus. Condensed the syllabus into notes providing a summary of the key events during the period. I then made essay plans for literally every single question that had come up from every past paper and questions that could come up. I then pretty much did every history paper since around 2009 (start of new syllabus), got teachers to mark them and identify what I could do better, and kept applying advice on each paper I then did. For the coursework I put in a lot of work so it followed mark scheme and read well. Honestly don't cut corners with coursework as if you go into exam with 90+ UMS in coursework you make life easier for yourself.

For Economics, I wrote notes on the whole syllabus. Copied and learnt every diagram possible for essays. Wrote plans for every single essay question that could come up. Also looked at model essays and mark scheme meticulously to get a general structure I could use for any question. Then learnt everything and started doing essay practice, which teachers marked and gave feedback on each time. I honestly really struggled with micro (half the course) all year (we had change of teachers halfway), and it was only 1-2 months before exam I understood everything. I wouldnt worry too much if you struggle with 1 topic of a course, just make sure you go out of your way to really get to grips with it when exam time comes, no matter how frustrating it is.

Think I managed to get 100 UMS in Economics as i went to outside lectures at Cambridge/London and really read outside syllabus (newspapers, economist, academic articles etc), so referring to really high level stuff in exam gets credit as well. Did the same with history by reading loads of historic articles and getting some nice terminology in.

If youre going to take anything from this I would say, learn what mark scheme is looking for, go out of your way to make your answers distinctive from other candidates (read extensively) and learn actual syllabus inside out.

Hope that helps