I'm going to be doing A2 politics next year, any tips?

I didn't study American politics as an A2 module so I guess I can't compare, but out of everything I studied over my 2 years of Politics A Level it was probably the most interesting thing I did. It's not just about memorising facts and figures (in fact there's very little of this) but it gives you a chance to stretch your own mind I guess, you'll cover the theories of state interaction and you can study the balance and shift of power - trust me, it's just a lot more interesting. You actually get to study eminent political scholars, stuff like Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilisations and Mary Kaldor's New World Order and Freidman (Google these guys if you want a vague idea of what it would be about). Globalisation was probably my favourite topic, but I think I did a different exam board to the one you're doing so they won't correspond exactly. Terrorism was fun too.

Ideologies definitely, unless studying a country's political system is your thing (I find it absolutely boring and full of s**t) which I why I did dreadful in politics first year but got A in ideologies. You can practically revise last minute and get A, as long as you are interested. I recommend that if you decide to do ideologies you revise over some of them and almost certainly look main thinkers and main thinkers from each (John Stuart Mill, John Locke for liberalism and Marx for socialism, etc) it would really help you as you will need to cite people in the exam. Also its structured so you only have to answer 3 ideologies "2 is bare minimum but you will find it very hard). Do all of this now, and nothing stopping you from an A* in January and June next year.