Top tips for success in the sciences ? Advice please
Hi, okay so I need advice on how to get the top grades in the sciences. As in biology, chemistry, physics
1) tips for studying
- notes
-day to day studying times
-practice * how useful are past papers / practicing everyday ?
2) tips for school work in general
3) tips for coursework
4) mistakes you made
5) what you wish you did differently
6) what do I need to do to get 90%, what did you do?
7) books I should read now.
8)resources you used.
Thank you so much if you reply, It would be truly amazing.
I don't mind if you can't answer all, but any tips would be appreciated.
1) tips for studying
- notes
-day to day studying times
-practice * how useful are past papers / practicing everyday ?
2) tips for school work in general
3) tips for coursework
4) mistakes you made
5) what you wish you did differently
6) what do I need to do to get 90%, what did you do?
7) books I should read now.
8)resources you used.
Thank you so much if you reply, It would be truly amazing.
I don't mind if you can't answer all, but any tips would be appreciated.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Whowhatwhere
Hi, okay so I need advice on how to get the top grades in the sciences. As in biology, chemistry, physics
1) tips for studying
- notes
-day to day studying times
-practice * how useful are past papers / practicing everyday ?
2) tips for school work in general
3) tips for coursework
4) mistakes you made
5) what you wish you did differently
6) what do I need to do to get 90%, what did you do?
7) books I should read now.
8)resources you used.
Thank you so much if you reply, It would be truly amazing.
I don't mind if you can't answer all, but any tips would be appreciated.
1) tips for studying
- notes
-day to day studying times
-practice * how useful are past papers / practicing everyday ?
2) tips for school work in general
3) tips for coursework
4) mistakes you made
5) what you wish you did differently
6) what do I need to do to get 90%, what did you do?
7) books I should read now.
8)resources you used.
Thank you so much if you reply, It would be truly amazing.
I don't mind if you can't answer all, but any tips would be appreciated.
I can help you with Physics and to an extent with Chemistry but not really with Biology; Physics to A2, Chem to AS and did Biology for the first 2 weeks of sixth form but hated the way it was taught at my school.
1) Tips for studying - there's no real generic tips that apply to everyone, it depends on how you learn. A lot of people that will have gotten the same results as me in the same subjects probably made perfect notes on every detail and them used them to revise but I didn't once look back on the notes I made in class. Text books were my bibles, they were the main resource I used when revising and really you can't go wrong with them. For Physics I found the best way to revise a topic was to start with understanding the concepts as best I could and then learn definitions and things like that after, eg, the Principle of Moments - I found this quite hard to understand at first and I would have just wasted my time if I had tried to learn the definition of it before I actually understood it properly. As I said, it's different from person to person so if your friends do things a completely different way, don't worry.
Studying times - (can't really remember for AS) but at A2 the closer it got to exams the more work I started to do. My personal preference was to start off in September lightly and not really do that much work (I always seemed to have forgotten what I'd learnt in September by the time it came to January exams so I figured I may as well take it easy at the start!) and then ease into doing an hour of work for 2 different modules each day. In January of this year I only had 4 modules so the workload wasn't that big (ooh that reminds me, if you work hard at AS and get good results then you won't need to re-sit anything in year 13, which is a god send come exam time!) and I aimed to start looking at past papers by mid-November and to have completely finished the module by mid-December (this is when we usually finished it in class, with a lesson or two spare before the Christmas holidays). To sum that up, you just need to find a rhythm that you're happy with - if you feel confident that you're making good progress then you'll feel more prepared come exam time.
Past papers - Not looking at past papers before you go into an exam is almost as suicidal as having never opened the text book for the exam you're sitting. They're the best tool you have and there's lots of them - use them!! Get familiar with the layout, the wording and check the mark scheme for exactly what they want you to put. Leave a few for you to try properly, refrain from checking your notes and pretend it's the actual exam, if you do badly it should shock you enough into revising harder! Don't be afraid to repeat the past paper to see if you can improve your score - sometimes they almost copy questions word for word from a past paper and put them in your exam.
2) Tips for school in general - the main point would be these are your A-levels, so do what's right for you, even if that means ignoring advice from your school. Don't take what they say as 100% correct - you'd be surprised how many teachers don't know how things like A*s are awarded or how module combinations in Maths work.
3) Tips for Coursework - in the Sciences the only coursework we have is Assessed Practicals which are 20% of the A-level. ''Yippee!" you may think. Think again - these are not easy UMS. For whatever reason, the grade boundaries for these are devilishly high and pretty unforgiving, make sure you revise for them!
4) Mistakes I made - probably one of the biggest mistakes I made was the one I pointed out above. In Physics at AS I did really well in the first exam and was finding the second module quite easy so I didn't worry that much about the practical thinking it would be easy too and came out with an average mark in it, then came out with an average mark in the second exam and only just scraped an A overall, so be careful!
5) What I wish I'd done differently - apart from the above I don't really have many regrets, I thought about the way I worked at A-levels as trial and error, I tried different methods of revising until one worked for me and I stuck with it.
6) What do you need to do to get 90% - simple, you need to be motivated and passionate about the subjects you're studying and you need to work hard. If you do that you'll achieve whatever you want to. What did I do? I stayed motivated and kept thinking about how I'd feel on results day when I did really well which pushed me to keep working harder and more efficiently until I managed to achieve the grades I wanted.
7) Books you should read - I didn't read any and I'm a bad influence - read about things you're passionate about and you will come to be thankful you did when you go to uni interviews and you have to spend time talking about why you want to study the subject you've applied for.
8) Resources I used - things like http://www.s-cool.co.uk/ and http://www.khanacademy.org/ are great for all the Science's and http://www.astarmathsandphysics.com/ is great for Physics.
Oh and if you enjoy your subjects it will make learning about them a whole lot easier!
Original post by Benniboi1
I can help you with Physics and to an extent with Chemistry but not really with Biology; Physics to A2, Chem to AS and did Biology for the first 2 weeks of sixth form but hated the way it was taught at my school.
1) Tips for studying - there's no real generic tips that apply to everyone, it depends on how you learn. A lot of people that will have gotten the same results as me in the same subjects probably made perfect notes on every detail and them used them to revise but I didn't once look back on the notes I made in class. Text books were my bibles, they were the main resource I used when revising and really you can't go wrong with them. For Physics I found the best way to revise a topic was to start with understanding the concepts as best I could and then learn definitions and things like that after, eg, the Principle of Moments - I found this quite hard to understand at first and I would have just wasted my time if I had tried to learn the definition of it before I actually understood it properly. As I said, it's different from person to person so if your friends do things a completely different way, don't worry.
Studying times - (can't really remember for AS) but at A2 the closer it got to exams the more work I started to do. My personal preference was to start off in September lightly and not really do that much work (I always seemed to have forgotten what I'd learnt in September by the time it came to January exams so I figured I may as well take it easy at the start!) and then ease into doing an hour of work for 2 different modules each day. In January of this year I only had 4 modules so the workload wasn't that big (ooh that reminds me, if you work hard at AS and get good results then you won't need to re-sit anything in year 13, which is a god send come exam time!) and I aimed to start looking at past papers by mid-November and to have completely finished the module by mid-December (this is when we usually finished it in class, with a lesson or two spare before the Christmas holidays). To sum that up, you just need to find a rhythm that you're happy with - if you feel confident that you're making good progress then you'll feel more prepared come exam time.
Past papers - Not looking at past papers before you go into an exam is almost as suicidal as having never opened the text book for the exam you're sitting. They're the best tool you have and there's lots of them - use them!! Get familiar with the layout, the wording and check the mark scheme for exactly what they want you to put. Leave a few for you to try properly, refrain from checking your notes and pretend it's the actual exam, if you do badly it should shock you enough into revising harder! Don't be afraid to repeat the past paper to see if you can improve your score - sometimes they almost copy questions word for word from a past paper and put them in your exam.
2) Tips for school in general - the main point would be these are your A-levels, so do what's right for you, even if that means ignoring advice from your school. Don't take what they say as 100% correct - you'd be surprised how many teachers don't know how things like A*s are awarded or how module combinations in Maths work.
3) Tips for Coursework - in the Sciences the only coursework we have is Assessed Practicals which are 20% of the A-level. ''Yippee!" you may think. Think again - these are not easy UMS. For whatever reason, the grade boundaries for these are devilishly high and pretty unforgiving, make sure you revise for them!
4) Mistakes I made - probably one of the biggest mistakes I made was the one I pointed out above. In Physics at AS I did really well in the first exam and was finding the second module quite easy so I didn't worry that much about the practical thinking it would be easy too and came out with an average mark in it, then came out with an average mark in the second exam and only just scraped an A overall, so be careful!
5) What I wish I'd done differently - apart from the above I don't really have many regrets, I thought about the way I worked at A-levels as trial and error, I tried different methods of revising until one worked for me and I stuck with it.
6) What do you need to do to get 90% - simple, you need to be motivated and passionate about the subjects you're studying and you need to work hard. If you do that you'll achieve whatever you want to. What did I do? I stayed motivated and kept thinking about how I'd feel on results day when I did really well which pushed me to keep working harder and more efficiently until I managed to achieve the grades I wanted.
7) Books you should read - I didn't read any and I'm a bad influence - read about things you're passionate about and you will come to be thankful you did when you go to uni interviews and you have to spend time talking about why you want to study the subject you've applied for.
8) Resources I used - things like http://www.s-cool.co.uk/ and http://www.khanacademy.org/ are great for all the Science's and http://www.astarmathsandphysics.com/ is great for Physics.
Oh and if you enjoy your subjects it will make learning about them a whole lot easier!
1) Tips for studying - there's no real generic tips that apply to everyone, it depends on how you learn. A lot of people that will have gotten the same results as me in the same subjects probably made perfect notes on every detail and them used them to revise but I didn't once look back on the notes I made in class. Text books were my bibles, they were the main resource I used when revising and really you can't go wrong with them. For Physics I found the best way to revise a topic was to start with understanding the concepts as best I could and then learn definitions and things like that after, eg, the Principle of Moments - I found this quite hard to understand at first and I would have just wasted my time if I had tried to learn the definition of it before I actually understood it properly. As I said, it's different from person to person so if your friends do things a completely different way, don't worry.
Studying times - (can't really remember for AS) but at A2 the closer it got to exams the more work I started to do. My personal preference was to start off in September lightly and not really do that much work (I always seemed to have forgotten what I'd learnt in September by the time it came to January exams so I figured I may as well take it easy at the start!) and then ease into doing an hour of work for 2 different modules each day. In January of this year I only had 4 modules so the workload wasn't that big (ooh that reminds me, if you work hard at AS and get good results then you won't need to re-sit anything in year 13, which is a god send come exam time!) and I aimed to start looking at past papers by mid-November and to have completely finished the module by mid-December (this is when we usually finished it in class, with a lesson or two spare before the Christmas holidays). To sum that up, you just need to find a rhythm that you're happy with - if you feel confident that you're making good progress then you'll feel more prepared come exam time.
Past papers - Not looking at past papers before you go into an exam is almost as suicidal as having never opened the text book for the exam you're sitting. They're the best tool you have and there's lots of them - use them!! Get familiar with the layout, the wording and check the mark scheme for exactly what they want you to put. Leave a few for you to try properly, refrain from checking your notes and pretend it's the actual exam, if you do badly it should shock you enough into revising harder! Don't be afraid to repeat the past paper to see if you can improve your score - sometimes they almost copy questions word for word from a past paper and put them in your exam.
2) Tips for school in general - the main point would be these are your A-levels, so do what's right for you, even if that means ignoring advice from your school. Don't take what they say as 100% correct - you'd be surprised how many teachers don't know how things like A*s are awarded or how module combinations in Maths work.
3) Tips for Coursework - in the Sciences the only coursework we have is Assessed Practicals which are 20% of the A-level. ''Yippee!" you may think. Think again - these are not easy UMS. For whatever reason, the grade boundaries for these are devilishly high and pretty unforgiving, make sure you revise for them!
4) Mistakes I made - probably one of the biggest mistakes I made was the one I pointed out above. In Physics at AS I did really well in the first exam and was finding the second module quite easy so I didn't worry that much about the practical thinking it would be easy too and came out with an average mark in it, then came out with an average mark in the second exam and only just scraped an A overall, so be careful!
5) What I wish I'd done differently - apart from the above I don't really have many regrets, I thought about the way I worked at A-levels as trial and error, I tried different methods of revising until one worked for me and I stuck with it.
6) What do you need to do to get 90% - simple, you need to be motivated and passionate about the subjects you're studying and you need to work hard. If you do that you'll achieve whatever you want to. What did I do? I stayed motivated and kept thinking about how I'd feel on results day when I did really well which pushed me to keep working harder and more efficiently until I managed to achieve the grades I wanted.
7) Books you should read - I didn't read any and I'm a bad influence - read about things you're passionate about and you will come to be thankful you did when you go to uni interviews and you have to spend time talking about why you want to study the subject you've applied for.
8) Resources I used - things like http://www.s-cool.co.uk/ and http://www.khanacademy.org/ are great for all the Science's and http://www.astarmathsandphysics.com/ is great for Physics.
Oh and if you enjoy your subjects it will make learning about them a whole lot easier!
OMG YOU ARE AN OBSOLUTE LEGEND, thanks alot dude!
i have this problem, im kind of hoping u can help me.
See in the exams (GSCE) i would get A*, but when it comes to coursework, i would get C's no matter how much work i put into it, i know a friend that worked on it a night before and got a higher grade. Im not sure what i did wrong?
I have come to hate coursework in science, it just pulls me down.
How do i achieve the top grade in coursework next year for physics and chemistry?
im doing ocr B btw.
thanks so much for the info again, i saved it lol.
Original post by Joseph-
OMG YOU ARE AN OBSOLUTE LEGEND.
Obsolete or Absolute? Very different meanings!
Original post by Joseph-
OMG YOU ARE AN OBSOLUTE LEGEND, thanks alot dude!
i have this problem, im kind of hoping u can help me.
See in the exams (GSCE) i would get A*, but when it comes to coursework, i would get C's no matter how much work i put into it, i know a friend that worked on it a night before and got a higher grade. Im not sure what i did wrong?
I have come to hate coursework in science, it just pulls me down.
How do i achieve the top grade in coursework next year for physics and chemistry?
im doing ocr B btw.
thanks so much for the info again, i saved it lol.
i have this problem, im kind of hoping u can help me.
See in the exams (GSCE) i would get A*, but when it comes to coursework, i would get C's no matter how much work i put into it, i know a friend that worked on it a night before and got a higher grade. Im not sure what i did wrong?
I have come to hate coursework in science, it just pulls me down.
How do i achieve the top grade in coursework next year for physics and chemistry?
im doing ocr B btw.
thanks so much for the info again, i saved it lol.
No worries, glad it helped!
Just realised that everything I've written below is technically for my exam board AQA. Have you just finished GCSE's and going into year 12 or were you in year 12 this year? Do you know how OCR B works for Physics - like on AQA it's pretty simple, for AS theres 2 exams which are 40% each of the AS and a practical exam which is 20% of the AS - if it's the same I'll go checkout the practical exam and see if it's similar, I'll leave what I've put for now because it will still probably apply to OCR
I'm the same as you, it's just the practicals that I struggled with at A-level, found the actual exams pretty straightforward (the more you work for them the better you do) whereas with the practical exam I worked as hard as I could and still just missed out on an A in the practicals. My advice would be this, make you sure you revise all the basics enough so you're 100% on them, the main things they test include reliability, validity and accuracy which to this day I'm still not very sure of the difference between them but there's a lot of easy marks from them (definitions and simple calculations) which you should get. Other basic things being getting your independent and dependant variables the right way around. There's marks for drawing graphs right and there's marks from your teacher for how he thinks each of you have done, take as much time as you need to on the graph and get it right, if you get full marks for this (and your teacher will probably just give you the full teacher assessed marks) and you go into the practical exam paper with a few marks already which takes the pressure off.
I think both of the AS and A2 practical exams are out of 50, the AS one being slightly easier and I think if you get all the basics right you can get 35/50, which at the very least is 32/34 UMS out of 60 which is a C/D. Then there is usually a bit where you have to plan an experiment which you will have gone through with your teacher in preparation for the exam, even if you haven't - just look through the old mark schemes and all the key ideas are there. If you get this right then its another good 4/5 marks (and given that a grade boundary is 3 marks, you can see how important each mark is!). Which would bring you up to 39/40 out of 50, which is a B but to be honest I think a B or above in the practical is a really good score.
Original post by Joseph-
How do i achieve the top grade in coursework next year for physics and chemistry?
im doing ocr B btw.
How do i achieve the top grade in coursework next year for physics and chemistry?
im doing ocr B btw.
OCR B Chemistry AS coursework is a joke. They rarely change the papers year-on-year and you can use the old ones for practice. In some cases the exact observations and calculations are the SAME.
The only tough one is the Manipulation section, where you can quickly lose marks for not getting an accurate result, or having too great a range in your results. Particularly true if it's a titration. Trick with that is to be 1) careful as anything doing the practica 2) do it lots 3) discard all your anomalous results.
I think the last year we did OCR B, 80% of the year got a B or above in the coursework.
OCR B A2 coursework though is a cast iron pain in the ass. Massive project with a big essay write-up. You'll find plenty of people on TSR bitching about it, but i think it does give you very good prep for uni projects.
specification + past papers =a*
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