Advice for starting A Levels?!

I'll be (hopefully) going into sixth form this September to study English, Chemistry and Psychology to A2 and History and Critical Thinking to AS. Is there anything I should do this summer to prepare for starting A Levels? Can anyone give any tips for studying these subjects in particular?

Thanks!

Reply 1

Sataris

Original post by musicisellipsis

How about not doing Critical Thinking? :teehee:

Reply 2

musicisellipsis

Original post by Sataris

How about not doing Critical Thinking? :teehee:

Why's that? :wink:

Reply 3

loperdoper

Original post by musicisellipsis

Why's that? :wink:

Many universities don't factor in Critical Thinking AS when you apply.

Reply 4

Sataris

Original post by musicisellipsis

Why's that? :wink:

The subject, in my opinion, is a useless, boring, convoluted waste of time. I did it for a few months before dropping it and I don't think the "content" we covered made me think better in any way.

The qualification is discounted by most - I think every university prospectus I've picked up say they ignore it when making offers.

Reply 5

JA11K

Doing well in year 12 makes year 13 a whole lot easier. Don't slack off at AS because you think you've got another year to correct it, work hard in year 12 to make A2 more bearable.

Reply 6

LadyEcliptic

Depends what you do because a lot of universities don't recognise/accept Critical thinking as a subject.

Work your butt off from day 1 to ease the pressure off - don't cram, you might be able to do it for GCSE's but it's a no go area at AS as the jump from GCSE to AS is huge but the jump from AS to A2 is even bigger and the last thing you want is having to repeat AS's along with A2 or repeating the year.

Reply 7

musicisellipsis

Thanks for the advice so far!

How about the level three EPQ, has anyone done that? Do unis value that more than critical thinking or do they see them as the same?

Reply 8

Nymthae

Lots of people do the EPQ - it's generally favoured as more worthwhile than Critical Thinking. It can be a lot of work, but it's usually a big project you can talk about in interviews and show you've researched some stuff on your own. I couldn't be bothered with it, personally, as it didn't really have relevance to me doing chemistry.

Also don't bother so much over summer, there's not really much to revise or learn beforehand. That's more important next summer, rather than now. Keep your notes in order when you start doing chemistry as they're often very handy to look back at as more information builds on top of them, and don't panic. Just try and understand, rather than rote learn it, as it will make things quite easy as you go along if you get the fundamentals.