How difficult is sixth form?

I live in Sweden, although I'm half-English and used to live in England when I was younger. I am seriously thinking about going to sixth form and taking my A-levels in England, and everybody says that they're a big step up from GCSEs, but as I live in Sweden and haven't done any GCSEs that doesn't really tell me anything. My question to you is how difficult is sixth form really, what kind of things do you do? Is it a lot of homework or does it mainly focus on revising for your exams? Is it fun or is it mainly something you just have to get through so that you can go on to uni and/or a job in the future? The subjects I'm thinking about taking are Media studies, Photography, Psychology and Sociology, if that helps at all. Thanks a lot

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1

KittKatt

16

Original post by frejachristy

I live in Sweden, although I'm half-English and used to live in England when I was younger. I am seriously thinking about going to sixth form and taking my A-levels in England, and everybody says that they're a big step up from GCSEs, but as I live in Sweden and haven't done any GCSEs that doesn't really tell me anything. My question to you is how difficult is sixth form really, what kind of things do you do? Is it a lot of homework or does it mainly focus on revising for your exams? Is it fun or is it mainly something you just have to get through so that you can go on to uni and/or a job in the future? The subjects I'm thinking about taking are Media studies, Photography, Psychology and Sociology, if that helps at all. Thanks a lot :smile:

This is difficult to answer in terms of difficulty in the sense that I have no idea how the Swedish education system works so I have nothing to compare A Levels too but I'll try my best!
Yes, A Levels are fairly difficult, mostly I found because of how much content there is to learn for the exams. However, I also think this depends on what subjects you take. I did Biology, Maths, Chemistry and English and found Maths and the two sciences hard but English easy as that is the subject I've always done best in without much work.
As for homework, it depends on the college. The one I went to set regular homework, which a lot of the time involved questions from past papers. However, the college my siblings went to rarely set homework and expected you to find the past papers yourself and do them in your own time.
I found it fun personally, in terms of having a laugh with the friends I made. But at the same time, we were focused on getting good grades so we could go to the universities we wanted and helped each other out. :smile:

Hope this helped a little! :smile:

Reply 2

Emsta

3

Original post by frejachristy

..

Some sixth forms are picky about GCSEs and may not allow you to do certain A-levels, but say you do those ones, I think they will be alright.But, yes A-levels can be hard and requite a lot of work. You will get homework, I am not sure how much as I haven't done these subjects, but I am guessing not loads. All the best :smile:

Reply 3

kandykissesxox

21

Original post by frejachristy

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It depends what you define as "hard", I assume you're talking about it in terms of workload?. Well, it's manageable as long as you are organised and by that I mean staying on top of classwork, homework and revision. The minute you are unsure, ask for help straight away or do some independent research (self learning is what is expected of you), but don't leave it till the exam season.

Reply 4

flamboy

3

I think that a levels are even more difficult than university, but that's just me
I mean, it's easier to ace a levels compared to uni, but that's not saying much, seeing as with the same work for both uni and a levels, you might get pretty poor grades in your a levels while getting an all right grade in university (nobody can "ace" university though)

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 5

freakpear

Original post by frejachristy

I live in Sweden, although I'm half-English and used to live in England when I was younger. I am seriously thinking about going to sixth form and taking my A-levels in England, and everybody says that they're a big step up from GCSEs, but as I live in Sweden and haven't done any GCSEs that doesn't really tell me anything. My question to you is how difficult is sixth form really, what kind of things do you do? Is it a lot of homework or does it mainly focus on revising for your exams? Is it fun or is it mainly something you just have to get through so that you can go on to uni and/or a job in the future? The subjects I'm thinking about taking are Media studies, Photography, Psychology and Sociology, if that helps at all. Thanks a lot

Well I'm just moving into Year 13 doing French, Business Studies, Accounting and Extended Project so I can't really tell you much about the subjects you're taking as I don't do them however from my experience, you're expected to do things a lot more independently than GCSE. There was a lot of homework for me but not for all my subjects, e.g. French I got loads, business hardly any. I'd say it is fun, I like learning new things and you might find like I did that you grow to love a subject (French) that you previously hated. Unfortunately for most of year 12 I really didn't like my 6th form college for various reasons. Because I didn't like it I didn't try very hard and obviously grades suffered. However this year coming though I'm really looking forward to going back and I'm gonna try my absolute best so really if you're seriously thinking about it you've gotta put the work in and just try and enjoy it, e.g picking subjects that interest you, cause if you like something it's so much easier to do!
Hope that helps! :wink:

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 6

thecatwithnohat

20

Original post by frejachristy

I live in Sweden, although I'm half-English and used to live in England when I was younger. I am seriously thinking about going to sixth form and taking my A-levels in England, and everybody says that they're a big step up from GCSEs, but as I live in Sweden and haven't done any GCSEs that doesn't really tell me anything. My question to you is how difficult is sixth form really, what kind of things do you do? Is it a lot of homework or does it mainly focus on revising for your exams? Is it fun or is it mainly something you just have to get through so that you can go on to uni and/or a job in the future? The subjects I'm thinking about taking are Media studies, Photography, Psychology and Sociology, if that helps at all. Thanks a lot

Don't know much about the subjects you're planning to take except for sociology. Sociology is an easy subject, considering all you'll need to do is know a few names, associations with the names and just find similarities and differences.

Psychology entirely depends on the board, I've heard that OCR is the best (and easiest) for it.

How difficult is sixth form?

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