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Advice on starting A-levels?

I start AS level biology, chemistry, psychology and maths in just over a week and was wondering if anybody has any advice for me?

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Yeah I do. Smoke weed everyday.
Reply 2
Original post by Error404OLE
Yeah I do. Smoke weed everyday.


...and the invigilators will be running out of the hall because of that smell and you can ask the person next to you. Sorry, it's not going to happen.

Original post by April Barlow
I start AS level biology, chemistry, psychology and maths in just over a week and was wondering if anybody has any advice for me?

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For A Level Chemistry, www.a-levelchemistry.co.uk is a good resource. Khan Academy is good for maths exercises.
For Psychology just make sure you make notes in lesson, and do past papers ~ you can't go wrong on this, get your essays marked regularly ~ should get an A


Biology ~ word of caution, most people think it's just memorisation, but in recent papers examiners have tried to catch out the memorisers, and have put in more application questions
So make sure you understand the content and do all the past papers - try to get your hands on legacy papers


Chemistry - IMO, this was the hardest, revise for your mocks as if they were real exams and make sure you understand the content and for chemistry do all past papers including legacy papers (something I didn't do but I wish I did), If you don't understand something first try yourself read from a few books, watch YouTube videos, if then you still don't understand, ask a friend, and then ask the teacher as by the time you get to the teacher, you'll have some kind of understanding.
Try flash cards for chemistry, and Jim Clarks calculation book - which I'm going to buy this year, it has very good reviews so worth it


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For Maths, practice as much as you can. If you get stuck, look at videos online or ask your teacher.
Reply 5
Original post by April Barlow
I start AS level biology, chemistry, psychology and maths in just over a week and was wondering if anybody has any advice for me?

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yep! I took bio and chem AS and here's what I have to say...

Chem is very difficult. It's not like GCSE, and in all honesty, an A* at GCSE doesn't mean much. I got an A*, and ended up with a D in AS. You have to work HARD, all year round. I mean it! Even the terribly clever people who don't look like they do much are working their butts off. Trust me! My advice would be to get a tutor from the start and learn EXAM TECHNIQUE. It's all about technique!!!!!

Similar with biology. There are more key terms and new words to learn than Spanish A level. Understand the content and study beyond the textbook. Again, learn EXAM TECHNIQUE.

Writing pretty notes and colouring diagrams isn't real studying. You've got to put your head down this year, I mean it. Or you'll have a lot of resits to do. AS level is not like GCSE!

Good luck!
Reply 6
For maths www.examsolutions.net was very helpful for me.
For Chemistry I think past papers are the most useful resource, you have to use specific words and phrases to get marks often at A-level so knowing what you need to put in an answer is just as important as knowing the relevant information for Chemistry.
Reply 7
For AS maths, do every single past paper available to you multiple times when you are revising. It's the best way to revise for maths! Also, ExamSolutions on youtube is very helpful. Good luck :smile:
I did different subjects to you, but speaking generally; revise early, and rewrite the notes you make in class and the handouts into a concise form that you know you will keep looking back at. Flashcards or notebooks/project books are good for this! It's really easy to put your notes into a folder and think you'll look back at it, but they can be hard to keep on top of, and it'll save you the time you'd have spent making the revision resources when exams do come up. This seems really useful for Psychology, my friends who studied it seemed to have huge stacks of flashcards!
Do mocks in your own time (especially essays) and ask the teacher to mark them for you. Make sure you use your free periods wisely, but don't be afraid to take a break if you need to, you won't gain anything from burning yourself out.
(Also, good luck :biggrin:)
For chemistry, use chemrevise.org

I hardly even touched my textbook and got an A*s thanks to that site.

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