GCSE to A-level Jump

Omg thank you so much for this! Firstly, it's awful that your school wouldn't let you drop biology sooner - it did not sound fun! I will be definitely usin up my free periods and not wasting them (i'll probs do revision cards in them or work set by my teachers or independent study). I wasn't quite sure when to start revising for actual exams - January or a bit later? I'll probably start around January... you and many others have given me this valuable advice! I'm gonna try and stay as motivated as possible... I managed to for all of my GCSEs over the 2 years so hopefully I'll be able to do the same for A-levels! I really do like my subjects that I've chosen!

Thanks a bunch for this! Good luck if you're picking up results and with whatever you're doing in life!

Hiya!

The jump from GCSE to A-level is not as exaggerated as people may say it is; sure, it is difficult if you're moving onto subjects which you've never studied before but remember that you're giving up 8-12 subjects and focusing on 3/4/5 subjects at a higher grade. What I found out was the relief in not having to take the mandatory subjects which I hated into the new year and having the freedom to take the subjects which I loved incentivised me to study for it,

The sciences have the biggest jump, not to mention History, and Maths is alright. AS maths is actually a breeze if you keep on top of everything and just remember to do all of your homework and practice papers.

Here's the subjects which I'm taking if anyone wants to message me about them:
- History
- Maths
- Further Maths
- Government and Politics
- Economics

I can only speak for maths out of those subjects. I got a pretty high A* at GCSE and at first found A Level maths quite easy (compared to further maths haha), but after about a month or so it really does start getting harder and you need to keep on top of it all! I remember learning about transformations in Core maths and I got upset because I really struggled. But after making notes on it and revisiting it every now and then, a couple of months before the exam I was looking back wondering why I found it hard.

I think it's quite a big jump, but sometimes exaggerated. There are going to be parts you find hard, but it's how (and how soon) you deal with it that matters. A couple of other people in my group left revising until too late, so they were constantly asking teachers how to do different topics a week before the exam.

So my tip is, if you start revising right from the beginning (even if it's just making sure you finish the exercise you did in class) the jump isn't huge!! But core 3 and 4 look like a bigger jump...

All the best for your results!!

Oh, and feel free to message me about anything! I've studied the following at AS:
- Maths (AQA) - c1, c2, d1
- Further Maths (AQA) - fp1, m1, d2
- History (Edexcel) - USA and GB in 20th century; warfare 1800-WW1
- Physics A (OCR)

I'm doing the same as you for edexcel history. So how did you find the course?

I'm doing the same as you for edexcel history. So how did you find the course?

Oh, I also have a blog for history!! I've posted a couple of essays that I've done throughout the year, so feel free to have a read. I haven't updated it in a while though. I definitely need to catch up on this!

It's mainly split into: politics, economics, society and Margaret Thatcher for the British side & the US side is mainly just working through the time period in chronological order. I quite enjoyed it (mainly the politics) but it's quite hard remembering a lot of the dates etc. I'd recommend making a timeline of the key things as you're going through the year; for the summer transition work from GCSE to A Level, we had to make a timeline of all of the important events and I found it useful to have though it took a long time to make!The exam questions are all mini essays for GB, but your teacher should guide you through how to make a good essay. The US side has an essay question and a sources question. Personally, I love writing essays - I just find it hard remembering all of the facts!! But you don't need to remember every single thing that happened, so just focus on the events/laws/changes that were significant and as long as you have a general 'feel' to what was happening at the time, you should enjoy it