The Student Room Group

How did you find A-level History?

To anyone who has taken it at A-level, what did you think of it? I know it will be difficult but I do love learning about history and am willing to try my absolute hardest to do well. (Let's see if I'm still saying that next year!)
I did OCR history and loved it. It is a difficult subject but if you love history it's something worth studying. You should look at what you will study before choosing it to see if the topics are areas of history you enjoy. For example, I studied Anglo-Saxon England, The Crusades, King John, Civil rights in America and the Vietnam war (independent coursework). I really enjoyed these topics but there's a large amount of areas for lectures to choose from. My friend studied Russia at another College which was also with OCR and this would've been a topic I would have hated if made to study it so that's why you should look at the spec. Hope this helps and good luck,
my teacher told me the wrong code for my resit and I had to resit both a test I got an A for *and* one that I got an E for
I got 88% in my coursework (almost an A*) but they moderated the entire class down, so I got a B instead.
what was a very enjoyable subject which I wanted to do for uni turn out to be an absolute disappointment for these factors
Reply 3
I sat AQA history, it wasn't too bad AS was definitely a lot more interesting than A2 which was just cold war stuff.

Granted I love History as a subject and it's what I'm doing at uni in September so yeah, my opinion may be a little bit swayed.
I'm currently taking it. Just about to go back to sixth form for my A2 year. I absolutely love it! Mind you, I'd suggest doing a few extra essays while you're first starting to write them because the style is very specific to get the highest marks so if you can understand it early in the year it'll make life a lot easier.

All in all, I really enjoy it, and I don't find it that difficult. Just got an A for this year. Pray your coursework is on something interesting though, because I'm really not enjoying doing mine at the minute haha.

Good luck! 😊
Original post by Tim_magee1997
I did OCR history and loved it. It is a difficult subject but if you love history it's something worth studying. You should look at what you will study before choosing it to see if the topics are areas of history you enjoy. For example, I studied Anglo-Saxon England, The Crusades, King John, Civil rights in America and the Vietnam war (independent coursework). I really enjoyed these topics but there's a large amount of areas for lectures to choose from. My friend studied Russia at another College which was also with OCR and this would've been a topic I would have hated if made to study it so that's why you should look at the spec. Hope this helps and good luck,


I will be doing the Tudors for half and Russia for the other - I love the former but the latter, well, beggars can't be choosers! I have not been told what my coursework will be based around, but I do think we get a choice between a few things. Thank you for the info!
Original post by Gold-Confetti
I'm currently taking it. Just about to go back to sixth form for my A2 year. I absolutely love it! Mind you, I'd suggest doing a few extra essays while you're first starting to write them because the style is very specific to get the highest marks so if you can understand it early in the year it'll make life a lot easier.

All in all, I really enjoy it, and I don't find it that difficult. Just got an A for this year. Pray your coursework is on something interesting though, because I'm really not enjoying doing mine at the minute haha.

Good luck! 😊


Thank you for the advice and luck! I think I will be doing many essays, bearing in mind that I have chosen to do History, English Lit and Psychology. I'm not sure what my coursework will be on but I think that we get to pick between a few different topics e.g. civil rights movement and things like that. I'm sure there will be something in the choices that I wouldn't mind doing for coursework. Good luck for A2, I wish you all the best!
Original post by LoofMan
I sat AQA history, it wasn't too bad AS was definitely a lot more interesting than A2 which was just cold war stuff.

Granted I love History as a subject and it's what I'm doing at uni in September so yeah, my opinion may be a little bit swayed.


Thank you, I enjoy history too! I know there will be bits that are less interesting than others but hopefully the good will outweigh the not-so-good. Wish you the best for university!
I do Edexcel History currently, and it's my favourite subject ever (I study History for fun, currently have 20 History books on my desk, writing essays in my spare time... I'm a little obsessed).

You do need to make sure you understand the structure of the essays and exams and make sure you're on top and you are always familiar with the content. Otherwise, you might struggle. I'd only take the subject if you genuinely like History, as well.
I did AS and it was so interesting. Hard work, but you find a way to manage because it's so fascinating. Definitely take it if you feel passionate about it!
I took AQA AS this year. Horrible. Absolutely hated every second of it! I used to love history and so thought i would love the A level. But then again I think it might have been because I studied USA 1865 - 1920 and the English Civil war and found them extremely boring. Also, I felt that I was doing 2 a levels rather than 1. I am not gonna lie, I hated everything about it! And don't think the reason why I am saying is is because I'm "lazy" or because I got a "bad grade". I did get an A at As. However, I guess it was just not for me. However, looking at what some of my mates studied (Russia and Tudors) I feel that I would have loved learning about it! So I guess maybe I wouldn't have minded so much had my units been different. Like you, I was told of how "much hard work" I would have ahead of me, but quite frankly I wasn't expecting it to be so much harder than at GCSE. As I said, perhaps I felt this way because I was forcing myself to revise for something I absolutely hated, so it felt much more "content heavy"...
I don't know really.. What I would suggest is that you look at the spec and see exactly what you would be learning about. If you do this and if you like what you see, then go for it! You have the right attitude anyway.
In my opinion it is great to have other peoples feedback but a levels should be about studying subjects you find interesting. I wouldn't take a subject simply because everyone tells me that they enjoyed it but I wouldn't be put off in case everyone I spoke to said it was horrible either. Thats why I advise you to do your research. If you do it and like it - go for it! If you don't then don't choose it.
I feel like you can't really predict exactly how you will feel about a subject - I thought I'd hate biology and is my favourite at the moment! So try. And good luck in whatever you decide to do!
I did AQA and I loved AS but hated A2. The different modules are different time periods but are all focus on the same type of events, and A2 was just dull. In fact, I did mine via distance learning (wouldn't recommend - there was no guidance on answering exam questions which made it very difficult) and the guy who marked my answers posted me a paper back with the comment "overall this is a good piece of work, especially for such a "dry" topic". A man, with PhD in history, described it as "dry" which says it all!
Reply 12
Original post by meandegreen
Thank you, I enjoy history too! I know there will be bits that are less interesting than others but hopefully the good will outweigh the not-so-good. Wish you the best for university!


Thanks dude, I hope your a levels go swell, and if there's one piece of advice I can give you is do essay questions and if your teacher is willing to mark them which he/she should be then start doing that ASAP it really does help, even if it's a question that you've made up
Any advice for the coursework?
Reply 14
Uh my A2 coursework was on the expansionist attitude of Prussia/Germany. All I can advise is really that you start as soon as it is set because a lot of people in my class left it until January when it was due for February. A big thing is for the love of god if you're forced to reference which you probably are don't do what I did, write down your sources and the pages you got them from I made that mistake to begin with and it's an absolute pain to find everything again that you referenced.
Original post by Niyi Aderounmu
Any advice for the coursework?


Try your best to make sure it's about something interesting. Ours has been decided as Russia from the late 1800s to the late 1900s.

Unfortunately, I have zero interest in Russian history, and more broadly, modern history as a whole. Medieval and ancient is more my thing, so I'm finding it really hard to motivate myself to do research for the coursework.

And another tip, write down every book, website, quote or whatever you think may be half useful and it'll be easier to find sources and things to back up points later. Also look into the historian you got it from.

And most importantly, don't leave most of it till the last 2 weeks of the holidays because you signed up to do too much stuff during summer, because I can testify that spending full days in the library is not fun.

Good luck!

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