Bad AS results to great A2/A-levels results - success stories?

This only applies to England. In Wales those taking WJEC Board will be able to retake their AS exams in January.

What the ****?! Evidence of this please?

That's ****ing unfair.

1) WJEC chose as an exam board to not allow and therefore scrap January exams , but Education Minister Leighton Andrews got angry - then stopped that and made them agree to January exams .

But then 1 month later ...

2) Leighton Andrews decided to remove January exams himself : as it would reduce costs and reduce assessment time .

So Wales don't have January exams ; even if they are with WJEC - or not .

Not as impressive as some people on here, but I did AS- physics maths biology and chemistry and got DDDE.
I didn't retake the year and ended up doing 12 exams this summer and got ABC in maths physics and bio would have been better without coursework but I still got into my first choice so I'm happy


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That's brilliant- Can you tell me how you managed to turn it around. What it took, the methods you used etc & it will be greatly appreciated as I need to turn around my grades- Thanks.

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Aw, thank you. Well a few days after my AS results I sat down and drew up a timetable, scheduling the hours of work I'd do. I started straight away during August and carried on as school started again. I had penned in 50 hours of work (including school hours) into each week and stuck to the timetable religiously for the first 3 months. After that I started to move away from it a bit but it didn't matter because I was still doing the same amount of hours, just at times where I knew would be more efficient. It's a really nice feeling knowing that you don't have to stick to your timetable but knowing you can trust yourself to do the work anyway to make up for it. That's all the first 3 months were really, getting into the mentality of controlling your life. The academic achievements are merely a product of a fundamental change in the way you structure your time. You'll find your mind set changes and that you don't even debate whether you'll do your scheduled hours of work, you just know it'll happen.
It's also important to note that you need to take breaks. Seriously, don't just think you can work everyday for a year. You can't. Some days you just need to stop, but because you have to not because you're being lazy. I'm also quite an inefficient learner, possibily due to having mild dyslexia and dyspraxia; however I'm not going to pretend I know enough about either to say how much of an effect either had, although I suspect they did have an impact. My point is that you may find you won't need to do quite this much work for the same benefits.
What does matter however is that you do something about it now. Don't try to kid yourself either about whatever grades you got and putting it down to being 'unlucky'. Unfortunately, there's no hiding at A-level. You really do get what you deserve.
All the best and good luck.

Thanks alot- I will hopefully give it my all during the year & I should be able to turn it around. What are doing at university anyway?

Yeah all the best I hope it works out. Physics and Astrophysics

Aw, thank you. Well a few days after my AS results I sat down and drew up a timetable, scheduling the hours of work I'd do. I started straight away during August and carried on as school started again. I had penned in 50 hours of work (including school hours) into each week and stuck to the timetable religiously for the first 3 months. After that I started to move away from it a bit but it didn't matter because I was still doing the same amount of hours, just at times where I knew would be more efficient. It's a really nice feeling knowing that you don't have to stick to your timetable but knowing you can trust yourself to do the work anyway to make up for it. That's all the first 3 months were really, getting into the mentality of controlling your life. The academic achievements are merely a product of a fundamental change in the way you structure your time. You'll find your mind set changes and that you don't even debate whether you'll do your scheduled hours of work, you just know it'll happen.
It's also important to note that you need to take breaks. Seriously, don't just think you can work everyday for a year. You can't. Some days you just need to stop, but because you have to not because you're being lazy. I'm also quite an inefficient learner, possibily due to having mild dyslexia and dyspraxia; however I'm not going to pretend I know enough about either to say how much of an effect either had, although I suspect they did have an impact. My point is that you may find you won't need to do quite this much work for the same benefits.
What does matter however is that you do something about it now. Don't try to kid yourself either about whatever grades you got and putting it down to being 'unlucky'. Unfortunately, there's no hiding at A-level. You really do get what you deserve.
All the best and good luck.

1) WJEC chose as an exam board to not allow and therefore scrap January exams , but Education Minister Leighton Andrews got angry - then stopped that and made them agree to January exams .

But then 1 month later ...

2) Leighton Andrews decided to remove January exams himself : as it would reduce costs and reduce assessment time .

So Wales don't have January exams ; even if they are with WJEC - or not .

Are you sure this is the case? Are you sure it includes pupils in the September 2012 cohort? I thought they were the last ones able to do January resits. See http://www.itv.com/news/wales/update/2013-06-13/january-as-a-level-exams-scrapped-after-2014/
This implies that this January will be the last opportunity as it says "after January 2014". Where did you get your information?

Anyone have any success stories of getting bad at AS, but actually improving at lot in the A2 year?

How hard did you have to work for them?

What the ****?! Evidence of this please?

That's ****ing unfair.

I got BBCC at AS in IT, history, French and English Lang lit. Dropped French and came out with A*AB

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Could you upload a pic of the timetable? Just so I can have a rough idea


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