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Essay-based A-Levels

For my a levels I've chosen English Lit, History, Class Civ and Art - but now I'm having second thoughts and am wondering if I should change while I still have time.
Do people who study these find that the workload is time-consuming and what's revision like? Does anybody have any tips for me if I was to go ahead with these subjects?

Reply 1

ooh-la-laa

Original post by Millyhcf

Doing the first 3 at A2 now - great choices :smile:

Reply 2

BaudelaireLucky

I do English Lit and History too, and I also do Spanish and English Language (so pretty much all essay subjects)
I don't find the workload too much, but I don't mind writing essays. If you can't stand essays then I wouldn't reccomend all essay based subjects, I'm assuming Classic Civ is essay based but Art isn't (?) Either way, you'll have to write quite a few essays but if you manage your time effectively it shouldn't be too much.
For revision, History (I do OCR) you need to know a lot of facts and dates so that's just repeating stuff, I'd reccomend flash cards for that with the name of an event on the front and what happened on the back, but that depends on your learning style, Histroy revision can be quite repetetive but interesting if you like it.
For Lit (I do AQA B) revision for me mainly consists of practice essays and reading articles and alternative interpretations of the novels and poems and re-reading everything as many times as possible so you have a good background knowledge of the text and so you know key quotations.
Tips would be to KNOW YOUR TEXTS for lit, make sure you can provide alternate interpretations to get high marks. Do as many past papers as possible for everything and print off the mark schemes and examiners reports to see exactly what they want from you and how they want it worded because let's face it, you have to play the examiner's game or you'll get nothing.
Hope I helped! :smile:

Reply 3

musergirl

I do english lit and art along with biology and language and love them both. Lit is fantastic and thought provoking and it isn't heavy with revision, just know your texts, practice exams and learn quotes if your exam board needs you to. Art is extremely time consuming so it is imperative to keep up with everything and put your absolute best in throughout the year so that you're done in time for your exam subjects - it'll be a relief to have one without any revision.

Reply 4

ooh-la-laa

To answer your actual question.

Workload is whatever you make it. The more reading around the subject the stronger your position. I've always enjoyed reading, so hardly count it as "work" in that sense.

Just a word of caution on history - don't confuse interpretation events with "facts". History usually written by the victors, and the perspective and context of sources needs to be understood. Dates and "facts" may cut it at GCSE but its a whole different ball game at A level.

Reply 5

swiftblaze

I do English lit and history, and I don't find the workload too bad, I normally only get about an essay a week for both, amongst some other things such as reading texts going over class notes etc., apart from over Easter when my English teacher decided to give us a load of homework on top of revision which is annoying but I'm nearly finished thankfully.

Reply 6

Iloveladygagaxo

Original post by Millyhcf

I did English literature and History at A-level and I found them quite manageable :smile:

I did English language tops so they were all highly essay based :smile:

Reply 7

nourianne

Original post by Millyhcf

I'm an AS student and I have done Art for GCSEs, and to be frank, there is an extreme work load. I do English Literature and History too, they are great fun, but there is an EXTREME workload on you. Meaning essays, wider reading of course if you're aiming for an A/B. I also do product design, and frankly it's holding me back every now and then because of the heavy workload which meant that it left me until 5am on MANY schooldays so I could complete all my homework. Also, I recently found it that it is not considered academic, and the same goes for art, unless of course you're aiming for engineering or architecture. So, if that is the case for you for Art, then go on with it. But as an advice, it will be really hard to keep up with much of the work. Good Luck!! :smile:

Reply 8

Millyhcf

Original post by Iloveladygagaxo

I did English literature and History at A-level and I found them quite manageable :smile:

I did English language tops so they were all highly essay based :smile:

Thanks

How did you do in them and what have you gone on to do now?

Reply 9

Millyhcf

Original post by Stillnotcool

I joined Classical Civ late and it was the best decision I've made all college year - it's a great subject. Revision wise it really depends on what units you're doing and how good your teacher is, we do Homer's Odyssey and Roman Society and Thought. The workload isn't too bad but again that'll depend on your teacher, we do a lot of timed questions and mini tests. Revision isn't too bad, you really just have to stay on top of the work! Read ahead, don't fall behind on the texts,
Tips:
For the Odyssey learn the book. You have to know most of the chapters (books) by heart so it's worth trying to read it before you start, past papers are a must aswell. Also it's worth concentrating on the 2nd half of the book, as there is always a question set on it but hardly anyone does it (this is for OCR). This applies to any book you study. It's worth learning some greek terms to through in aswell, like Xenia, Kleos, etc.
Roman Society and Thought is a combination of authors so really you just have to learn about the authors. But it is worth learning some latin terms aswell, Ancient History helps here.

Classical Civ i)s pretty similar to English Lit in the way the questions are set, and how to revise, you'll be fine. :smile:

Thank you that's really helpful, I think our school would be doing Women, Homer's Odyssey and the Aeneid (which I did in Latin gcse so it should be okay).

Reply 10

Millyhcf

Original post by BaudelaireLucky

Thanks that is really helpful :smile:

I like writing I'm just quite slow so I was wondering how much that would impact on my choices, thank you for the tips!

Reply 11

pink pineapple

Original post by Millyhcf

I did history, English lit, politics and French for A-level. Hated English lit and dropped it but loved the other three. If those are the subjects you want to do then the workload shouldn't put you off. Although it will be a lot of work, I felt like I was sometimes drowning in essays! Revision is difficult because there's a lot to learn but the right techniques it's easily doable. With things like essays, start early, don't leave it too late! Work hard and you'll do well. I found that how much I loved my subjects plus how much work I put in was how to be successful. Good luck! :smile:

Reply 12

Zogian

Original post by Millyhcf

Hey!

So I studied English Lang and Lit and my best friend studied History and Classic Civ. Anyway, English for Alevel involved a lot of reading, especially Lit but essay wise I had to write 2 essays a week - one for each English topic and then the exam of course was an essay based exam.
History wise I think they had a couple of essays to do but a lot of it at our school was reading out of topic books.
And as for Classics - they watched a lot of movies and read the plays, and did a few practice questions.

My main advice would be to make sure ALL your notes are organised like when you get them so don't leave it till the last minute to get them organised and ready for 'revision' standard. Topic guides are a good idea too - especially for English Lit, History and Classics. Have a guide, about 2 pages minimum, about each of the books/plays/people you studied.

The main thing is to be organised and know your workload and make sure you give yourself enough time to revise these subjects. Don't forget that teachers are there to help you and it never hurt to have a study buddy!

Good Luck :smile:

Reply 13

The Empire Odyssey

I do Lit AQA A (a lot of reading, cause you have coursework-based texts, exam texts that teachers chose and then your wider reading). So it's a lot of texts you have read if you want to get good marks.

I did English Language, English literature, Philosophy & Ethics and History at AS. So 2 100% essay based and 2 60% exam based subjects. But obvs Lang/Lit has coursework which is essays.

But, for me, I thought it was a lot, but it was manageable. But depends on how your school works. For mine, in November, Head of Sixth Form demanding all students' WAGs so every teacher was giving us assessments, timed essays, essays to do at home and etc so it did quite a lot. But other than that, if you stay on top of it, it won't be as bad.

A-levels will be the worst two years of your life. If anyone disagrees they are either two things: BORN LIARS, or just didn't do A-levels (or failed) :P