A level advice! Chemistry, Biology, Physics & Maths

I did biology, chemistry and maths.

Maths - Exam solutions will become your best friend. Just leave enough time before your exams to watch all the videos :')
Practice practice practice.

Chemistry - Read up on what you will be covering in class so that you aren't completely lost and can get on with the work in class without too many problems. Also chemguide is really useful.

Biology - biology relies heavily on memory so just sit down and make notes, and then make them again in a condensed version, make flow charts, spider diagrams, record audios of you reciting processes.

For all of these subjects, the only way to pass your exams is by doing every single past paper that is out there.

I found it to be helpful to identify what each subject requires (I did all four at AS and dropped physics for A2).

Biology - A lot of content to memorise, especially at AS where it is a lot more recall. At A2 it becomes much more application. At AS you just have to put in hours of work, making notes, going over everything as much as you can to learn every single fact, anything could be examined on in the book (I also suggest buying lots of textbooks and revision guides as they all add extra information). Biology is also really specific when it comes to wording, you will see when you start doing papers. That's why you need to just practice past papers so you can see what wording they want and how the papers are set out.

Physics - A lot less memorise, a lot more application and maths. Here it is a lot about practising to just see what sort of questions they could ask and be prepared for the random maths questions they will ask you. Make sure you really understand all the theory behind the maths. You will questioned less on the theory of some of the topics but if you don't understand the theory you wont be able to answer harder mathematical application questions. Go through your formula sheet and make sure you know every formula (you don't need to memorise them but I found it helps) and make sure you learn the 2 or 3 formula they make you remember (there are always 2 or 3 and you can be guaranteed one will come up as it is one you have to remember).

Chemistry is pretty much in the middle of biology and physics. There is some theory to be memorised and some maths (especially at A2) so do a combination of techniques from biology and physics.

Maths is very very simple...practice, practice, practice. Do every paper you can find, the past papers, solomon papers, questions from all the text books you can find, any. It will very quickly show any weaknesses and after a while you will have seen about 90% of the questions they could ask you (just with different numbers). There will always be a few random hard questions but if you have a firm understanding and have done practice it shouldn't be too hard.

I hope that helps

Get some of those thin 'quick revision' books from WHSmiths and make sure you want to do that. I'm telling you from experience it is HARD. You will be challenged doing all 4. Easily the hardest courses you can do at A-level.

Hi,
I am in year 11 and i am planning to study chemistry, biology, physics and maths next year. I just wanted some advice on how to be successful in these subjects, how to tackle all 4 sciences (if you have taken them all for AS &/or A2) & any preparation you would advise me to do, to be honest i would be very grateful for any advice you have or information which you would have liked to have known for year 12.
Thank you x

Hi!
I didn't study these subjects for A-Level, but know people that have. A few people from my school had a tutor outside of school to help them if they were ever stuck on anything. I also had a tutor in my GCSE years to help me with Maths and Chemistry as I lacked confidence in school and always fell behind: this helped me probably the most as I could learn at a comfortable pace for me. The only other thing I can think of is finding past papers to practice on, but most importantly, take your time, and if you don't understand something there will be sessions you can go to if you're ever stuck. Good luck with everything!

I can only comment on physics. It is a great subject but I would only take it if you have an a in maths otherwise you will find it extremely difficult. I nearly got thrown off the course at the start of the year because may maths wasn't up to scratch (I got an a in maths at GCSE) which tells you how tough the maths is.

My advice would be:

1) after every lesson make sure you actually understood what you got taught by doing practice questions. I wish I had have done this

2) there will be a few things you simply do not understand. This is ok as the grade boundaries are very low so don't panic.

3) do every past paper..... A lot of times. After a while you will realize that every paper asks more or less the same questions

I found it tough at the start of the year but put in a lot of work and am now predicted an A/B so with hard work you can do well. However over half of my years cohort at college are dropping it at a2 so make of that what you will


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Hi there, I have a tried and tested method of studying for A-levels in sciences, called the layering strategy.
I will be blogging about this in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile you can follow me on twitter @lecternlobby.
The key to A-level science success is to understand and review all the way through the course. I will explain in my blog how you can do this.
Any q's then im always here for our u.k brightminds !

I studied biology and chemistry (A2), and maths (AS). You've already received some pretty good advice and I don't think I can add more but beware. Exams are changing and specs are changing. I did every single past paper (both old spec and curent spec) for chem and bio this year. OCR unit 1 bio had pretty much nothing to do with the spec, had LOADS of very open suggest questions and was nothing like any of the past papers. Unit 1 chem was just as strange. Unit 2 of both bio and chem however, were pretty standard.
My suggestion, do extra reading but make sure it's relevant.

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Thankyou very much! I don't have a twitter account at the moment but i woud be very interested to know more about this layering strategy! Please could you send/mail me a link for your blog ?