AAAA at as level
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I didn't revise for C1, C2, S1, M1, M2, PHYA1 or Comp1. For C3 and C4 I crammed past papers the day before the exam. I should definitely have done more. For PHYA2 the day before the exam I watched DrPhysicsA videos and read the revision guide. Comp2 was on the same day as PHYA2 so I did barely anything for it - roughly 2.5 hours were spent on desperately reading the textbook and hoping something would sink in.
I wouldn't really advise this approach. I got a B in Comp2 and S1; nevertheless I got As overall and S1 wasn't even counted towards my maths grade. I did just scrape the A in computing though; I got 82%.
I'm not sure how I managed. I rarely handed homework in on time (sometimes not at all) and was generally extremely disorganised.
This year, though, I'm trying to get it together and get A*s in FM, physics and computing.
I wouldn't really advise this approach. I got a B in Comp2 and S1; nevertheless I got As overall and S1 wasn't even counted towards my maths grade. I did just scrape the A in computing though; I got 82%.
I'm not sure how I managed. I rarely handed homework in on time (sometimes not at all) and was generally extremely disorganised.
This year, though, I'm trying to get it together and get A*s in FM, physics and computing.
Original post by tazza ma razza
DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDEEEEEE Same story here, i was 1 ums off an A FFS...
Maths (A) Further Maths (A) Economics (B) and German (A)
I just did maths at home and in school on weekdays with 30 mins of german a day, with economics on the weekend
Maths (A) Further Maths (A) Economics (B) and German (A)
I just did maths at home and in school on weekdays with 30 mins of german a day, with economics on the weekend
I got a B in business xD
But A's in Math FM and Ethics and philosophy.
Plus I'm crazy this year and decided to take sociology as and A2 within a year.
Original post by happysmile
Hey, I got A* at GCSE for the subjects I'm now taking at AS, which is biology chemistry physics maths - I've used chemguide.co.uk and I guess its okay, the second site you've given seems brilliant! (and there's stuff for Edexcel too! 
may I ask which AS subject you've dropped (if you did) and which A2 subjects are you studying now?
may I ask which AS subject you've dropped (if you did) and which A2 subjects are you studying now?I'm doing Bio, Chem and Maths at A2 and dropped Religious Studies. I would have taken it further to A2 but my brother did it at A2 and said it got boring and an RS exam would have been in between my last Bio and Maths exams. It was pretty good at AS though.
Original post by Dylann
It seems that every other post on this thread is someone giving advice when they didn't get 4As which the OP asks
nope
To anyone who gained AAAA or similar
Original post by tazza ma razza
THIS! Holy crap - dude, i am impressed, this literally hit the nail on the head... This is THE way to get the 4As we all strive to get. Cheers mate 
No problem!
Ambitious students will often look to TSR for easier methods to achieve As. Unfortunately there is no easy method, getting above average results will always come down more or less to the fundamentals I have previously stated.
I'd also take the advice of users who suggest 'revising a week before the exam' with a pinch of salt. This is not good advice and defies common sense.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by ghostly1010
No problem!
Ambitious students will often look to TSR for easier methods to achieve As. Unfortunately there is no easy method, getting above average results will always come down more or less to the fundamentals I have previously stated.
I'd also take the advice of users who suggest 'revising a week before the exam' with a pinch of salt. This is not good advice and defies common sense.
Ambitious students will often look to TSR for easier methods to achieve As. Unfortunately there is no easy method, getting above average results will always come down more or less to the fundamentals I have previously stated.
I'd also take the advice of users who suggest 'revising a week before the exam' with a pinch of salt. This is not good advice and defies common sense.
What's common sense? I didn't advise it, I just said that's what I did (in reality it was less but even I know that's not a good thing to tell everyone)
A week is plenty. That's like one module a day to cover properly, and modules are tiny
Original post by Iggy Azalea
First of all, ignore all those people who say 'I revise 5 hours a night' or whatever. They're either the most boring people ever or are huge liars. Human concentration can barely last 30 minutes let alone 2-5 hours, even with breaks it couldn't last that long every day.
You basically need to compile your notes regularly, and review (not revise) them. Practise the odd paper or essay question, get it marked and see how you do. Make sure you are able to explain your notes, not simply recite them. I find it's a good activity to tell a classmate about one thing you've studied in class without using words listed in your notes. Or see if you could make a presentation on a topic without consulting your notes, and show it to other people.
Get your exam technique right by experimenting with different styles and trying them out on papers. Chat with your teachers regularly, talk with your friends about the work you've done in class and you should be fine.
There's no real winning technique apart from reviewing your notes every now and then. Just remember to chill out and get involved with other things at college/school. Use your study periods when you can as well.
You basically need to compile your notes regularly, and review (not revise) them. Practise the odd paper or essay question, get it marked and see how you do. Make sure you are able to explain your notes, not simply recite them. I find it's a good activity to tell a classmate about one thing you've studied in class without using words listed in your notes. Or see if you could make a presentation on a topic without consulting your notes, and show it to other people.
Get your exam technique right by experimenting with different styles and trying them out on papers. Chat with your teachers regularly, talk with your friends about the work you've done in class and you should be fine.
There's no real winning technique apart from reviewing your notes every now and then. Just remember to chill out and get involved with other things at college/school. Use your study periods when you can as well.
This definitely.
Original post by L'Evil Fish
What's common sense? I didn't advise it, I just said that's what I did (in reality it was less but even I know that's not a good thing to tell everyone)
A week is plenty. That's like one module a day to cover properly, and modules are tiny
A week is plenty. That's like one module a day to cover properly, and modules are tiny
I'm glad you coped well and your results reflected it.
My only concern however is that for the majority of people taking AS, covering the entire syllabus and revising two separation specifications is unrealistic. For example; Econ 1 + Econ 2 or even more i.e. Maths C1,C2 and M1.. within the proximity of a week.
If you also contextualise AS exams within the average two week period in which they are sat (10th - 24th) including the average number of AS levels taken which is 4, candidates would have to revise 8 separate separate specifications in two weeks, which even for a gifted student is ambitious.
Personally I feel that most people would benefit from revision leading up the exam, granted the use of past papers as well.. et al.
(edited 9 years ago)
Tbh, AS maths is pretty easy; in the sense that you can revise it quite quickly. The papers are all the same, the numbers and what you try to find change, that is it. method is all the same... true for all modules at AS bar D1 - that ****s crazy!
Original post by L'Evil Fish
You have too much faith a Levels being hard
To be fair I do agree with you, I did pretty much the same amount of revision as you for AS and came out with AAAB. AS is really not hard as people make it out to be.
What I would say though is to try and understand everything during the lessons.
Original post by Adnan Januzaj
nope
I would allow AAAB, but not ABBB, which is more similar to BBBB.
Original post by tazza ma razza
Tbh, AS maths is pretty easy; in the sense that you can revise it quite quickly. The papers are all the same, the numbers and what you try to find change, that is it. method is all the same... true for all modules at AS bar D1 - that ****s crazy!
Took D1 as my third A2 unit because I heard it was piss easy, how's the predictability of exam questions generally? Are they shockingly difficult or what? I thought D1 would be very consistent in using the same method for its heavy reliance on algorithms (though we have not completed much of D1)
Original post by ubisoft
Not all A's are equal in difficulty, so question is meaningless.
Agree to an extent, but everyone has their own personal strengths and weaknesses - a strong mathematics student would consider an "A" easy, but a different student may perceive it as difficult. But I generally agree that an A in Physics is probably generally harder than an A in sociology.
Original post by HughMyron
I'm doing Bio, Chem and Maths at A2 and dropped Religious Studies. I would have taken it further to A2 but my brother did it at A2 and said it got boring and an RS exam would have been in between my last Bio and Maths exams. It was pretty good at AS though.
hey, so how would you suggest revising for bio, chem and maths to get an A at AS? any helpful sites? thanks (:
Original post by L'Evil Fish
You have too much faith a Levels being hard
^^ My school barely ever gives homework, so I did class work and then revised for like a week before exams
I ended up with modular grades of AA in Sociology, AA in RS, AA in Chemistry and AD in Economics (mega-fluke, so I will be retaking the unit this year).
My recommendations are that you know what you know; skim through your notes and if there's anything that you aren't sure of, put time aside to study that specifically. Cater your revision to you personally and know how long it takes you to learn stuff. Ask your teachers for extra work if you need it and potentially even ask them to spare a little time to go over a concept with you (my Chem teacher did that for me with equilibrium last year and it helped so much!)
Original post by Anonokay
I got the same bar one B ugh, but I was revising from te beginning of the year and always reading notes throughout so when it came to exam time I knew my stuff
Posted from TSR Mobile
Posted from TSR Mobile
So you didn't get the same then.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Iggy Azalea
First of all, ignore all those people who say 'I revise 5 hours a night' or whatever. They're either the most boring people ever or are huge liars. Human concentration can barely last 30 minutes let alone 2-5 hours, even with breaks it couldn't last that long every day.
You basically need to compile your notes regularly, and review (not revise) them. Practise the odd paper or essay question, get it marked and see how you do. Make sure you are able to explain your notes, not simply recite them. I find it's a good activity to tell a classmate about one thing you've studied in class without using words listed in your notes. Or see if you could make a presentation on a topic without consulting your notes, and show it to other people.
Get your exam technique right by experimenting with different styles and trying them out on papers. Chat with your teachers regularly, talk with your friends about the work you've done in class and you should be fine.
There's no real winning technique apart from reviewing your notes every now and then. Just remember to chill out and get involved with other things at college/school. Use your study periods when you can as well.
You basically need to compile your notes regularly, and review (not revise) them. Practise the odd paper or essay question, get it marked and see how you do. Make sure you are able to explain your notes, not simply recite them. I find it's a good activity to tell a classmate about one thing you've studied in class without using words listed in your notes. Or see if you could make a presentation on a topic without consulting your notes, and show it to other people.
Get your exam technique right by experimenting with different styles and trying them out on papers. Chat with your teachers regularly, talk with your friends about the work you've done in class and you should be fine.
There's no real winning technique apart from reviewing your notes every now and then. Just remember to chill out and get involved with other things at college/school. Use your study periods when you can as well.
Hmm I'd say I'm neither boring nor a liar and I revised about 5 hours a day since like March. I think some people work in short bursts but I just got hardly anything done in 20 minutes so would prefer to solidly work for long chunks of time.
I think the thing that people forget about learning is that everyone does it differently
Original post by happysmile
hey do you know any other useful sites for chemistry and other subjects? I clicked on the site you mentioned and it was brilliant, but unfortunately only covered the AQA and OCR syllabus and I do Edexcel! 
Hey, I do Edexcel Chemistry! I used the website chemguide as well as KhanAcademy on youtube! But tbh the knowledge part of chemistry can only really get you a B/C for edexcel. It's doing a **** ton of papers and understanding how the examiner wants to see you answer the question that gets you the marks! And also examiner reports are really good.
You'd want to start the past papers as soon as you have finished the unit 1 content, making sure you fully understand all the mistakes you've made! If you'd like any other advice for Edexcel chem you can message me
Original post by happysmile
hey, so how would you suggest revising for bio, chem and maths to get an A at AS? any helpful sites? thanks (:
First and foremost make sure you understand everything in class. You don't wanna go into an exam when you don't understand some stuff, especially with biology.
Maths: You just have to get on top of the work. That's all you can do. Anything you don't understand get help from a friend or a teacher and do more questions of that type to make sure you understand it. Do as many past papers as you can. I got an A* at GSCE Maths but my first 3 class tests in AS went A,E,U because I just wasn't putting in any work. When I started getting on top of work I was getting in the 90s. There was a point near the start of the year when I thought '$hit, I might get a D in Maths' but once I got on top of the stuff it was easy, so if you find yourself not understanding stuff don't worry, you''ll get on top of it eventually with help. Make sure you know your methods inside out a few weeks before the exam so you can brush up on stuff to get in the 90s as opposed to a mid-A.
Biology: This is about application. You wanna know your processes inside out so you can get full marks on every question like 'Explain the flow of water to the Xylem' etc. If your text book has application questions in it then do them, that'll help out a lot in the exam when you come across 'how science works' questions. Once you finish your notes do a past paper and if you get an A or at least a high B then do another. If you can't get at least a high B on the first past paper then your content revision hasn't been good enough so go back and spot your weak points. When you mark your past papers don't make corrections. Once you've done all the past papers go through them again from the start and see if you can correct the stuff you got wrong without the book or a mark scheme (this shows you've been improving).
Chemistry: Make sure you know how to write out all the equations. You don't wanna throw away 1/2 marks for questions that ask you to write/complete an equation. Know things like mechanisms inside out because they account for a lot of marks. Make sure you're not losing marks on calculations either or forgetting things like dividing by 2 etc. due to molar ratios. Remember all your conditions for the reactions. Just like with biology, once you've done all the past papers go through them again from the start and see if you can correct the stuff you got wrong
You don't really need to use any sites for Maths. If you're struggling with something and you're at home just use YouTube, do a quick Google search or just ask someone, whether it's friends or the TSR community. Biology I never used any sites because the book explained everything well but I guess you could always search 'Edexcel Biology revision guide/notes etc.'. It doesn't matter if people on here say 'oh I only started revising just before we went into the exam hall', get stuff done early so you're not worrying about not understanding stuff in the days leading up to the exam.
Original post by cerlohee
Hmm I'd say I'm neither boring nor a liar and I revised about 5 hours a day since like March. I think some people work in short bursts but I just got hardly anything done in 20 minutes so would prefer to solidly work for long chunks of time.
I think the thing that people forget about learning is that everyone does it differently
I think the thing that people forget about learning is that everyone does it differently
Is that including what you did in school? Or all after school?
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