A-level books

So I was just looking up the books i need for a level next year and they come to nearly £300!!!! I know I can buy some of them on ebay to make it cheaper but most of them will only be available in school. How on earth am I meant to buy these???? Do every sixth form have a requirement for students to purchase books themselves?? Pretty sure this is what EMA was for :/

My sixth form gives us the books as they have enough for the whole class, I think this is the same for most schools but maybe not colleges.

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Wtf you must do like 50 A-Levels for it to be £300. Most books are given by your college though there will be some you need to buy (depends on the college my friends college give them all free, my college however we pay for half of them and the other half are given).

Though still I don't know how it amounts to £300... what subjects and boards do you do?

Also it may not be a requirement but recommended. E.g. Access to History textbooks are given free at my college but we're encouraged to also by the Edexcel editions but it's optional. Tbh the book is rubbish and I only ever touch the Access to History ones so that says something.

£300 is a lot! Have you been told specifically that you need all of these books for definite, and that you should buy them? This year for my AS year I didn't have any books that I was required to buy, as I was given the text book for History, Psychology, English Literature and my teacher for Philosophy brought us all of the books we would need due to the small class size. I did buy one of the History books as the school ones weren't in great condition and I brought my own texts for English so they could be annotated. You may not be required to buy every single book on the list. If I had brought every book on the English reading list, I could have spent £1000+, but I only needed about 6 of them, and there were two books recommended for Psychology but I only ever used the one that my teacher gave me. I'd wait until you start your subjects, and you've had a look at all the different texts books. Your teachers should have a copy of each one so you can look through and see which one you like more in terms of the layout, how it is written, the style etc, and you can see how much you will actually need to use them in the class. My General Studies teacher tried to make me buy a text book but I would never had needed it XD I think sometimes your teachers like to give you a choice. I'd also defiantly recommend getting the 2nd hand ones from Amazon, as the quality is often very good.

I'm definitely going to wait because we pick the topics we want to study in english lit and in sociology so the books will differ obviously but history books are pretty pricey at around £18.00 each. I'm going to look them up on ebay and amazon because there's no point in me spending that much on a textbook.

I've personally found History textbooks to be quite cheap on Amazon. I don't know what topics you are doing, but we had an OCR one for Gladstone and Disraeli which was about £5, which I'm sure was originally much pricier. It was second hand, but the only sign of use is a couple of creases in the spine and a name tipex-ed out in the front. But for English Literature, if you are looking for something related to a specific book, try out York Notes. You can get them in Waterstones I believe. I had one for Birdsong this year and it was so helpful, and I've brought another for Othello for next year.

I went onto my sixth form's website nd added up all of the essential books which are needed for the courses I'm taking (English Lit, History, Sociology and Government and Politics) Obviously I won't need all of the english lit ones cos we pick our topics which goes along with sociology. Most of the expense comes from the history and government and politics books.

I did Eng Lit, History and Politics also.

For History you'll only study 2 topics for AS (this applies for the new spec too, I'm changing subjects next year so I researched), that's 2 New Spec Access to History books about £15 each on Amazon. If your sixth form/college recommends getting both AQA and Access to History books it's a waste of time, just one or the other will be fine. The AQA books are the same price. Usually, your college will provide either AQA or Access to History and tell you to buy the other.

English you will need to just need to buy books, price is completely dependent on your sixth forms book options and board but for me it was about £30, I'd assume it's about the same.

Politics book is £20 for AQA and Edexcel, my college made me buy the revision guide which is £10. That's about £30 for Politics AS. Sociology I haven't done but I assume you just need the £20 core book.

All together - £110 (only 1 of Access to History or AQA History)
Both AQA and Access to History - £140

Give or take about £20-£30 still no where near £300, don't know where you got that from.

The total price of the essential and recommended books is £276.70

What are the recommended books though? I'd only get the essentials tbh and by the sounds of it, they're asking for a lot more than you'd even need...

Your going to buy them and never use them.