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The Unlikely Medic

Hey there people! So I thought I'd start off by giving a brief introduction. I'm student studying A2 at the moment and basically I did well in GCSE's without putting any work into them, which proved to be my downfall as I went into AS's with the same mentality, thus performing quite badly... So I had to decide whether to apply for a course I didn't want to do, or smash my A2 exams to get the grades I need for my dream goal... to become a medical student. I got 5A*s and 10As at GCSE but got BCCD at AS.
So I'm hoping for A*A*A (A*AA more realistically (I know realistic isn't the word I should be using :laugh:)
If someone told me they got the same AS grades as me and they still wanted to do medicine, I would say they're disillusion and A/A*s are beyond their reach. But what an achievement if I can do it.
Thanks for reading and I hope on the 18th of August I'll be able to complete my story of the unlikely medic, or at least start a new chapter.
(edited 8 years ago)

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Good luck. Similar goals here.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk
Original post by Kvothe the arcane
Good luck. Similar goals here.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk


Thanks, you too! I should probably say I'm doing Biology, Chemistry and Maths. Biology was the B, Chemistry was the C (2 ums off a B) and Maths was also a C.
I'll try to update my blog at least twice a week.
Best of luck!
Reply 4
Avatar for panda14
panda14
3
Good luck!

Also an aspiring medic here, still waiting on two of my choices (unfortunately I've already got 2 rejections), and apart from maths (I'm doing law instead), subjects are the same too!

I'm going to try and put any advice, tips and comments on my GYG thread here whenever I can!

Good luck!!

Panda :sadpanda:
Original post by panda14
Good luck!

Also an aspiring medic here, still waiting on two of my choices (unfortunately I've already got 2 rejections), and apart from maths (I'm doing law instead), subjects are the same too!

I'm going to try and put any advice, tips and comments on my GYG thread here whenever I can!

Good luck!!

Panda :sadpanda:


Thanks! You too, I'll be sure to follow you. I've already been sort of 'forced' to take a gap year to pursue a degree in medicine, I couldn't apply this year with my AS grades but I'm hoping I can pull a miracle out of the bag and you don't have to join me in my gap year :biggrin:
Original post by Ninjakam119
Hey there people! So I thought I'd start off by giving a brief introduction. I'm an 18yr old student studying A2 at the moment. Basically I did well in GCSE's without putting any work into them, which proved to be my downfall as I went into AS's with the same mentality, thus performing quite badly... So I had to decide whether to apply for a course I didn't want to do, or smash my A2 exams to get the grades I need for my dream goal... to become a medical student. I got 7A*s and 8As at GCSE but got BBCD at AS.
So I'm hoping for A*A*A (A*AA more realistically (I know realistic isn't the word I should be using :laugh:)
If someone told me they got the same AS grades as me and they still wanted to do medicine, I would say they're disillusion and A/A*s are beyond their reach. But what an achievement if I can do it.
Thanks for reading and I hope on the 18th of August I'll be able to complete my story of the unlikely medic, or at least start a new chapter.


Awesome! I hope you smash the exams this year. :woo:

Are you doing Maths with Edexcel by any chance?
Original post by SeanFM
Awesome! I hope you smash the exams this year. :woo:

Are you doing Maths with Edexcel by any chance?


Thanks, me and you both :laugh: !
I am yes, apparently edexcel is the easiest exam board for maths, so I have a lot to be thankful for. I'll probably go into more detail about each of my units next update (which will probably be tomorrow).
Original post by Ninjakam119
Thanks, me and you both :laugh: !
I am yes, apparently edexcel is the easiest exam board for maths, so I have a lot to be thankful for. I'll probably go into more detail about each of my units next update (which will probably be tomorrow).


Apparently it is :tongue: I did Maths with them as well.

I look forward to your posts - hopefully I can give a bit of insight into your maths modules.
Reply 9
Avatar for panda14
panda14
3
Original post by Ninjakam119
Thanks! You too, I'll be sure to follow you. I've already been sort of 'forced' to take a gap year to pursue a degree in medicine, I couldn't apply this year with my AS grades but I'm hoping I can pull a miracle out of the bag and you don't have to join me in my gap year :biggrin:


Thank you! I'm sure you'll be fine, It's probably a good thing - you get more time to practice for UKCAT/BMAT that way! I'm planning what I'm going to do with an unexpected gap year, for the ever more likely event that I get AAA or better but no offers this year!
Good Luck
So my first update... :biggrin:

I've gotten all my mocks results back, but they weren't as good as I hoped for.

I got an A* in Biol4 (AQA) 100 ums :smile: I had revised for this exam like it was the real thing, doing all the possible past papers and getting 100ums in all of them.

Chemistry was more of a mixed bag. I got 68% in CHEM5 (AQA) but when I received my paper, my teacher said it was quite a good mark. Confusing right? Apparently the average mark for the year was extremely low (I'd hate to be working in the chemistry department at the moment). In CHEM4 I got 79% which averaged my total grade to a B. At this moment in time I'd take that, I didn't really put a lot of work into my revision for Chemistry, In hindsight I focused too much on my strength (Biology) rather than Maths and Chemistry. After looking through my Chemistry papers, I couldn't see any clear misunderstanding of the chemistry, most of the marks I lost were due to missing out the key words/phrases which are on the mark scheme which will come to me by practice. I hadn't completed a single chemistry past paper before the mock which screwed my mark over.

Maths (Edexcel) was solid. I had been doing quite a few M1 papers and was consistently getting A's/A*s but in the mock I got a high B. There was one question which just threw me, but overall this paper was the one I was most disappointed about. In C3 I also got a B, despite getting A's in my past papers. I did find the maths mock papers harder than the past papers, which is probably my cue to start doing solomon and gold papers.

So I'm going to be doing 2 past papers for C3 and M1 each week. I'm not sure what to do for biology as I've finished all the biol4 papers, I might look back at some of the old spec papers, apparently sometimes AQA reuse questions from there. I'll also be continuing to finish off my notes for Biol5, Chem4 and Chem5 before starting any papers.

The units I'm taking this year are:
Edexcel Math: C1, C2, C3, C4, M1
Aqa Biology: Biol3X(empa), Biol4, Biol5, Biol6X(empa)
Aqa Chemistry: Chem2, Chem4, Chem5, Chem6X(empa)
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Ninjakam119
Hey there people! So I thought I'd start off by giving a brief introduction. I'm an 18yr old student studying A2 at the moment. Basically I did well in GCSE's without putting any work into them, which proved to be my downfall as I went into AS's with the same mentality, thus performing quite badly... So I had to decide whether to apply for a course I didn't want to do, or smash my A2 exams to get the grades I need for my dream goal... to become a medical student. I got 7A*s and 8As at GCSE but got BCCD at AS.
So I'm hoping for A*A*A (A*AA more realistically (I know realistic isn't the word I should be using :laugh:)
If someone told me they got the same AS grades as me and they still wanted to do medicine, I would say they're disillusion and A/A*s are beyond their reach. But what an achievement if I can do it.
Thanks for reading and I hope on the 18th of August I'll be able to complete my story of the unlikely medic, or at least start a new chapter.


Although I didn't quite get the same grades as you, I too cruised through GCSE then didn't work hard enough at AS, and ended up disappointed and annoyed at myself. After AS results I changed my attitude and applied anyway, and now I'm in medical school! It is completely possible to improve your AS grades and do well at A2, just stay focused and hardworking. Please don't beat yourself up about not doing as well as you'd wanted to in mocks- congratulate yourself on what you did well, and know specifically where you need to focus, and how you're going to do that to improve.
Original post by Komodo dragon
Although I didn't quite get the same grades as you, I too cruised through GCSE then didn't work hard enough at AS, and ended up disappointed and annoyed at myself. After AS results I changed my attitude and applied anyway, and now I'm in medical school! It is completely possible to improve your AS grades and do well at A2, just stay focused and hardworking. Please don't beat yourself up about not doing as well as you'd wanted to in mocks- congratulate yourself on what you did well, and know specifically where you need to focus, and how you're going to do that to improve.

Thanks and congratulations! Hopefully I can follow in your footsteps :')
Around a week has past since my last update... but it's been quite a productive one!

I've finally finished my Biology A level notes, now I'll be reading over them every day and next week will start to read synoptic essay samples before attempting my first BIOL5 paper. Trying to get my head around how to interpret restriction maps. It definitely helps that I enjoy the content in unit 5 and find it interesting, no ecology rubbish like in unit 4 :')

For chemistry I'm now going to try and make an A1 poster for my room to remind me of all the organic synthesis reactions from AS to A2 (which seems quite daunting at the moment, so anyone any advice on how to revise for this will be much appreciated). I've already finished my CHEM4 notes, but I'm far from being proficient in it. CHEM5 doesn't look as demanding and I should be able to finish the notes for CHEM5 by this week too.

I've finished M1 and C3 and am doing 2 past papers a week, getting around 85% which is decent. By the start of next week I'll be sweating it on exam solutions trying to finish C4.

As you can probably tell I'm keen on finishing my courses early as possible so I can just start doing papers after papers and with half term coming up, it'll be an ideal time to start.

I've also come to the conclusion I simply can't work in my house... so most days I go to the library after school and stay there till 9, I feel like it's the ideal environment to work in as... well there's nothing else to do.
Okay I've come to terms that my pledge of updating my blog twice a week is near impossible haha, but I won't give up!

So half term... the week where the hardcore people start working properly? Well most days so far I've been going to the library with my friend and we've been busting out some serious work.

I re-read my biology unit 5 notes and did my first past paper today... June 2013... and I got 79%! (which is very high in terms of UMS) so I'm quite happy on how biology is going, but some of the questions did take me by surprise, quite a few of the questions required unit 4 revision. I must point out I didn't attempt the essay question, I think it will be a waste of time at the moment. I'm planning on reading a lot of sample essays before trying one.

I've gone through all the topics in chemistry now but I definitely need to go through them before I attempt past papers. I haven't even begun learning the transition metal colours! Any tips on how to go about this would be invaluable.

I've just started C4 integration.... and damn it's probably the hardest topic I will ever come across in my mathematical career *Cue laughter from all of the further mathematicians* On Friday I'll watch examsolutions and hopefully my hero will save me once again.

So all in all it's my journey is going okay, though I have a C1 and C2 resit mock next week I am yet to revise for, but I haven't touched them in a while so it will be interesting to see how I cope.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Ninjakam119
Okay I've come to terms that my pledge of updating my blog twice a week is near impossible haha, but I won't give up!

So half term... the week where the hardcore people start working properly? Well most days so far I've been going to the library with my friend who happens to be in all of my classes, he helps me with maths when there's a questions I struggle with and I help with Biology and Chemistry.

I re-read my biology unit 5 notes and did my first past paper today... June 2013... and I got 79%! (which is very high in terms of UMS) so I'm quite happy on how biology is going, but some of the questions did take me by surprise, quite a few of the questions required unit 4 revision. I must point out I didn't attempt the essay question, I think it will be a waste of time at the moment. I'm planning on reading a lot of sample essays before trying one.

I've gone through all the topics in chemistry now but I definitely need to go through them before I attempt past papers. I haven't even begun learning the transition metal colours! Any tips on how to go about this would be invaluable.

I've just started C4 integration.... and damn it's probably the hardest topic I will ever come across in my mathematical career *Cue laughter from all of the further mathematicians* On Friday I'll watch examsolutions and hopefully my hero will save me once again.

So all in all it's my journey is going okay, though I have a C1 and C2 resit mock next week I am yet to revise for, but I haven't touched them in a while so it will be interesting to see how I cope.


Hey, just out of interest have you finished learning all the biology content then?
Original post by izzy.burns
Hey, just out of interest have you finished learning all the biology content then?

Hi, yes I finished learning the course 1/2 weeks ago, but I still need to remind myself of a few things every now and then (names of enzymes in biotechnology, hormone names etc...) But I have an understanding of all the topics which is probably the most important thing at this stage :smile:
Original post by Ninjakam119
Hi, yes I finished learning the course 1/2 weeks ago, but I still need to remind myself of a few things every now and then (names of enzymes in biotechnology, hormone names etc...) But I have an understanding of all the topics which is probably the most important thing at this stage :smile:


Wow thats impressive! We still have chapters 10-13 and half of c16 to learn at school, would you recommend I start learning it myself?
Original post by izzy.burns
Wow thats impressive! We still have chapters 10-13 and half of c16 to learn at school, would you recommend I start learning it myself?

Thanks! Well I've found it helpful, having a good base of knowledge before the teacher goes over it, so I can just go through the information in my mind whilst I listen for anything I might have missed out in my revision. I just used the CGP textbook, math and physics tutor and my dad to learn the course. Unit 5 is certainly a heavy load, with many complicated topics like the negative/positive feedbacks involved in blood glucose levels and the menstruation cycle, but it certainly helps if you find it interesting.

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