Are my A Level options too much/too difficult?

I'm currently in Year 11 and I'm starting A Levels in September. I would like to take Maths, English Lit & Lang (combined), Psychology and Product Design. I do not plan on going to Uni. I'd just like to know if these are good subjects with good lessons and what I would need to do to prepare for them over the summer?

Reply 1

BinaryJava

I can only advise you for maths, but if you want to be prepared make sure you have brushed up on surds, indices and factorising things like ax^2+bx+c and drawing related graphs. Overall I don't believe the work load will be too much but that's coming from someone who does no essay subjects.

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Reply 2

TheGrammarGuru

Product Design is a bit soft for Uni but as you're not going its not an issue. These are fine subjects to take and not too difficult but brush up on mathematical topics as AS maths is difficult. May I ask why you're not going to Uni?

Reply 3

Bern Herkins

Original post by BinaryJava

This is good advice regarding the maths.

I also study Alevel maths and when i arrived in AS from second set at high school (Got an A at GCSE) I struggled for awhile with Surds, Quadratics and omg indices took me a good long while. Everyone else seemed to whiz through those and I was left behind for a bit. So yeah, make sure you can do those while you are still at school :smile:

why no uni ?

Original post by LouellieX

I did maths and english lit, plus economics and music, so there are some similarities between what I studied and what you hope to study. Maths is the most important one to prepare for. Be familiar with GCSE algebra - just do some exercises once a week over the summer. Things like completing the square and surds are forgotten by a surprising number of people over the summer, and they're really important for the first year. I'd get a revision book for Psychology (A level revision) just so you can glance at what kind of things you'll be doing, and you can rest easy knowing that you'll have some homework help to hand once you start your studies. With English - reading a book or two wouldn't hurt, but it's not completely necessary. No idea what product design involves, but I imagine it's quite practical so I can't think of anything you'd need to go over before studying that. I think you have a good balance of subjects.

Reply 6

LouellieX

Original post by TheGrammarGuru

I feel as though it's not my thing and I would prefer to spend savings on a car and find a job, if not an apprenticeship :smile:

Reply 7

LouellieX

Original post by Synonym

why no uni ?

I feel as though it's not my thing and I would prefer to spend savings on a car and find a job, if not an apprenticeship :smile:

Reply 8

null_geodesic

Original post by Bern Herkins

Are you telling me surds, quadratics and indices are NOT in GCSE? That's a joke right?

Reply 9

passivepineapple

Original post by mscaffrey

Is A level music good? Difficult?

Reply 10

Kmb123

I studied English Literature, English Language and Psychology. I think you'll be fine so long as you put the effort in and distribute you time evenly to each subject

Reply 11

User1333171

Original post by passivepineapple

Is A level music good? Difficult?

It was the subject I did worst in out of all my A levels. I got As in everything and a C in music. The exam was okay, but we also had to perform and compose. I was out of practice when it came to playing my violin, and my composing was so amateur it was embarrassing (I hadn't taken GCSE Music and we really didn't receive much tutoring on how to compose before being told just to get on with it). I think if you have Grade 5 theory and/or GCSE Music you'll find it a much better experience, and I think most music departments have much better organised classes than we did. Our music department wasn't huge (we didn't have an orchestra or anything) and our education was kind of disrupted because our regular teacher had to leave to have medical treatment. If I could sit my A levels again and I knew that I was sitting music in a good department I wouldn't hesitate to choose it, but my experience of studying it wasn't great.