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What's the essential piece of advice you'd give to someone starting their A-levels?

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- Start revising now is you're doing a subject like History. I revised over the topics in class during the week during my free periods and during Christmas I did fairly little revision because I had memorised most of it. After mocks it was just giving in essay questions for my teachers to mark and learning the new topics.
- Actually listen to the teachers when they tell you to revise a little everyday
- Don't leave anything to last minute
- Do practice papers
- Actually work during your frees
- If you have any question bugging you ask your teacher
- Go to the revision classes they hold because they could save you. I attended a History revision class a day before my exam and one of the questions we went through came up.
Use your free periods throughout the year to work and revise, not to doss with your mates... Just setting aside a free a week for work massively helped me keep on top of everything

If you're doing Psychology and you're exam board is OCR, change subject immediately!!! It's the worst subject spec ever and so boring
Original post by GeorgeT97
I DO APOLIGISE, that this reply is not that concise

My advice would be, when you have decided on your 4 A Levels (or 3), to start preparing for them as soon as you have recieved your GCSEs and you are sure that you are going to do A Levels.

The best ways to prepare are:
1 - Checking to see what the preparation tasks have been set for your subject. These give you an insight into whether the subject is the right one for you.
2 - Start reading and working through workbooks for your subjects.
3 - Do further reading, by reading books related to your subject. E.g. for Maths: 'Fermatt's Last Theorem', Physics: 'Why does E=mc^2'

Useful threads for point 3 are: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Recommended_Physics_Reading#Quantum_Physics, etc.

Why should you start work before the year starts?
It gets you in the hardworking frame of mind, so you can hit the ground running when the year starts. For example, When your teacher is going through a concept, you will already know some of the answers (or have a good idea). This is especially helpful when the HW starts piling up.


Don't you think Fermat's last theorem is a bit basic for A-level purposes?
Do what you can on the day instead of leaving it for the next day because you think you have time. You'll get into that habit and then be behind in everything. Then you'll be crying, WHYYYYYYY?!?!?!?! .... Just me??
CONSOLIDATE YOUR WORK
if you don't revise as you go along and make sure you understand each part of the course, by the time exams roll around you'll have to make notes and revise the whole course at once. Properly revising for topic tests is key 🔑
Reply 225
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wtvryas
Start revising for your exams from the first day of college/sixthform 😩😂
Reply 226
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Aoba
1
You are not alone . . . . you have your brain.
If anybody has studied medicine/dentistry how did you find fitting in the voluntary work in with your studies? Did you do it at weekends/in the week/in holidays? Just wondering how to fit volunteering in (already done some work experience)? Also, did you find that doing 3 sciences and maths is easier as they overlap? Just wondering how to sort timings out. Thanks
Don't stop working on something... Whether it's revision, coursework or an exam... Until you are proud of it.
If you wouldn't show it to your parents and be proud, don't submit yet👍
1) Work hard from the beginning. I found y13 waaay easier than y12 because i worked from the day we began y13.

2) If you start year 12 & pick a subject and you find you dont like it within a week or 2.. change it asap. Trust me, i stuck to a subject that i didnt like as much anymore (French GCSE didn't prepare me for AS) because i didn't want to let down my teachers.. i got a C in it but definitely could have got an A in something like Politics which i wanted to do.

3) Leading on from point 2, don't listen to your teachers. I didnt pick Politics because i told it would 'not compliment' the other subjects i wanted to do & i completely regretted it throughout the entirety of my AS.

4) Do as many extra curriculars as you can eg taster courses, work shops.. it will help ypu write your personal statement much more easily, & to a higher quality and will help you decide what uni course to do, if you want to go to uni.

5) Enjoy yourself lol as much A Levels are hard, enjoy your college/sixth form years. Make new friends, learn new things.. Sixth form for me was definitely more enjoyable than secondary school.

Good luck xx
As well as working hard to get the A grade for all of your subjects at AS, I would suggest looking at getting work experience and applying for summer schools pertaining to a subject you wish to study at uni. I truly regret not doing this during AS :frown:
Make sure you enjoy your subjects, revise revise revise revise revise, start looking up uni stuff towards the end of year 12 (esp for medicine & oxbridge), and any time you don't understand something, go to your teacher (or even a different teacher in the same department) and get them to spend some time explaining it to you. Do some extra curriculars in year 12 to make friends and build up personal statement, but I wouldn't recommend continuing all of them into yr 13 (time is precious)
There is going to be a jump between GCSEs and a level, do not expect to be able to get through with a laissez-a-faire attitude.
But the key for me was to keep organised and up to date with notes as a little time spent throughout the term saved a lot of time during revision.*
Original post by samiz20891
There is going to be a jump between GCSEs and a level, do not expect to be able to get through with a laissez-a-faire attitude.
But the key for me was to keep organised and up to date with notes as a little time spent throughout the term saved a lot of time during revision.*


Merci pour le info, c'etait trés util


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Reply 234
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Napp
22
Run. Run far and run fast.
Original post by hopefuldentist10
This is aimed at hopeful medicine students

* Don't have your heart set on getting multiple A* grades, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

* Don't take psychology as your fourth, it's seen as soft. Don't take physics with the EPQ, choose between the two unless you're hardcore.

* Do not go to your sixth form common room. Literally just don't step foot in there once. Spend your break and lunch time wisely.

* Don't underestimate these exams, at all, ever. It doesn't matter if you're breezing through the past papers, these exams are very unpredictable and you could be in for a smack if you get big headed.

* Make sure you've made notes on literally EVERYTHING in the syllabus. This year there was a 6 mark biology question on something that had only a paragraph in the revision book.

* Your past paper ratio should be split 65/30/5 ... maths/chemistry/biology. You need to understand what mental capabilities the subjects require. Biology is heavily memory based and therefore you need to recall your NOTES rather than doing past papers. Mathematics is almost entirely problem solving, therefore you need to PRACTICE with many, many past papers. Do literally every single maths past paper there is. Before doing that, look up the past grade boundaries and omit the easy ones. Chemistry is in the middle and will be half memory half intuition.

* Read, cover, look is the age old revision technique taught to you from primary school. It is essential that you can memorise the material learnt and be able to RECALL the material at any time off the top of your head. You can't be reliant on some sort of prompt.

I could have probably come up with a few more, but here's a last one:

If your revision isn't making you hate life, then you're probably not revising properly.


Truly inspirational:smile:
Never bunk lessons
Original post by AdeptDz
Merci pour le info, c'etait trés util


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thanks for that, it's been a long while since I did my a levels, think I finished physics,economics and maths in 2009 and it's been almost 4 years since I finished my degree in economics. Nice to see it has been of some help.
*
Another key piece of advice I see often is try to get as many practice papers done as possible, even if they are prior to your current syllabus as this will be very useful. Good luck.*
Original post by samiz20891
thanks for that, it's been a long while since I did my a levels, think I finished physics,economics and maths in 2009 and it's been almost 4 years since I finished my degree in economics. Nice to see it has been of some help.
*
Another key piece of advice I see often is try to get as many practice papers done as possible, even if they are prior to your current syllabus as this will be very useful. Good luck.*


Merci, je vais faire beacoup de passé examens.
C'est d'accord, tu fait quelle maintenant?
Aussi, est economics difficile à universitie?


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Original post by AdeptDz
Merci, je vais faire beacoup de passé examens.
C'est d'accord, tu fait quelle maintenant?
Aussi, est economics difficile à universitie?


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I do apologise if I didn't understand this correctly, been years since studied any French.
*I think it really depends if you enjoy a course at uni tbh, I feel if you like your degree, you tend to do better. I did Bsc economics and found the calculus and core economics fairly straightforward but thought that the third year econometrics in particular was challenging. Well econometrics overall was probably the hardest part but I did okay and got a first overall..
I am studying my professional accountancy qualification atm and working as a management accountant.*

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