tips for 3A*

Lol, people are exaggerating here so bad. You don't have to revise super hard all year, just make sure you keep up to date with what is going on in your classes all year. I did like.. literally zero revision for any of my subjects until my mocks in like February. And you don't need to give up your social life, that's ridiculous. A-levels really aren't that bad, there's just a lot of info to take in but you have a huge excess of time, especially if you're asking this question in AUGUST.

About 3 months before exams, start properly revising, doing past papers, just really hit it hard, until you're at the point when you know every single thing in your specification and you basically have to get an A*. It takes a lot of time, but it's not too bad if you're organised.

Would this still be the case for me? I'm not doing "hard" subjects like the thread starter?

What course are you doing at Uni?!!

Universities only look at 3 A levels so in this case AAA which is pretty much the highest they consider.

That C shouldnt bring you down since you are resitting maths units.

What are you dropping?

4 A2s may be unecessary but you may regret only taking 3 - lol in the future you can tell people you did 4.

When I took 3 this year - although I found I had alot of extra time - I felt mad focusing on a couple subjects and thought I could spread myself more...

I am not sure you need to do this. Year 13 was probably one of my most social years lol. Put in lots of work at home, but you don't have to work flat out, you can be checking facebook or whatever as you work. In general, practice questions from textbooks and past papers are the way forward, but you probably know this. Focus on understanding the material. Become familiar with how marks are allocated. Check the specifics of the syllabus. Time yourself and mark yourself on papers. Especially in Maths, check your working as you go along, rather than leaving all checking to the end when the questions aren't fresh in your mind.

I did the same subjects but dropped Chemistry and ended up with A*A*A*. I never really had a social life anyway but I still had time to play video games, watch TV shows and other fun stuff while still balancing my revision time.

I had my mocks in January so while I was a bit lax before December, I ramped up my revision during December and the Christmas holiday. Once the mocks came, I could say that I was pretty confident on the first units (C3, S2 and Newtonian Physics as these were what the mocks were on) as I had done the majority of the past papers. Remember to leave a few of the latest past papers to do closer to the exam but don't worry if you do all of them at this time as you're unlikely to remember all the answers in a few months so you can redo them. I would also recommend doing the first few past papers of any exam as open book just to boost your confidence so you aren't leaving too many blank spaces and you will be able to learn the general format of the questions.

As I was confident on the first units this meant I could focus more on the harder units (FP2 and Fields, Particles...) while pretty much being able to ignore revising for 3 units, only redoing the occasional past paper to refresh myself.
By the time each exam came, I had done almost every past paper for that exam at least twice, usually leaving the specification paper or 2014 paper (or sometimes both) to do the day before the exam.

The only revision notes that I made and actually used was for FP2 as revision guides for this are scarce, otherwise I just used the textbook or CGP revision guides. I would read through these notes just before bed and then briefly run through them in the morning.

Not sure if you'll find this helpful but this was just what I did anyway.

Ive already started A2 maths C3. it isn't as bad as I thought but doesn't give me a reason to underestimate A2. I think I will retake AS FM to help my application as my personal statement is not the strongest

Your grades are soo amazing in the 'boss' subjects. May I ask what subject you are going to study and at what uni and good luck

My advice is:

1) For maths, its all well and good doing all the past papers but you have to do all the harder questions. This can be in the form of international papers, or MADAS papers which are really hard and are worth doing if you want an A*. You never know how the exam can be and so you have to be prepared for the worst case scenario
2) For chemistry and physics, do TOPIC questions, a lot of students underestimate the importance of this. When you are doing revision you can find a bunch of topic questions in the internet Make sure you do them again and again until you can answer any question that the examiners can give you on that topic. Do this for all topics. This is a brilliant way to know which topics you need to work on
3) Do stuff beyond the classroom. This is so important if you want an A*. The teachers can only guide you and teach you the content but end of the day its up to you to take responsibility. So what if you havent been taught c4? Why cant you learn it at home? All this reading ahead will boost your chances for the A*
4) Know your progress for all modules. For example i was fine in every maths module and chem u4 bit was weak in chem u5 and econ u3 and u4. Therefore i knew i needed to work more in these modules.
5) Start revising early for the exams. If your exam is in June then you should revise as if you were sitting it in May. Mentality like this is key, it eliminates last minute cramming.
6) Dont ditch social life - it is underestimated the value of friends in times like this. There will be times in the year where you want to do something with friends to get your mind off the stress, thats fine. Even in exam period, I had late night convos with my friends, it does help take your mind off all the stress and they are supportive.

People on this thread are very immature. I managed to continue to party, go to gym etc and get 3 A*s at A level. What people don't actually realise is that procrastination is what ruins your grades. I timed myself while I revised and stopped the clock every time I stopped concentrating. I was only doing 2 hrs 20 minutes MAX a day (even on weekends only 3 hrs). What felt like 6 hours revision was actually 3 hours in reality.

Good luck and hope this helps.

People on this thread are very immature. I managed to continue to party, go to gym etc and get 3 A*s at A level. What people don't actually realise is that procrastination is what ruins your grades. I timed myself while I revised and stopped the clock every time I stopped concentrating. I was only doing 2 hrs 20 minutes MAX a day (even on weekends only 3 hrs). What felt like 6 hours revision was actually 3 hours in reality.

Good luck and hope this helps.