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Every single person doing a levels read this now!!!!!

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im doing history business and IT :smile:
can someone give advise on how to an A* in history coursework really need to get a good grade in it!
anyway ive already started to revise sad i know but im aspiring to get A*AA at least (hope its doable).
Original post by Uni12345678
This title is such a great way of getting ppl to read and answer a pretty common and average question on tsr :smile:

I'm doing bio chem physics and maths
A levels? *If so are you applying for natural sciences or medicine?
Original post by Dynamic_Vicz
A Levels?


Yeah :smile: you can ask me any questions if you want
Original post by Dynamic_Vicz
A levels? *If so are you applying for natural sciences or medicine?


Medicine
Original post by Uni12345678
Medicine
Oh cool. I'm an A2 student as well (studying A2 Maths, Further Maths and Chemistry). I reckon you are going to apply for the top medical schools seen as you're doing 4 A Levels?
Original post by Dynamic_Vicz
Oh cool. I'm an A2 student as well (studying A2 Maths, Further Maths and Chemistry). I reckon you are going to apply for the top medical schools seen as you're doing 4 A Levels?


Think so yeah. Slightly worried about the work but I don't know what to drop as I like all of them so I'll probably do all of them. What are you applying for?
Original post by niallbc
Maths- past papers and questions
FM- past papers and questions
Physics- past papers, LOTS of revision cards
Chemsitry- past papers, LOTS of revision cards

Just make sure to revise regularly and if you don't understand something you must consolidate it as much as you can.


i'm doing exactly the same subjects as you :h:
Original post by Zacken
Maths - STEP
Further Maths - STEP
Physics - Read the textbook and past papers


what do you mean by STEP?
Original post by Uni12345678
Think so yeah. Slightly worried about the work but I don't know what to drop as I like all of them so I'll probably do all of them. What are you applying for?
I'm going to apply for a Maths course. Haha wish my academic background was strong enough for me to apply for Cambridge's maths course. Oh well
Original post by Dynamic_Vicz
I'm going to apply for a Maths course. Haha wish my academic background was strong enough for me to apply for Cambridge's maths course. Oh well


Oh nice haha :smile: good luck with everything
Currently studying A2 Bio, Chem, Maths
AS subjects:
OCR Bio - I took the new OCR spec which is considerably hard. Advice for this board specifically is practise those MCQs! Really get to grips with all the practicals because they love practical-based qs. Revise all the content as you go and make sure it sticks in your head! There's a lot to know and you need to remember it all for the end of A2 so try and know it inside and out! Further reading can also help to familiarise yourself with potential examples they may give in exam qs.

OCR Chem - Practise calculations! Just keep and keep on practising those moles calculations and, same with Bio, learn all the practicals and tests for different compounds and be confident with the theory (there's not much, but you need to be 100% sure about it!). Also practise drawing out the different reaction mecahnisms and know all the little details like where the arrows go and come from, which dipoles go where etc.

Edexcel Maths: Practiseeeeee (notice a trend? LOL). Practise along the way with textbook questions and you may choose to do past paper questions bbut its best to save these for the actual exam. I started this about 3 or so weeks before. I did tons of past papers but I did it quite chill so I didn't get too stressed and actually enjoyed revision. So I would have the paper in one tab, the MS in another, put an episode of my favourite tv show on and just worked through the paper, starring any questions that I wasn't familiar with or made silly mistakes in. Don't be discouraged if you find M1 hard. I did OK in the beginning with Mechanics and then dropped down to a 36% in my mock (don't even ask). I kept working at it, did every single M1 paper, repeated the most recent ones nearer to exam time and got 82 in the end which isn't too bad. The point is, there is ALWAYS time to put in the effort, so don't feel like you aren't capable of getting that A.

AQA Spanish: I love languages so studying Spanish was quite fun. What you want to do here is just try and learn as much vocabulary as you can and really be confident with all the tenses and grammar. As someone who tends to get really anxious about speaking to people, I'd advise that you spend the year not only building your vocab but also your confidence! This is so important for the oral exam. For essays, I advise that you have a main set of complex essay phrases and starters that you can memorise because these will bag you some needed marks! Do a lot of listening practice as well and really focus on the accuracy of your writing, too.

Don't stress yourselves out with revision. Pay attention in class along the way and you'll find that there isn't much work left to do aside from practise! AS doesn't have to be stressful as long as you keep up with everything. You don't need to stay up until 4 am, scanning the textbook over and over again. And one major tip: if you feel like you know everything, done everything you can and can't revise any more, that is OKAY. Take a break, do something fun and maybe come back to it the next day. No point in driving yourself nuts and remember to take time to take care of yourselves and be happy. If you feel sucky, you won't want to work and that won't help you grade-wise or life-wise!

Woah this is one long post! Anyways, I managed to pull off 4 A's so I guess I must've done something right, lol.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by shsidk
Currently studying A2 Bio, Chem, Maths
AS subjects:
OCR Bio - I took the new OCR spec which is considerably hard. Advice for this board specifically is practise those MCQs! Really get to grips with all the practicals because they love practical-based qs. Revise all the content as you go and make sure it sticks in your head! There's a lot to know and you need to remember it all for the end of A2 so try and know it inside and out! Further reading can also help to familiarise yourself with potential examples they may give in exam qs.

OCR Chem - Practise calculations! Just keep and keep on practising those moles calculations and, same with Bio, learn all the practicals and tests for different compounds and be confident with the theory (there's not much, but you need to be 100% sure about it!). Also practise drawing out the different reaction mecahnisms and know all the little details like where the arrows go and come from, which dipoles go where etc.

Edexcel Maths: Practiseeeeee (notice a trend? LOL). Practise along the way with textbook questions and you may choose to do past paper questions bbut its best to save these for the actual exam. I started this about 3 or so weeks before. I did tons of past papers but I did it quite chill so I didn't get too stressed and actually enjoyed revision. So I would have the paper in one tab, the MS in another, put an episode of my favourite tv show on and just worked through the paper, starring any questions that I wasn't familiar with or made silly mistakes in. Don't be discouraged if you find M1 hard. I did OK in the beginning with Mechanics and then dropped down to a 36% in my mock (don't even ask). I kept working at it, did every single M1 paper, repeated the most recent ones nearer to exam time and got 82 in the end which isn't too bad. The point is, there is ALWAYS time to put in the effort, so don't feel like you aren't capable of getting that A.

AQA Spanish: I love languages so studying Spanish was quite fun. What you want to do here is just try and learn as much vocabulary as you can and really be confident with all the tenses and grammar. As someone who tends to get really anxious about speaking to people, I'd advise that you spend the year not only building your vocab but also your confidence! This is so important for the oral exam. For essays, I advise that you have a main set of complex essay phrases and starters that you can memorise because these will bag you some needed marks! Do a lot of listening practice as well and really focus on the accuracy of your writing, too.

Don't stress yourselves out with revision. Pay attention in class along the way and you'll find that there isn't much work left to do aside from practise! AS doesn't have to be stressful as long as you keep up with everything. You don't need to stay up until 4 am, scanning the textbook over and over again. And one major tip: if you feel like you know everything, done everything you can and can't revise any more, that is OKAY. Take a break, do something fun and maybe come back to it the next day. No point in driving yourself nuts and remember to take time to take care of yourselves and be happy. If you feel sucky, you won't want to work and that won't help you grade-wise or life-wise!

Woah this is one long post! Anyways, I managed to pull off 4 A's so I guess I must've done something right, lol.


Wow amazing advice, and wow your grades are amazing well done. I wanted to ask so like i started school on the 6th and i started revising from the first day, but i haven't been revising consistently do you think if i start proper revision from the 19th which is the Monday coming, do you think that is still considered to be in the beginning of the year,m and is it considered to be an early start. I am also taking bio anc chem do you have anything major that you did which helped everything stick in your head.
I'm currently in year 13 studying English Literature, History, Psychology and Law. Along with an EPQ (if anyone wants help with that message me)

I'm gonna skirt over English Lit because I had an intense hatred for the content of the AS year so I didn't do anywhere near as much work as I should have. Following that, my advice would be to actually read the books, more than once if possible and get down some pivotal quotes that would be useful for various themes. Annotations really help also, and practice questions in the time limit to nail your wording and exam technique. Or if you're gonna do it the way I regrettably did, be exceptional at cramming and pull something fabulous out in the exam!

History, start revising early, the content is huge. LEARN YOUR DATES AND FIGURES. I cannot stress that enough. Accuracy in your responses will make or break the exam for you. Pester the life out of your teacher to help you construct arguments for possible questions and get them written up timed. A lot of the reason people fail this a level is because they either didn't revise, or their writing style doesn't tick the boxes the examiners want. Get your style nailed early on!

Psychology, literally just learn your studies and evaluation points. Get out of the habit of waffling on, they literally just want the answer half the time. For the 12 markers, make sure you use correct studies and info that the question they've asked requires, not the question you want to answer. ALWAYS EVALUATE. People who forget, fail.

Law, LEARN YOUR CASES. Even the obscure ones, because the second exam this year had two horrid niche questions. I recommend whiteboard quizzing or flash cards. Also get used to writing in a way that hits their assessment criteria. Do lots of past papers.

I revise via notes condensing, mind mapping, quizzing, or past papers. Although word/ picture association works too.

Good luck everyone! Work from the off and you'll be fine. I did a stupid thing and though I did the work all year, I realise now I look back on it that I didn't really revise properly until a month or so before the exams (or never in the case of Lit, yes I'm ashamed and I know that's not recommended at ALL)

If you're wondering, I got AAAA last year, so though some of my methods are somewhat unconventional, luckily they got me through. My brain works well with short term cramming. Be aware that if you decide to do what I did and cram, it may well work for AS, but don't be foolish enough to continue doing it. I've turned my habits around because I'm chasing A*s this year and cramming will not cut it.

And finally. DO NOT WASTE FREE PERIODS. They are crucial.
Last year I did AS's and got Distinction* + AAB (Applied Law, English Lit, Politics, History). Here's what I did:

I started light, unstructured revision in January (I was doing really badly before this). On the 1st of February I started proper hardcore, structured revision. Every night I would do two of what I called 'significant tasks'. A single significant task would be something like writing an essay (which I would give to the teacher to mark of course) or reading and memorising a certain number of chapters in my textbook (usually about 15, half a chapter). Two of these would normally take about 3 hours. I was flexible though, because I also had monthly goals. For example, one of my goals might have been to get to a certain point in my textbook by X point in time. To this end I was allowed to reach that goal in whatever way I wanted. If I didn't do my significant task for that day then I could do it the next day, but I would have to do the two for that day as well. The number of pages I had to read in a day was worked out by dividing the amount of pages I had to read by the number of days I had to read them before the monthly goal was up, so it was a practical, not arbitrary, number, meaning that there would be real consequences if I didn't do the significant tasks.

I would always make sure that I did an essay on the chapter I had read before moving onto the new chapter.

I made sure that I had done all the past papers, had memorised the mark schemes and had an idea of the examiner reports.

I made sure I knew what the AO's were, and I knew what a perfect essay was like.

If I didn't get an A on an essay I did, I would get feedback and redo it until I did get an A. This is how I went from getting E's to C's to A's in History.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Freshstart123
Wow amazing advice, and wow your grades are amazing well done. I wanted to ask so like i started school on the 6th and i started revising from the first day, but i haven't been revising consistently do you think if i start proper revision from the 19th which is the Monday coming, do you think that is still considered to be in the beginning of the year,m and is it considered to be an early start. I am also taking bio anc chem do you have anything major that you did which helped everything stick in your head.


Hi! Thanks!

Also, you don't need to worry if you're not revising from day one. That is OKAY. It is a good idea to start revision early because it will help you in the long run but this doesn't have to be every single day! Aside from your homework, all you need to do is put in that extra effort in just making sure you understand everything. Reading ahead could also help you.

Your "revision" could be once every few days, or even a few times a month. You don't need to be revising super hard so much as just working and glossing over stuff. For instance, once every month or every week (whichever suits you), you can highlight certain topics that you've struggled with in all of your subjects and just review the content or practise topic-specific questions.

Don't worry about not revising hardcore at the beginning, you can save that for later on. 19th is super early if you're talking about exam revision. I probably only started revision around Christmas and even then it was very slow and just to get ahead. My actual hardcore revision started about two months or so before exams. So yes, you'd be very early but I don't think its necessary at all to stress out just yet. However, if you really want to get an early start then, by all means, go ahead. I found that even though I wanted to start this way, the eventual overload of homework and essays I got really put this off track and it didn't really work out for me. So, instead, just making sure I was on top of everything and understood all the concepts worked fine. Also, with topic tests, you will naturally be revising over content anyway so I REALLY advise that you don't stress out, okay? :smile:

In terms of making stuff stick in your head, the only proper thing that works is just to keep on going over it. If there's something you find particularly hard, revise that small bit of content every once in a while and regularly so you do remember it. I know a lot of people like to make flashcards or stick notes around their rooms. The way I revise(d) is by note-taking and then saying anything I can't remember out loud a few times and explaining hard concepts to friends or family. I found teaching others really helped stuff stick in my head. Good luck.
(edited 7 years ago)
Im doing;
Business-reading the textbook and trying to research
Economics-reading the textbook and looking for student responses
Maths-solving past papers
English-ONLY reading novels :smile:
though i have a question, im confused if i should devote time to the english textbook more..but its super boring!!!!!
Philosophy: Write up notes and then make flash cards and revise from them. Apply this to past paper questions as early as possible, memorisation is important in this subject. I like to recite them; and also learn key words using quizlet as 2 mark questions are valuable for picking up full marks.
Politics: Making notes and making them into flash cards. Memorisation isn't as important here as long as I can remember examples, which is the most important thing as the content is easy. I plan on doing a lot of past papers as the hardest thing about politics is definitely the exam technique.
History: NAMES AND DATES!! everywhere. around my room, house, memorising key terms is so so important so I like to use the flash card technique, but instead of focusing on mind maps or exam practise, I like to pretend to be giving a lecture or talk on the subject at hand, forming cogent arguments.
English Lit: literally just revising quotes, and reading widely around the subject. I find English really easy to revise as once you know the quotes and themes you can essentially use them however you want.
Anyone who's recently done English lit? PLEASE HELP
Biology - write out notes and practice questions, checking against mark scheme or book
Psychology - writing out notes and reading the tips in the textbook, reading mark schemes or examiner notes
Business - don't really revise business as of yet but I would mostly do summary questions at the end of each chapter before writing notes on what I got wrong

Revision cards are good for all especially science
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(edited 7 years ago)

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