Bit freaked out by the amount to learn for A level chemistry HELP!!

So I’m doing Currently doing as chemistry and I’m realising that there’s A LOT of content to learn, and I have been making my own notes after every chemistry lesson but looking at the amount of topics, I have like 50 odd sheets of notes just for the first few topics. I just don’t know how to remember all of the information despite I’ve done my notes like I would for revision. I’m just not sure what to do...

Any help is highly appreciated.

Go onto pastpapers.org and revise by topic rather than through a whole paper. Work through as many past paper questions as you can on a topic, studying the wording of the mark schemes. After a while you will see that the same things come up again and again. Focus on developing your technique for reading the question - the key is to be as specific as possible, not vague in your answers. Things like sig figs and units really matter. Finally, for any calculations, always keep the calculator value in your working out and only round up at the last stage. Very important to use the mole ratio from the balanced equation in any mole calculation. Hope this is useful!

which exam board are you doing? i'm doing aqa

Thanks a lot, really appreciate it! So should I not make even more notes when is comes do exam season? Just pure past papers and look back at the notes I made if I get stuck?

Thanks a lot, really appreciate it! So should I not make even more notes when is comes do exam season? Just pure past papers and look back at the notes I made if I get stuck?

So I’m doing Currently doing as chemistry and I’m realising that there’s A LOT of content to learn, and I have been making my own notes after every chemistry lesson but looking at the amount of topics, I have like 50 odd sheets of notes just for the first few topics. I just don’t know how to remember all of the information despite I’ve done my notes like I would for revision. I’m just not sure what to do...

Any help is highly appreciated.

You're supposed to be making your notes as you go topic to topic so that when you come to exam period, you can just flick through them. When it's near exam season you should be moving on to doing a lot questions not making notes as that implies that your notes are not up to date.

I'm in year 13 now and got an A in chemistry last year and I found that for chemistry the best thing to do is flashcards and past papers.

There is a lot to learn, that's true, so putting them in flashcards helps to keep your notes concise and to the point. They're great for remembering reactions, equations and definitions and they're great as you can revise while making them and use them over and over!

As for past papers they are essential. There's a girl in my chem class this year who had an uncanny ability to recite pages from the textbook from memory but she only got a C last year as she couldn't apply it. The markschemes can be very picky and so by doing past papers you learn what they want you to put for those types of questions and it's great practice for the application and maths parts of the papers.

I'm not much of a mindmap and diagram kind of girl but I did find diagrams so helpful when it came to mechanisms and remembering where to put the arrows and which bits went where. I also made a little song which I sang under my breath in the paper 2 exam for the mechanisms which was a bit embarrassing but it worked!

I hope I've helped a little and if you have anymore questions just ask!

Wow this is super helpful, thank you so much! I’m just trying to see how to revise when it comes to exam season instead of being in a mess.

You're supposed to be making your notes as you go topic to topic so that when you come to exam period, you can just flick through them. When it's near exam season you should be moving on to doing a lot questions not making notes as that implies that your notes are not up to date.

I'm in year 13 now and got an A in chemistry last year and I found that for chemistry the best thing to do is flashcards and past papers.

There is a lot to learn, that's true, so putting them in flashcards helps to keep your notes concise and to the point. They're great for remembering reactions, equations and definitions and they're great as you can revise while making them and use them over and over!

As for past papers they are essential. There's a girl in my chem class this year who had an uncanny ability to recite pages from the textbook from memory but she only got a C last year as she couldn't apply it. The markschemes can be very picky and so by doing past papers you learn what they want you to put for those types of questions and it's great practice for the application and maths parts of the papers.

I'm not much of a mindmap and diagram kind of girl but I did find diagrams so helpful when it came to mechanisms and remembering where to put the arrows and which bits went where. I also made a little song which I sang under my breath in the paper 2 exam for the mechanisms which was a bit embarrassing but it worked!

I hope I've helped a little and if you have anymore questions just ask!

Whats a good approach to memorise notes ? I condensed a 12 page chapter in a textbook to 6 pages of A4 notes(in Q&A format, lots of bullet points). My textbook has 12 chapters, so that around 72 pages.

I thought I could memorise 6 pages a day, so gave myself 12 morning to memorise it, and in the afternoon I would attempt questions.

However, as I started memorising then last exam season, i struggled to remember more than 3 a day, and by the 12th day, I had forgotten the earlier chapters.


Am I just stupid lol ?

I'm sure if you put the work in you'll do fine!

This is more of a tip for after the exams but don't feel too disheartened if you don't think an exam has gone well. I came out of my Paper 1 (AQA) feeling awful, skipped the rest of school because I couldn't deal with anyone else and went home and cried for ages. I felt like I had failed miserably, I didn't answer half the questions and generally just felt so beat down by the sheer amount of maths in the paper that I couldn't do. I go to results day absolutely ******** bricks and find out I've got an A! So seriously don't let it get you too down if you're not confident with your performance on an exam.

Good luck mate!