A-levels but Different Exam Boards to GCSE

I did edexcel for sciences and maths and now do ocr chemistry, aqa biology and aqa maths and haven’t seemed to have any problems so I don’t think that will be too disadvantageous. In honesty you do spend a while revisiting and building on prior knowledge and some things do change slightly however having nearly finished first year content I would say you don’t relearn everything and gcse provides a good foundation - I haven’t had to unlearn something I was told was true and learn the complete opposite for example

Switching exam boards for A level is not a problem. My school does Edexcel for GCSEs but uses 3 different boards for the 3 different Sciences at A level ((plus lots of people join from other schools having done different specs.) It's not an issue.

How much more work is there, I.e double, triple, compared to GCSE in your first year of a level ?

Would you say in that one year you learn the equivalent of all of the content you did over the 2 hours of gcse, to a much harder standards ?

Thanks 👍

I spend the same amount of time working outside of lessons as at gcse but there is definitely more work for example: in maths we get set 6 days worth of questions to complete to consolidate learning but we are also expected to consolidate with exam questions and textbook questions as well as ensure we understand everything taught with videos or by asking for help if unsure; in biology we have a lesson per textbook sub topic where we cover content and do exam questions which we have to finish for the next lesson as well as any other homework tasks we are set - I also write up notes from the lesson to summarise that I put in revision documents each week so that I can constantly test myself and then there’s also going over past content as there’s quite a lot; in chemistry we have to watch videos and answer question sets as well as going over PowerPoints to make notes and it is also recommended to do extra exam questions.

I would say that in year one you both go over gcse content in more depth and also look at more concepts too but they are nowhere near as bad as second year stuff and personally I didn’t find them as bad as people made out if I put the work in