when should you start revising for A-levels?

Whilst you are still in your mother's womb. That's when everyone on TSR starts.

I believe you're absolutely right!

I'm an incoming Year 13 student and I've heard some people say January, but I'm considering starting from the September of Year 13 - do you think this is necessary? would appreciate a response from previous year 13 students!

bit of background info: I achieved AAA in English Lit, History and Politics for my year 12 mocks

Now I feel bad for contributing nothing useful. lol. I would say it's a good idea to make this thread so current A-level students can share their thoughts with you. However, don't compare your revision timetable too much to other students' as people retain knowledge and learn at a different pace. Good luck!

I'm an incoming Year 13 student and I've heard some people say January, but I'm considering starting from the September of Year 13 - do you think this is necessary? would appreciate a response from previous year 13 students!

bit of background info: I achieved AAA in English Lit, History and Politics for my year 12 mocks

totally unrelated but i'm going into yr13 too and i was wondering how you revised for history and english lit

For English Literature, I memorised openers and stock introductions that I could use for any essay question that came up. I also did loads of essay plans for past paper questions I could find online (one of which happened to come up in the exam!). Writing essays can take loads of time, so I would write one really good main body paragraph or an introduction in like 5-8 minutes. Nearer to the exam, you should be writing full essays under timed conditions, though. I do AQA, which does open-book exams. If your exam is open book, make sure you know your texts inside out. One of my biggest regrets was walking into the exam with little knowledge of my texts which meant I wasted so much time trying to find basic quotes in my books or thinking about how to convey the texts' meaning. Also, aim to give relevant alternative interpretations wherever possible - they are key to boosting your marks! Ideally, you should be aiming to satisfy all your AO criteria, so make sure you have a good understanding of each AO, so you know what to include in your exam. It keeps you from waffling and makes your writing more concise: 'Mr Bruff's Guide to A-level English Literature' helps a lot with this!

For History, I did as many essay plans as I could, some of which also came up in my mocks but re-worded. You'll find that a lot of History exam questions are very similar because there's only so much they can ask. Make sure you familiarise yourself with History mark schemes and exemplar answers, so you know what examiners will be looking out for.

Hoped that helped

I'm an incoming Year 13 student and I've heard some people say January, but I'm considering starting from the September of Year 13 - do you think this is necessary? would appreciate a response from previous year 13 students!

bit of background info: I achieved AAA in English Lit, History and Politics for my year 12 mocks

How did you revise for politics? and is your exam board edexcel?

I do Edexcel Politics and I basically did as many essay plans and practise questions I could find. The key is looking at mark schemes and Level 5 exemplar answers, then extracting and implementing top-mark features in your essay practise. 'Alan History Nerd' on Youtube helped a lot with improving my grade from Bs to As! I highly recommend this video as it helped with how to structure 30-mark essays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzBHkzx_nJc&t=1s


Hoped that helped

Year 13 is like a marathon: you've got to nail the pace. You don't want to burn yourself out before mocks but you also don't want to fall behind. Seeing as you've achieved AAA in your year 12 mocks, it won't be necessary to heavily revise year 12 content until year 13 mocks roll around. Year 13 is intense, and you simply won't have time to constantly revise year 12 content whilst keeping up with new topics and coursework. For now, focus on completing homework on time, revising current topics that you're covering, and completing essays to the best of your ability. It would help to revise quotes for English for a few minutes every day (and maybe cast an eye over any revision notes for history and politics from time to time), but it would be more productive to use additional free time to relax: don't burn yourself out before it matters.

I'm an incoming Year 13 student and I've heard some people say January, but I'm considering starting from the September of Year 13 - do you think this is necessary? would appreciate a response from previous year 13 students!

bit of background info: I achieved AAA in English Lit, History and Politics for my year 12 mocks