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Question for anyone taking/who took Physics

How is it difficulty wise? I'm in Year 11 atm doing the Higher Tier AQA course and tbh it's pretty easy. A lot of it is just working out stuff, and even then they give you the formula. How is it compared to GCSE? I'm defineitly taking it at A-level, just wondering how it is.

Reply 1

Static_Meteorite

vedderfan94

Hi, I'm in Year 12 and I'm doing Physics. I'm not doing so well at the moment (at a C/B, I was on a U at the start of the year!) and I got An A* for GCSE. There is alot of formulas, and to be honest, I don't think there are any formulas you need to learn of by heart, they just give you it! It is a lot more in depth than GCSE. I'm doing the AQA physics. It is quite difficult, there are many people in my class failing; and only a few doing very well. If you have any other questions, then don't hesitate to ask! :smile:

Reply 2

nikita_atikin

Well, it's starts of kind of sucky and you'll be in this position when you are completely lost but then soon stuff starts to make sense and you will get accustomed to it. Must warn you though, do it if you love it, otherwise it will end up being one of those subjects you dread going to because it is either too difficult or too hard.

I'm in Year 12 and I'm doing Physics and I find it interesting although I (think) am averaging at an A/B and I got an A* in it for GCSE.

In terms of what you learn, I think your understanding is more key than what you can learn off by heart but if you are into that sort of thing, you will love it. There is no denial in the fact that it is one of the hardest A levels. :|

Reply 3

vedderfan94

Static_Meteorite

Thanks for the help. What exactly is hard though? You said there are lots of formulas but they just give you them. Also, aren't formulas easy? It's just substituting the values.

Reply 4

_KilgoreTrout_

vedderfan94

It will stay about that easy all through AS and the first half of A2, but I can't comment further than that.

They give you a book of formulas in the exam so you don't have to learn any of them.

Reply 5

jimbogab

easy, beneficial to maths with it, if want to do at uni do f maths 2

Reply 6

PhilliChilli

vedderfan94

That sounds pretty easy compared to A-level, i suppose at a-level the difference is you really have to think about the really little things when answering questions etc because physics gets into a lot more depth than the GCSE you are doing now. (what other a-levels are you planning to take ?) I think you would find it fun maybe a little but challenging at first because the step from GCSE to A-level is pretttty big :eek:

! But no its not that difficult especially if you have a good knowledge of maths and can manipulate formulas very easily ! Woo another person taking physics :woo:

join us....... ^_^

Reply 7

Anonymous0155

Got an A*A at GCSE; I got a B; starting in February though. No-one in our class of 12 got an A. 2 of us got high B's with 6 B's overall. about 50% drop-put at our school.

It's a huge step up from GCSE but its actually quite fun when you start understanding everything.

Reply 8

jess_icky

To a certain extent it depends on which exam board your college/school uses. I'm doing OCR B and the grade boundries at the moment are really quite low which gives you an indication of how difficult it is (although perhaps the reason people have been doing so badly is because of the overload of badly worded questions in their exam papers but let's not go into that...)

I've heard that the AQA syllabus is easier, but then again difficulty really depends on what you're good at - I was pretty all round good at GCSE getting nearly all A's and A*'s, so I chose a mixture of AS subjects, then ended up gettings A's at AS in the essay subjects and C's and D's in the mathsy ones. For any A-Levels, you can't really tell until you're doing them how hard it's going to be.

Reply 9

Ten Green Bottles

If you're good at maths, it's really not that bad at all - it's mainly rearranging equations and putting numbers into them.

I'm in Year 12 at the moment, and I didn't find Unit 1 too challenging, but a lot of people in my class found it tricky. It's definitely quite a big jump up from GCSE and some of the concepts are a bit difficult to get your head round, but if you enjoy physics and stick at it eventually it all starts making sense.

Reply 10

Static_Meteorite

vedderfan94

Thanks for the help. What exactly is hard though? You said there are lots of formulas but they just give you them. Also, aren't formulas easy? It's just substituting the values.

Um, well the formulas are easy. There is just lots of converting units and that. I think you will probably find it allright. I;m doing further maths and I still cant get my head aroud physics. but i guess its the understanding which is important, because in my exam, you have like questions where you need to write quite a bit.

Reply 11

MathsHamster

The mechanics is a lot more complicated than at GCSE. Formulas are all very well but it is harder to use them than you might think as they diliberately make it harder for you. It does click after a few months though (but my class of 15 people at AS dropped down to 3 at A2 because everyone failed).

Reply 12

hothedgehog

I got an A at gcse physics and could probably have done better but i did too much history revision in a vain attempt to get a semi decent mark! Anyway, I got an A at A level physics so all was good in the end. I didn't think it was too hard except the relativity stuff. Once you get the hang of 'theory, equations, sub values in, don't forget units' you're pretty much there! I found physics to be more about being really regimented with yourself.

Reply 13

Toneh

Significantly harder than GCSE. Also significantly more interesting. Lots more maths. Lots more formulae. New, more confusing concepts.
All round?
Waaaaay better :smile:

Love physics. (Y)

Reply 14

Medicine Man

It was probably my hardest A Level (I did biology, chemistry, physics and maths to A2) so I do think its tough. Definitely a massive step up from GCSE! Seriously! I struggled to get that A last year - it actually made chemistry seem pretty easy in comparison! :o:

I think what someone mentioned about exam boards is true though - we did edexcel (old spec) and it was actually quite horrible, but my mates at other schools did AQA and thought it was pretty easy. Of course there were differences in our abilities and the quality of teaching at the schools so it'll be wrong of me to say AQA was easier than edexcel (that doesn't mean I don't think it was), but some exam boards do tend to be nicer about the type of questions they ask.

Reply 15

Ramps

I'm doing physics at uni now and finding it quite tough but I found A-level really easy.

Reply 16

joey.

I did physics for double award science GCSE and found it fine i really enjoyed it hence taking it at AS where i got a U therefore obviously dropping it, taking it was definately one of the worst decisions of my life!!
xx