Your experience of these A Levels?

If anyone has taken
English language
English literature
History
Spanish

At A Level, what are they like? Are they much different to GCSE except for being more difficult? As much detail as you can give, please



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I took language, lit and history!

English language - for AQA, very different to GCSE, it's almost like starting a new subject entirely! But it's very interesting (though I'm biased ) and not that difficult, IMO. The difficulty comes more with A2 and what I found most challenging was remembering all the names for different linguistic terms. None of the taught concepts are too hard to understand, I shouldn't think. For the AS exams, you can take a very formulaic approach to answering them and do very well. The coursework also is creative writing in AS which is enjoyable if you like writing.

English lit - a lot harder than GCSE, mainly due to the essay style. You'll be taught how to do the essays but that was the most difficult thing for me in AS. Just make sure you make a lot of notes on the texts you're studying and learn all the key themes etc and you should be fine! A2 is a lot harder as it's a closed book exam, but it was nowhere near as scary as I thought it was going to be all year.

History - this is a weird one, I did OCR so my experience might be different to yours. Not too much extra from GCSE, the question and styles do get harder but it's more of a natural progression than massive impossible leap. Again, aside from learning huge amounts of content, the hardest thing is structuring essays or knowing how to answer the question.

I took WJEC English Lit all the way to A2 and OCR History to A2 too.

I found the change in English to be more noticeable in class: the amount of people in the lessons went down from 30 to 13, plus some dropouts later in the year. I found that, with English, there was a lot more independence expected which I enjoyed. However, it was clearly not suited for some of my classmates and I can't tell you how annoying it was at A2 to still have people in the class who had decided not to read the text two weeks before exam time or who didn't manage their time well enough and then asked for extensions on coursework. I questioned every day why these people even took the class.

The coursework for WJEC is obviously much bigger, both at AS and A2, you are almost immediately expected to start writing essays. One plus I can give for AS was that one side of our coursework was a creative piece based on a novel you were reading (this was awesome, getting creative tasks is so rare!). I found the AS poetry excruciatingly boring but my best friend in the same class thought it was amazing, so I think that's just taste in texts.

At A2, the biggest and most important thing for me was that with WJEC in A2 no texts are allowed in the exam hall. This sounds terrifying, but it is not! You DO NOT have to memorise every single line of the play and poetry (Shakespeare and Blake in my case) but you do have to start early with focusing on some key lines that can be applied to several questions.

History: I was with OCR for History, and at AS found that you had to know a lot of content, way more than ever expected of me, but with proper focus in lessons, you can grasp the dates and stuff, just keep going over it and over it. With AS as well, the exam questions were repeated so if you became familiar enough and did enough practise essays you could almost recycle one when it came to the exam. As for A2, I had a complete change of heart and loved it. A2 OCR was 100% assessment with no formal exam. There was a personal research project of your choice (within reason) and the other half was Nazi Germany and unlike AS where I didn't quite see where everything related, I could see how both the skills in the personal research project and the ones needed for the Nazi course intertwined.

I don't know if this is helpful because I am 99% sure that exam boards all operate way differently, but this was my experience.

Thank you that's very helpful! Looking at the syllabus for English language I panicked because it was completely different to what I thought it would be, but looking again it looks very interesting!


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AQA English Language

I found AS very, very easy - and I loved the coursework. It was a definite step up, and it took me a while to get down with all the terminology and stuff, but as soon as I had exam technique down it was very straightforward and simple. A2 was a bit different, I found the Language Investigation to be a bit dull because it wasn't as creative - so I'd advise doing something you're 100% passionate about, over doing something that is 'easy' and you're less passionate about (in my case, language and power in PMQ's) as I didn't have any motivation to write because I wasn't too fussed about what I found out. I also found the exam, and the knowledge required for the exam, to be much harder, as it was more in depth. And learning the terminology, especially theory-specific terminology, to be quite hard.

It's definitely different from GCSE but I found it more interesting and more rewarding to study - especially as the exams were very analysis based - which felt a bit better than my GCSE English exam which was basically a comprehension piece, plus two pieces of creative writing, which I did find a bit naff.

I'm on AQA for History and English Literature, so I only know about those on AQA, but I found them both different from the GCSE, and not just in terms of difficulty.

English Literature gets pretty hard because you really have to know your wider reading, and the main difference is the fact that wider reading is a requirement, and it really, really counts. I didn't do enough wider reading this year and my grade suffered. You also have to have a definite interest in the subject because it gets harder, and you need to have the commitment to pursue it. Mainly the essay style is different, and you're commenting more on ideas and themes than you are on specific points. I found that in GCSE I spent most of my time writing about FSL (form, structure and language) compared to more inclusion of T+F (thoughts and feelings) at A level. You also have to include a lot more about the context of the text, the author and the historical background.

History becomes more about analysis than knowledge - it's important to form opinions on what you're learning. Or, if you don't really have one, just make one up for the exam! You'll be asked a lot for your opinion on the "most important factor" or "how successful was" whatever it is you're writing about, but of course, you'll have to back up everything with evidence. Obviously, the increased interest in your ability to comment and analyse does not in any way detract from the value of knowledge in your studied area. In other words... You really have to know your stuff. In AQA, you do two exams for AS, I did one on Britain 1906-1951 and one on Life In Nazi Germany 1933-1945. Because the Britain one stretched over more time and the Germany one was shorter, we had to know about Nazi Germany in a lot more detail to make up for the shorter timespan. You'll find, if you do AQA History, that they balance it out quite well like that and the units are all pretty similar at the core of marking.

Basically, the skills used at GCSE will be used more intensely, and you'll have to learn a few new ones. Learning the new skills isn't that hard, though, and once you pick them up your understanding of the subject gets noticeable better.

Hope this helps

I do English Lit and History. It's definitely a step up from GCSE. What you have to be careful about is actually answering the question and knowing the exact technique. I suggest you go on your exam boards website and print off the mark schemes for your syllabus as it will tell you what the examiner is looking for in an answer (most of the time you have to structure your argument well and support with valid evidence).
Sorry if this doesn't make sense I'm writing on my phone


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I'm taking some of the same exam boards, so that was very helpful thank you!


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I did spanish and history !!
As far as i'm concerned with gcse languages... there is no possible way of gaining conversational skills but i felt like in order to achieve that, i had to do a lot of independent work with spanish (alongside french and italian) and by that i mean, extending my vocabulary daily, maybe weekly instead of using the textbook and revise ALL indicative and subjunctive tenses... I basically familiarised with the grammar in order to have the most accurate writing essays. For oral, i watched several films, and I strongly recommend reading bilingual books (short stories)!! my phone settings were set to a different language each month and i took advantage of oral lessons offered at my school to improve my accent. A lot of extensive work is involved so i some how managed to cope with 3 languages alongside history and maths but i loved it so much, i bothered to put all the effort being fluent feels so great, and this is coming from an enthusiastic linguist here!!

As for history, a lot of reading would do.. your subjects would greatly benefit from essay writing and i suppose such subject is so subjective... you can't exactly determine what is best to write! over the year, i updated a timeline (i'm a visual learner) and posted on my school wall.. key dates, figures until it was ingrained in my head... it's better to build up your memory capacity from an early start!

Above all, best of luck! GCSEs do provide a basic foundation to as-levels but just bear in mind that every subject would be much more in depth, so really, immerse yourself within the content and keep calm about the workload because gradually, you will most definitely be able to adapt yourself... i very much enjoyed my a-levels so tbh i didn't really find it terribly difficult.... sorry if it's not too helpful but here's my opinion!

It's very helpful, as you did 3 languages, did you do all 3 at GCSE? If not, would you say that you struggled at first without the GCSE basics? I was considering picking up French at A Level (as well as Spanish, which I studied at GCSE and got an A*) but I've never studied French before...so would you say that would be difficult?


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