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People who got better grades in resits

Got DEE in chemistry biology and maths at AS and I'm ressiting 6 exams.

Doing A2 Chemistry biology maths and AS Maths

For biology and chemistry I don't know what I did wrong. Felt confident I would get A in few of the exams but got C. Revised the mark scheme too and had 20 mins spare.. So I've ordered the scripts

My question is

What did YOU do wrong in your first attempt? Didn't write the 'buzzwords'? Just lack of knowledge?

What changes did you make for preparing for resits in terms of time and revision method ?


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Reply 1
I failed my AS exams first time round so so badly. I got UUE because I just didn't care at all. I dropped Biology and Health & Social Care to pick up Religious Studies and Business Studies, as well as starting Psychology all over again.

I ended up doing a lot better. In one Psychology exam I did the first time round I got a U, and that same exam after retaking turned out to be an A.

I did do Biology the first year and all I can suggest is doing past papers after past papers. The questions for AQA exams are generally the same a couple years apart, just worded differently. Do posters and notes constantly then the past papers. Worked a charm for my other exams!
Reply 2
Original post by noxxc
I failed my AS exams first time round so so badly. I got UUE because I just didn't care at all. I dropped Biology and Health & Social Care to pick up Religious Studies and Business Studies, as well as starting Psychology all over again.

I ended up doing a lot better. In one Psychology exam I did the first time round I got a U, and that same exam after retaking turned out to be an A.

I did do Biology the first year and all I can suggest is doing past papers after past papers. The questions for AQA exams are generally the same a couple years apart, just worded differently. Do posters and notes constantly then the past papers. Worked a charm for my other exams!


That's what I did in biology. Did all past papers and revised the mark scheme like there's no tomorrow and get E... But thanks for the input!

Anyone else?



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Reply 3
Original post by The_Blade
Got DEE in chemistry biology and maths at AS and I'm ressiting 6 exams.

Doing A2 Chemistry biology maths and AS Maths

For biology and chemistry I don't know what I did wrong. Felt confident I would get A in few of the exams but got C. Revised the mark scheme too and had 20 mins spare.. So I've ordered the scripts

My question is

What did YOU do wrong in your first attempt? Didn't write the 'buzzwords'? Just lack of knowledge?

What changes did you make for preparing for resits in terms of time and revision method ?


Posted from TSR Mobile


For a lot of Biology (and probably more of Chemistry) memorising markschemes will not be enough as there are always a couple of questions that require you to apply your knowledge to an unfamiliar situation.

I found the thing that made me do better in my resits was that I went through the content and actually understood it, not just regurgitating paragraphs from the textbook. Obviously, good exam technique and studying markschemes are essential but it will not help you when you come across a question that hasn't been asked before.
Reply 4
Original post by The_Blade
Got DEE in chemistry biology and maths at AS and I'm ressiting 6 exams.

Doing A2 Chemistry biology maths and AS Maths

For biology and chemistry I don't know what I did wrong. Felt confident I would get A in few of the exams but got C. Revised the mark scheme too and had 20 mins spare.. So I've ordered the scripts

My question is

What did YOU do wrong in your first attempt? Didn't write the 'buzzwords'? Just lack of knowledge?

What changes did you make for preparing for resits in terms of time and revision method ?


Posted from TSR Mobile


During my 2nd year i was diagnosed with a spinal tumor in September and had surgery in December so i ended up missing loads of content and ****ed my Jan exams. ended up with 9 exams for the summer 3 of which were retakes. i was studying A2 chemistry, A2 biology, AS physics and AS maths( i made some wrong course choices in the first year). When it came to doing all these exams i felt so overwhelmed and ended up getting CCEU( now taking a 3rd year) C in chemistry A2 which i was very annoyed about as i was predicted a B but i got C's in my final exams "_" a C in physics AS(was 3 ums of a B) i failed my practical but got A and a C in the exams so im redoing my practical this year. currently studying AS and A2 maths and physics and its going great. the problem is im a hopeful chemistry applicant so may have to redo exams also.

What did i do wrong? Well apart from my circumstances i would say for biology i didn't learn the mark scheme well enough. I knew the content pretty well just not enough exam prep. For Chemistry i did so much revision so that was just a case of poor ability on the day i suppose with lots of silly mistakes which im prone too. For physics my exams were superb but that was more down to the style of teaching i received from my teacher. he did past paper questions throughout the course so we could learn how to properly answer the questions. For my maths i had missed most of C1 so i found it hard to catch up and only really caught up by the time of the exams so i had no time for revision :/

The changes you need to make are simple : do hundreds of past paper questions and book questions and you will do better. I'm aiming for at least BBC his year ( if i don't retake the chemistry and stick with the C).

Good luck with your retakes its gunna be a tough summer :wink:
Reply 5
Original post by cuckoo99
During my 2nd year i was diagnosed with a spinal tumor in September and had surgery in December so i ended up missing loads of content and ****ed my Jan exams. ended up with 9 exams for the summer 3 of which were retakes. i was studying A2 chemistry, A2 biology, AS physics and AS maths( i made some wrong course choices in the first year). When it came to doing all these exams i felt so overwhelmed and ended up getting CCEU( now taking a 3rd year) C in chemistry A2 which i was very annoyed about as i was predicted a B but i got C's in my final exams "_" a C in physics AS(was 3 ums of a B) i failed my practical but got A and a C in the exams so im redoing my practical this year. currently studying AS and A2 maths and physics and its going great. the problem is im a hopeful chemistry applicant so may have to redo exams also.

What did i do wrong? Well apart from my circumstances i would say for biology i didn't learn the mark scheme well enough. I knew the content pretty well just not enough exam prep. For Chemistry i did so much revision so that was just a case of poor ability on the day i suppose with lots of silly mistakes which im prone too. For physics my exams were superb but that was more down to the style of teaching i received from my teacher. he did past paper questions throughout the course so we could learn how to properly answer the questions. For my maths i had missed most of C1 so i found it hard to catch up and only really caught up by the time of the exams so i had no time for revision :/

The changes you need to make are simple : do hundreds of past paper questions and book questions and you will do better. I'm aiming for at least BBC his year ( if i don't retake the chemistry and stick with the C).

Good luck with your retakes its gunna be a tough summer :wink:


Aw man sorry to hear. :frown:

And I appreciate the input!

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Original post by alow
For a lot of Biology (and probably more of Chemistry) memorising markschemes will not be enough as there are always a couple of questions that require you to apply your knowledge to an unfamiliar situation.


Biology you can get away with memorising stock answers for a lot of it.

Chemistry though isn't about the mark scheme. If you understand the Chemistry you'll get the marks, almost regardless of what the question is. If you just memorise answers you'll lose marks to whatever curve ball questions they throw at you. Understand the fundamentals and you can work most of it out from first principles.
it was within the two years but basically I took 16 exams in my final sitting for alevels.....

got AABBC (don't ask)

was on pretty **** stuff before
Reply 8
Original post by gingerbreadman85
Biology you can get away with memorising stock answers for a lot of it.

Chemistry though isn't about the mark scheme. If you understand the Chemistry you'll get the marks, almost regardless of what the question is. If you just memorise answers you'll lose marks to whatever curve ball questions they throw at you. Understand the fundamentals and you can work most of it out from first principles.


For me it's the other way round.

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Reply 9
Original post by running12345
it was within the two years but basically I took 16 exams in my final sitting for alevels.....

got AABBC (don't ask)

was on pretty **** stuff before

Jesus. Congratulations! Must have
worked solid

What did you get in AS and what subjects


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biology a philosophy a maths b chemistry c general studies b


needed an e in the final chemistry exam to get a b overall.... (it was my final exam) I fell asleep in it and got a u

needed a c in c4 maths to get an A overall.....got an e like the special idiot I am.
needed

I was pretty pissed off with general studies (took all 4 in one sitting, no retakes) I got AAA U..... I got a U in a philosophy question.

flew too close to the sun and got burned. nearly got AAAAB ah well you live and learn

to be fair I could have got an A in chemistry if I scraped an A in the final exam so it would have been AAAAA but meh it doesn't really matter anyway
(edited 10 years ago)
I just managed to scrape a D by about 3 marks in AS Further Maths. Even though I was quite poorly during that exam season, it gave me a wake-up call as I knew I hadn't worked hard enough throughout the year. We did four modules in that year, and they were all quite bad (FP1- 50something, M2-47, M1-61, S2- 34 :eek:). But I managed to pull my act together, and thankfully didn't get unwell during Upper Sixth, and pulled my grade (and socks) up. I didn't bother with M2, as I knew I was appalling at that module and wouldn't get any better. In January, I resat M1 and S2 and got 68 in both, and I was pretty chuffed that my S2 score had doubled. Then in June, I resat FP1 and was just 1 mark off of an A. In the end, I got a mid C as this year's FP3 was an absolute pig, but still, I managed to turn everything around to a grade I can be proud of. Although it wasn't my best grade, and I could've got better, it's the one I'm most proud of as I'd fought so hard to get the grade up, and my teacher was really happy that I'd managed to improve so much.

Good luck everyone resitting! :biggrin:
I went from 58 (D) in S1 to 83 (A) in Edexcel Maths - considering I did no lessons in it for the retake, I can only wonder what went wrong the first time...

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