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A level chemistry

What is a level chemistry like? What sort of things do you study? Is it interesting?
Also, I think I'm on going to get an A in chemistry, would that be enough? What's the workload like? People say it is the hardest a level and some people say that the teacher isn't very told although my school has a 100% pass rate within chemistry
Chemistry, IMO, is the hardest subject you can do. The workload is tremendous, I have had to put more work into it than my other subjects, if you don't enjoy it I wouldn't take it on because, some of the topics can be quite tedious and boring, but others are really enjoyable to learn. I think overall, it's a good subject. It's so rewarding as well for the work you out into it, and the practicals are deadly :smile:

it it is hard, but worth it in the end.

At AS you will go over the basics, a2 is more in depth and explains AS a lot better. You'll be doing inorganic like transition metals, electrode potentials, redox (which is nothing like GCSE) and organic like amino acids, alcohols, amides etc. hopefully you'll get to do practical work like preparation of chrome alum, potassium dichromate and methyl benzene. You will be doing titrations and deductions which is interesting.

It varies for everyone, I didn't really understand a lot of things until A2. Also, ere will be calculations which can be easy and difficult.

But a nice subject to do :smile: sorry that was very long winded!
Original post by LadyEcliptic
Chemistry, IMO, is the hardest subject you can do. The workload is tremendous, I have had to put more work into it than my other subjects, if you don't enjoy it I wouldn't take it on because, some of the topics can be quite tedious and boring, but others are really enjoyable to learn. I think overall, it's a good subject. It's so rewarding as well for the work you out into it, and the practicals are deadly :smile:

it it is hard, but worth it in the end.

At AS you will go over the basics, a2 is more in depth and explains AS a lot better. You'll be doing inorganic like transition metals, electrode potentials, redox (which is nothing like GCSE) and organic like amino acids, alcohols, amides etc. hopefully you'll get to do practical work like preparation of chrome alum, potassium dichromate and methyl benzene. You will be doing titrations and deductions which is interesting.

It varies for everyone, I didn't really understand a lot of things until A2. Also, ere will be calculations which can be easy and difficult.

But a nice subject to do :smile: sorry that was very long winded!


It does sound quite interesting though and it opens up a lot of uni courses!! May I ask what other subjects you do so I could compare the workloads for them?:smile:
Original post by ireallydontknow7
It does sound quite interesting though and it opens up a lot of uni courses!! May I ask what other subjects you do so I could compare the workloads for them?:smile:


I did physics for 2 months, maths to AS and biology and technology to A2 :smile:
Original post by LadyEcliptic
Chemistry, IMO, is the hardest subject you can do. The workload is tremendous, I have had to put more work into it than my other subjects, if you don't enjoy it I wouldn't take it on because, some of the topics can be quite tedious and boring, but others are really enjoyable to learn. I think overall, it's a good subject. It's so rewarding as well for the work you out into it, and the practicals are deadly :smile:

it it is hard, but worth it in the end.

At AS you will go over the basics, a2 is more in depth and explains AS a lot better. You'll be doing inorganic like transition metals, electrode potentials, redox (which is nothing like GCSE) and organic like amino acids, alcohols, amides etc. hopefully you'll get to do practical work like preparation of chrome alum, potassium dichromate and methyl benzene. You will be doing titrations and deductions which is interesting.

It varies for everyone, I didn't really understand a lot of things until A2. Also, ere will be calculations which can be easy and difficult.

But a nice subject to do :smile: sorry that was very long winded!


FM is harder in my opinion.

Chemistry can be easy or really hard. I suit the type of thinking required in Chemistry but others aren't; I found it fine and understood the vast majority of topics without difficulty.
Original post by LadyEcliptic
I did physics for 2 months, maths to AS and biology and technology to A2 :smile:


Ahh that's helpful! Going to be doing maths and biology next year as well!:smile: thanks!
Original post by yl95
FM is harder in my opinion.

Chemistry can be easy or really hard. I suit the type of thinking required in Chemistry but others aren't; I found it fine and understood the vast majority of topics without difficulty.


Oh, planning on doing further maths as well! Although I would say I am more mathematically minded! Hopefully chemistry won't be too hard!
Reply 7
I'm finishing my A2 year now... I have found it the hardest of my subjects, hands down.(I also do Maths & Phys) Opinions do vary though. The majority of people I know find it very very difficult, however there are some who think it's okay.
Chemistry is a subject that requires a lot of in-depth understanding, as well as a very good memory, and and an ability to understand abstract concepts...
It is the only subject I have needed tutoring for, however I think it depends hugely on your teachers how easy/hard it is to understand. My Chemistry teachers are very dull, monotonous, and more or less read out old text books every lesson, a complete contrast to my other teachers, whose subjects I enjoy and understand much better.
If you know the teachers are good, I would advise taking it because it is a well respected A level... but if they're not... you will find it tough to keep yourself motivated.
And an A should definitely be enough to take it at A level. :smile:
Original post by ireallydontknow7
Ahh that's helpful! Going to be doing maths and biology next year as well!:smile: thanks!


no worries, good luck!

Original post by yl95
FM is harder in my opinion.

Chemistry can be easy or really hard. I suit the type of thinking required in Chemistry but others aren't; I found it fine and understood the vast majority of topics without difficulty.


I found it difficult because of the board I was with, plus, EC at the time of my exams. It's no problem for me now so it is, when I first started out I hated it but now I love it.

Out of all my subjects, I found it the hardest. The calculations for some of the things anyway, but it's all good now.
Original post by The Guy.
I'm finishing my A2 year now... I have found it the hardest of my subjects, hands down.(I also do Maths & Phys) Opinions do vary though. The majority of people I know find it very very difficult, however there are some who think it's okay.
Chemistry is a subject that requires a lot of in-depth understanding, as well as a very good memory, and and an ability to understand abstract concepts...
It is the only subject I have needed tutoring for, however I think it depends hugely on your teachers how easy/hard it is to understand. My Chemistry teachers are very dull, monotonous, and more or less read out old text books every lesson, a complete contrast to my other teachers, whose subjects I enjoy and understand much better.
If you know the teachers are good, I would advise taking it because it is a well respected A level... but if they're not... you will find it tough to keep yourself motivated.
And an A should definitely be enough to take it at A level. :smile:



Thats ts what annoyed me about our teachers - they just read out the notes and expected you to understand it? Even asking them about it, they would just read over it again..
Original post by The Guy.
I'm finishing my A2 year now... I have found it the hardest of my subjects, hands down.(I also do Maths & Phys) Opinions do vary though. The majority of people I know find it very very difficult, however there are some who think it's okay.
Chemistry is a subject that requires a lot of in-depth understanding, as well as a very good memory, and and an ability to understand abstract concepts...
It is the only subject I have needed tutoring for, however I think it depends hugely on your teachers how easy/hard it is to understand. My Chemistry teachers are very dull, monotonous, and more or less read out old text books every lesson, a complete contrast to my other teachers, whose subjects I enjoy and understand much better.
If you know the teachers are good, I would advise taking it because it is a well respected A level... but if they're not... you will find it tough to keep yourself motivated.
And an A should definitely be enough to take it at A level. :smile:


See that's the problem! I do think id enjoy learning the subject as it interests me although someone said that the teacher is really bad which worries me! How much tutoring did you have to have for the subject? And if you don't mind me asking what sort of grades are you achieving without a good teacher?:smile:
At AS I went on one tutoring course in Easter... it was 5 days long... 3 hrs/day... so 15 hrs
It covered all of CH2 (WJEC) (one of the two exams)... through the year I was getting C's, some B's in the tests & mocks... but my final AS grade was a mid-high A, thanks to the course... it helped a lot, mainly because they taught it from the spec rather than from old irrelevant text books

This year I'm doing the same type of course for both exams... I had a D in CH4 in January, so i'm resitting that, along with CH5

I'm still hopeful to come out with an A :smile: hope that helps
Original post by The Guy.
At AS I went on one tutoring course in Easter... it was 5 days long... 3 hrs/day... so 15 hrs
It covered all of CH2 (WJEC) (one of the two exams)... through the year I was getting C's, some B's in the tests & mocks... but my final AS grade was a mid-high A, thanks to the course... it helped a lot, mainly because they taught it from the spec rather than from old irrelevant text books

This year I'm doing the same type of course for both exams... I had a D in CH4 in January, so i'm resitting that, along with CH5

I'm still hopeful to come out with an A :smile: hope that helps


Ahh, I hope it all goes well!! Well done as well! At least I know there's places I can go if I don't feel as if I'm learning well!!
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by ireallydontknow7
Oh, planning on doing further maths as well! Although I would say I am more mathematically minded! Hopefully chemistry won't be too hard!

I'm mathematically minded but conceptually, I think FM is harder.

Original post by LadyEcliptic
no worries, good luck!



I found it difficult because of the board I was with, plus, EC at the time of my exams. It's no problem for me now so it is, when I first started out I hated it but now I love it.

Out of all my subjects, I found it the hardest. The calculations for some of the things anyway, but it's all good now.


I do Salters'...coursework was a pain.
Original post by yl95
I'm mathematically minded but conceptually, I think FM is harder.



I do Salters'...coursework was a pain.


i do CCEA, so they are forever changing their mark schemes for the same questions. It's annoying because, even they don't know what they want :frown:

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