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A*/A Alevel students tips/resources on how to achieve A*/A

Hey dudessss

okay so , i'm going to start college this September and i really want to achieve high grades for my A/AS-levels (A's/A*) as i'm a retake.

I have chosen Maths (edx), sociology(AQA), English Lit (AQA), and Psychology (AQA),.

Please can you guys inform me on:

How you revise/studied..
Revision sourses, any recomendations. tips
When you started revising.
How many hours per day of study

any help would be appreciated thanks :biggrin:
Reply 1
I only took maths out of the ones you're doing, but, the most important thing with maths is practice. It's the only way you'll get good at it, and unlike other subjects, you cant cram at the last moment.
Also, get your hands on a good revision guide. It'll make things so so much easier, and always try to do questions that you think look too hard or out of your league. It's the best practice you can get and it'll help your confidence when you get them right
Good luck!
Original post by Missmotivated09
Hey dudessss

okay so , i'm going to start college this September and i really want to achieve high grades for my A/AS-levels (A's/A*) as i'm a retake.

I have chosen Maths (edx), sociology(AQA), English Lit (AQA), and Psychology (AQA),.

Please can you guys inform me on:

How you revise/studied..
Revision sourses, any recomendations. tips
When you started revising.
How many hours per day of study

any help would be appreciated thanks :biggrin:


For Edexcel Maths (which I got an A* in) I pretty much just did a lot of practice papers and kept my notes very organised. Remember that even if a teachers explains it in lesson and you understand, you should still write a clear explanation in your notes (maybe annotate an example calculation) for revision purposes. Also, do Solomon worksheets through the year, then Solomon and Zigzag papers from April onwards. Exam solutions (website) is great too. Do about an hour a day all year and you'll be golden.

For AQA Psychology (which I got an A in) just consistently revise all year. The material isn't hard to understand, most marks will be lost through not remembering stuff or not looking at how many marks a question is and writing too little. Twenty minutes a night from Sept-January then forty minutes a night after that should be enough.

For AQA English Lit (I only did AS but got an A) make loads of annotations. Listen to other people's points and use them if they're good. Remember that it's better to analyse a small passage (like five words) really intensely than to vaguely analyse a whole paragraph. I found English quite light on work and revision, just pay attention in lesson and it should be fine. I probably did an hour each weekend for English.


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Original post by bluebeetle
For Edexcel Maths (which I got an A* in) I pretty much just did a lot of practice papers and kept my notes very organised. Remember that even if a teachers explains it in lesson and you understand, you should still write a clear explanation in your notes (maybe annotate an example calculation) for revision purposes. Also, do Solomon worksheets through the year, then Solomon and Zigzag papers from April onwards. Exam solutions (website) is great too. Do about an hour a day all year and you'll be golden.

For AQA Psychology (which I got an A in) just consistently revise all year. The material isn't hard to understand, most marks will be lost through not remembering stuff or not looking at how many marks a question is and writing too little. Twenty minutes a night from Sept-January then forty minutes a night after that should be enough.

For AQA English Lit (I only did AS but got an A) make loads of annotations. Listen to other people's points and use them if they're good. Remember that it's better to analyse a small passage (like five words) really intensely than to vaguely analyse a whole paragraph. I found English quite light on work and revision, just pay attention in lesson and it should be fine. I probably did an hour each weekend for English.


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Thank you so much for the advice definitely going to take on board everything you've said. Hope everything goes well you and what not. stay blessed dude :smile:
Original post by sophiaaax
I only took maths out of the ones you're doing, but, the most important thing with maths is practice. It's the only way you'll get good at it, and unlike other subjects, you cant cram at the last moment.
Also, get your hands on a good revision guide. It'll make things so so much easier, and always try to do questions that you think look too hard or out of your league. It's the best practice you can get and it'll help your confidence when you get them right
Good luck!



Thank you for the advice and good luck too you too:biggrin: and don't worry i'll definitely start to challenge myself by doing harder question. stay blessed dude.
People have already given some really good advice above, especially for maths.

For psych I'd add that you really do need to practice past papers a lot, a lot of similar questions come up over and over. At A2 you need to know a lot of pieces of research & be able to write essays. There's a lot to remember, and I found colour-coding my notes helped. For the essay questions I identified all the possible topics that essay questions could be asked on and made essay outlines for all of them, using the revision guides, mark schemes and syllabus as a guide to what they want to see in the essays.
I took Literature and Psychology out of what you've done. I'm doing a third year because I messed up literature and that's what I want to do in Uni, as a result I've completed Psychology but only finished AS Lit.

For literature, you really need to pay attention in class. Take down all ideas that come out of the lessons, so you have a broad reading of the text. The best advice for the exam is to actually plan your answer, so that the essays are more coherent and flow well. Do lots of past papers, practice looking at unseen extracts and trying to connect them to wider reading so you're able to do it well in the exam.

As for psychology, I would say find a good text book (I recommend the Psychology Complete Companions or Mini Companions available on amazon) and go through it. Do as many past papers as possible and really look at the mark schemes. Practice times essays as well :smile:

I did less revision for Lit than any other subject and got a C the first time, B the second. I'd say around an hour or an hour and a half a week. For psychology I did a lot more - sometimes an hour every day, especially closer to exam time.

Hope this helps! And good luck!


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Original post by bluebeetle
For Edexcel Maths (which I got an A* in) I pretty much just did a lot of practice papers and kept my notes very organised. Remember that even if a teachers explains it in lesson and you understand, you should still write a clear explanation in your notes (maybe annotate an example calculation) for revision purposes. Also, do Solomon worksheets through the year, then Solomon and Zigzag papers from April onwards. Exam solutions (website) is great too. Do about an hour a day all year and you'll be golden.

For AQA Psychology (which I got an A in) just consistently revise all year. The material isn't hard to understand, most marks will be lost through not remembering stuff or not looking at how many marks a question is and writing too little. Twenty minutes a night from Sept-January then forty minutes a night after that should be enough.

For AQA English Lit (I only did AS but got an A) make loads of annotations. Listen to other people's points and use them if they're good. Remember that it's better to analyse a small passage (like five words) really intensely than to vaguely analyse a whole paragraph. I found English quite light on work and revision, just pay attention in lesson and it should be fine. I probably did an hour each weekend for English.


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Great Advice :biggrin:
Hi all, my advice is to write notes in lesson as well as listening and understanding. then go home and write up these notes in neat. In addition to this write notes from one textbook (choose the one that best suits you) and it should have exam questions at the end of each section so test yourself.
Dont stress, dont do too little or too much.
Original post by Mohammed siddiq
Hi all, my advice is to write notes in lesson as well as listening and understanding. then go home and write up these notes in neat. In addition to this write notes from one textbook (choose the one that best suits you) and it should have exam questions at the end of each section so test yourself.
Dont stress, dont do too little or too much.


Excellent advice, especially on not stressing. Literally the worst thing you could do!

This is my technique for the entire year, ahah!
Original post by jaydamber
Excellent advice, especially on not stressing. Literally the worst thing you could do!

This is my technique for the entire year, ahah!


you're welcome, i got As at A level in bio chem and psychology after getting BBD at AS
Original post by Mohammed siddiq
you're welcome, i got As at A level in bio chem and psychology after getting BBD at AS


Very impressive! BBB at AS, hoping to go up to As!
Original post by Missmotivated09
Hey dudessss

okay so , i'm going to start college this September and i really want to achieve high grades for my A/AS-levels (A's/A*) as i'm a retake.

I have chosen Maths (edx), sociology(AQA), English Lit (AQA), and Psychology (AQA),.

Please can you guys inform me on:

How you revise/studied..
Revision sourses, any recomendations. tips
When you started revising.
How many hours per day of study

any help would be appreciated thanks :biggrin:


Hello, :smile: can't help with the others but maths definitely look at all the ALL the papers, I'm talking from the '90s and onwards! Ask for help if you're stuck, even if you think it's a silly question!

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Original post by theresheglows
People have already given some really good advice above, especially for maths.

For psych I'd add that you really do need to practice past papers a lot, a lot of similar questions come up over and over. At A2 you need to know a lot of pieces of research & be able to write essays. There's a lot to remember, and I found colour-coding my notes helped. For the essay questions I identified all the possible topics that essay questions could be asked on and made essay outlines for all of them, using the revision guides, mark schemes and syllabus as a guide to what they want to see in the essays.



your advice is really helpful and that's a really good thing to do concerning the essays yeah i like that thanks
Revise all day everyday :rolleyes:

Source: anecdotal
Original post by jaydamber
I took Literature and Psychology out of what you've done. I'm doing a third year because I messed up literature and that's what I want to do in Uni, as a result I've completed Psychology but only finished AS Lit.

For literature, you really need to pay attention in class. Take down all ideas that come out of the lessons, so you have a broad reading of the text. The best advice for the exam is to actually plan your answer, so that the essays are more coherent and flow well. Do lots of past papers, practice looking at unseen extracts and trying to connect them to wider reading so you're able to do it well in the exam.

As for psychology, I would say find a good text book (I recommend the Psychology Complete Companions or Mini Companions available on amazon) and go through it. Do as many past papers as possible and really look at the mark schemes. Practice times essays as well :smile:

I did less revision for Lit than any other subject and got a C the first time, B the second. I'd say around an hour or an hour and a half a week. For psychology I did a lot more - sometimes an hour every day, especially closer to exam time.

Hope this helps! And good luck!


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Thank you very much deffo would try and get my hands on that book and heyyy wish you all the best mayne hopefully 3rd time lucky :smile::tongue:
Original post by Missmotivated09
Thank you very much deffo would try and get my hands on that book and heyyy wish you all the best mayne hopefully 3rd time lucky :smile::tongue:


You too, hope the book helps!


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