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Textbook vs Revision guide for A-levels

I'll be taking A-level Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Spanish. I was wondering if It would be better to use a textbook to revise which I would then make notes on to a seperate piece of paper from the textbook OR if it would be better to use a revision guide to revise as everything would already be summarised.
Original post by xnads
I'll be taking A-level Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Spanish. I was wondering if It would be better to use a textbook to revise which I would then make notes on to a seperate piece of paper from the textbook OR if it would be better to use a revision guide to revise as everything would already be summarised.


Textbook first. The revision guides have most of the content but you can easily miss out the extra details in the textbook. Besides its not good enough just memorising a cgp style revision guide for a level - it worked for GCSE but it won't for A level! You have to deeply understand the theory first and then afterwards summarise it for yourself to know the key points etc.

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Reply 2
Original post by TechRaid3r
Textbook first. The revision guides have most of the content but you can easily miss out the extra details in the textbook. Besides its not good enough just memorising a cgp style revision guide for a level - it worked for GCSE but it won't for A level! You have to deeply understand the theory first and then afterwards summarise it for yourself to know the key points etc.

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So basically should I buy the textbook and revision guide first and use both to take notes? Or should I learn what's in the textbook and then once I've learned everything use the revision guide? It's slightly confusing because the Textbooks have everything but when it comes to the time taking notes how will I know what is the important stuff that may come up in my exam?:s-smilie:
Original post by xnads
So basically should I buy the textbook and revision guide first and use both to take notes? Or should I learn what's in the textbook and then once I've learned everything use the revision guide? It's slightly confusing because the Textbooks have everything but when it comes to the time taking notes how will I know what is the important stuff that may come up in my exam?:s-smilie:


Well I personally think textbook first then use revision guide when you need to find something quickly or in the days/weeks before assessments/exams. For biology especially you'll never truly know what's gonna come up. I'd say 70% of the marks are just fact recall with application so you gotta know it all . But for the rest it doesn't matter how much of the books you've used its all dependant on your overall understanding of biology .

When taking notes for learning use the textbook. When doing notes during exam practice use the rev guide. For chemistry that won't really be the case since there's not much to memorise its just mostly techniques that you have to apply.

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