My Year 13 Journey to A*A*A*A*
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Original post by DarkEnergy
Cheers. I'm doing Maths, Physics, and Chemistry though I wish I had done FM instead of Chemistry...
Fair play for doing chemistry though, I hated it at AS level so dropped it at the first chance I had!
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Original post by 98matt
Fair play for doing chemistry though, I hated it at AS level so dropped it at the first chance I had!
Haha yeah, just gotta put up with it for another 7 months I guess. Which uni is your top choice as of now?
Original post by 0arbute
How did you manage to get UMS for chemistry and physics, when the subjects are linear? I took the ASs too but only have a raw score no UMS!
I'm from Wales so perhaps it's slightly different here? Both chem and phys had 2 units scored out of 100 ums per unit. I believe they've kinda abolished AS's in England right?
ps: i apologise for my chem ums
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Original post by 98matt
I'm from Wales so perhaps it's slightly different here? Both chem and phys had 2 units scored out of 100 ums per unit. I believe they've kinda abolished AS's in England right?
ps: i apologise for my chem ums
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ps: i apologise for my chem ums
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Ohhh fair enough! yeah they have been for sciences and other subjects in england! The teachers received our raw mark which some of them then told us
Original post by DarkEnergy
Haha yeah, just gotta put up with it for another 7 months I guess. Which uni is your top choice as of now?
Out of the three I've had offers from (bath, nottingham & warwick), Warwick is probably my first choice. Imperial would take the top spot if they were to offer me a place However. What about u?
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Original post by 98matt
Out of the three I've had offers from (bath, nottingham & warwick), Warwick is probably my first choice. Imperial would take the top spot if they were to offer me a place However. What about u?
Ah great, good luck with Imperial then! Got offers from UCL, Edinburgh, Notts, and Warwick. Just waiting to hear back from St Andrews. Definitely gonna insure Edinburgh (ABB contextual offer) and will firm UCL if St A's reject me.
Original post by Ayman!
cool, good luck
missed A*A*A*A* bc of one module of physics which went unexpectedly bad for some reason
got a B in M3 though even though I was getting 95+ in mocks lol
missed A*A*A*A* bc of one module of physics which went unexpectedly bad for some reason
got a B in M3 though even though I was getting 95+ in mocks lol
Ah that's unfortunate, but your grades are still amazing!!! What are you doing this year?
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**DAY 101**
I haven't had physics for a few days so nothing really new for me to update you guys on. I'm going to write up some revision notes over christmas for the topics we've covered since September; last year I found doing that was really useful & meant that I didn't end up forgetting some of the stuff we covered at the start!
So far in S2, we've covered the uniform distribution. Apparently this is the easiest topic of the module (probably why we only spent two hours on it). It seemed really similar to some of the S1 stuff - overall a pretty decent topic :P
We made some very brief notes on the normal distribution and wrote down the crazy formula for it (although we'll never actually use it). Our teacher said the rest of S2 is almost all about the normal distribution so I guess we're carrying on with that next week
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I haven't had physics for a few days so nothing really new for me to update you guys on. I'm going to write up some revision notes over christmas for the topics we've covered since September; last year I found doing that was really useful & meant that I didn't end up forgetting some of the stuff we covered at the start!
So far in S2, we've covered the uniform distribution. Apparently this is the easiest topic of the module (probably why we only spent two hours on it). It seemed really similar to some of the S1 stuff - overall a pretty decent topic :P
We made some very brief notes on the normal distribution and wrote down the crazy formula for it (although we'll never actually use it). Our teacher said the rest of S2 is almost all about the normal distribution so I guess we're carrying on with that next week
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(edited 7 years ago)
Hi Matt,
You seem to be really focused and I wish you all the best with whatever you have planned after college. Your grades are fantastic! Just a quick question, is it more efficient to prepare for lessons by taking notes against the points on the syllabus before the topic is taught in class, or is it more effective to take detailed notes after the topic has been introduced in class?
You seem to be really focused and I wish you all the best with whatever you have planned after college. Your grades are fantastic! Just a quick question, is it more efficient to prepare for lessons by taking notes against the points on the syllabus before the topic is taught in class, or is it more effective to take detailed notes after the topic has been introduced in class?
Original post by StudentHLe
Hi Matt,
You seem to be really focused and I wish you all the best with whatever you have planned after college. Your grades are fantastic! Just a quick question, is it more efficient to prepare for lessons by taking notes against the points on the syllabus before the topic is taught in class, or is it more effective to take detailed notes after the topic has been introduced in class?
You seem to be really focused and I wish you all the best with whatever you have planned after college. Your grades are fantastic! Just a quick question, is it more efficient to prepare for lessons by taking notes against the points on the syllabus before the topic is taught in class, or is it more effective to take detailed notes after the topic has been introduced in class?
Ideally, doing both would be the most beneficial! The more you familiarise yourself with the content, the better.
Personally, I prefer taking notes before something is taught so that I can really focus on what the teacher is saying during the lesson. For maths particularly I find this super useful - I don't tend to make detailed notes on maths topics after a lesson, usually ill just do some practise questions.
For physics I kinda do the opposite & always write up detailed notes after we've finished an entire topic. I find that this works best since I can then use those notes later to revise from. I think it really depends on what subjects you're doing and what is more effective for you!!
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Original post by 98matt
Ideally, doing both would be the most beneficial! The more you familiarise yourself with the content, the better.
Personally, I prefer taking notes before something is taught so that I can really focus on what the teacher is saying during the lesson. For maths particularly I find this super useful - I don't tend to make detailed notes on maths topics after a lesson, usually ill just do some practise questions.
For physics I kinda do the opposite & always write up detailed notes after we've finished an entire topic. I find that this works best since I can then use those notes later to revise from. I think it really depends on what subjects you're doing and what is more effective for you!!
Posted from TSR Mobile
Personally, I prefer taking notes before something is taught so that I can really focus on what the teacher is saying during the lesson. For maths particularly I find this super useful - I don't tend to make detailed notes on maths topics after a lesson, usually ill just do some practise questions.
For physics I kinda do the opposite & always write up detailed notes after we've finished an entire topic. I find that this works best since I can then use those notes later to revise from. I think it really depends on what subjects you're doing and what is more effective for you!!
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Don't waste a youtube subscription on me!😂
Any chance you could describe your experience with AS Chemistry?
Personally I found it very difficult and tricky.
That's why I agree with the Dark energy guy.
Additional FM is an ambition of mine but will never happen since I'm also on welsh board 😞
Original post by DarkEnergy
Cheers. I'm doing Maths, Physics, and Chemistry though I wish I had done FM instead of Chemistry...
You know it's not too late to pick up AS FM or do the A2 units for maths???
It's only December after all.
What exam board for maths are you on?
Edit: Sorry thought you were an AS.😂 Saw your Uni offer post and was like - o
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Maths is Life
Don't waste a youtube subscription on me!😂
Any chance you could describe your experience with AS Chemistry?
Personally I found it very difficult and tricky.
That's why I agree with the Dark energy guy.
Additional FM is an ambition of mine but will never happen since I'm also on welsh board 😞
Any chance you could describe your experience with AS Chemistry?
Personally I found it very difficult and tricky.
That's why I agree with the Dark energy guy.
Additional FM is an ambition of mine but will never happen since I'm also on welsh board 😞
AS chemistry ahhhh. I think I knew by October last year that chemistry wasn't for me & I was going to drop it after the exams. In all honesty, I didn't really know what I was doing 95% of the time and I usually got less than half marks in class tests. I struggled to find a good method for tackling questions and always mixed up different processes/mechanisms which was frustrating.
Looking back at the exams, I'm now quite grateful that they were so difficult. Since I would get the majority of things wrong (whether easy or hard), having difficulty papers and thus lower grade boundaries helped me massively! If the exams were easier then my low mark would've given me a much lower grade... thankfully I was able to just scrape an A, averaging just over 50% of the raw marks
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Original post by 98matt
Thank you so much that's really nice to hear Just clicked on your profile and realised I watch your youtube videos!!! Was watching your physics day-in-the-life video at lunch today actually 
love your channel!
Just clicked on your profile and realised I watch your youtube videos!!! Was watching your physics day-in-the-life video at lunch today actually love your channel!(Sorry - I'm so rubbish at checking tsr!
) Thank you so so much!!! 
I knew I recognised your username too, but I thought it must be from another tsr thread haha*DAY 105*
It's my last week in school so I've decided to take a step back from my work & relax a bit! I'm planning on getting quite a lot done over the holidays so this week is a well needed break.
There's not much to report subject-wise. In maths we're working through some more normal distribution stuff; tomorrow looking at how it links to the binomial & poisson distributions. In physics, both teachers have pretty much given up teaching. We did a Christmas quiz yesterday & I doubt much more content will be covered before January -_-
As for my UCAS application, I'm still waiting to hear from Imperial. We're almost at the 3 month mark now but everyone keeps saying "no news is good news" so I'm still somewhat hopeful. For you guys that have also applied to university this year, how's your application going? It'd be interesting to see where you guys have applied to and for what course etc
Have a good week everyone!
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It's my last week in school so I've decided to take a step back from my work & relax a bit! I'm planning on getting quite a lot done over the holidays so this week is a well needed break.
There's not much to report subject-wise. In maths we're working through some more normal distribution stuff; tomorrow looking at how it links to the binomial & poisson distributions. In physics, both teachers have pretty much given up teaching. We did a Christmas quiz yesterday & I doubt much more content will be covered before January -_-
As for my UCAS application, I'm still waiting to hear from Imperial. We're almost at the 3 month mark now but everyone keeps saying "no news is good news" so I'm still somewhat hopeful. For you guys that have also applied to university this year, how's your application going? It'd be interesting to see where you guys have applied to and for what course etc
Have a good week everyone!
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*DAY 124**
Happy new year guys! I go back to school tomorrow after a little over two weeks off. For the first half of the holidays I managed to get a good amount of work done - I wrote up detailed notes on every topic for one of my physics modules. These notes are quite extensive and should hopefully prove useful over the next few months as I begin my exam prep!
This last week off school has been a little less productive and I've completely neglected FP1 revision. I've focused almost entirely on maths revision for FP2 since we have a mock coming up sometime this month. Today I also did an old M2 past paper & thankfully remembered how to do (almost) everything so that was reassuring
Since the real exams are only 5 months away, I've decided that I'm going to start my serious revision phase in the next week or two. Last year I started my revision around mid-march and that served me quite well. I need to ensure that I do just as good (hopefully better) this year, so that I'm able to get into the best uni possible. My new year's resolution is to get those 4A*s on results day! :P
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Happy new year guys! I go back to school tomorrow after a little over two weeks off. For the first half of the holidays I managed to get a good amount of work done - I wrote up detailed notes on every topic for one of my physics modules. These notes are quite extensive and should hopefully prove useful over the next few months as I begin my exam prep!
This last week off school has been a little less productive and I've completely neglected FP1 revision. I've focused almost entirely on maths revision for FP2 since we have a mock coming up sometime this month. Today I also did an old M2 past paper & thankfully remembered how to do (almost) everything so that was reassuring
Since the real exams are only 5 months away, I've decided that I'm going to start my serious revision phase in the next week or two. Last year I started my revision around mid-march and that served me quite well. I need to ensure that I do just as good (hopefully better) this year, so that I'm able to get into the best uni possible. My new year's resolution is to get those 4A*s on results day! :P
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*DAY 129**
My first week back in school was relatively easy and relaxed. In maths we continued with S2, looking at linear combinations of random variables. I've found S2 to be easiest FM module so far since the actual maths involved isn't very hard; knowing what to do and what formulae to use is definitely the tricky bit!
I have an FP2 mock next week - I'm hoping it goes well as I think FP2 is my second strongest module (behind S2). In order of easiest to hardest I think I'd rank the four modules we've covered as: S2, FP2, M2, FP1. I've ranked FP1 as the hardest because I haven't looked at it in a fair few months, so I've forgotten loads of it. It's also my least important module since it's an AS one, therefore I doubt it'll impact my overall grade much.
This weekend and early next week I'm going to focus on some FP2 revision and Unit 4 physics. I need to read over magnetic fields for physics and make some notes on the topic. Apart from that I don't really have anything planned. If I get bored of those two, I may attempt some old FP1 past papers to see what I need to tighten up on!
Matt
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My first week back in school was relatively easy and relaxed. In maths we continued with S2, looking at linear combinations of random variables. I've found S2 to be easiest FM module so far since the actual maths involved isn't very hard; knowing what to do and what formulae to use is definitely the tricky bit!
I have an FP2 mock next week - I'm hoping it goes well as I think FP2 is my second strongest module (behind S2). In order of easiest to hardest I think I'd rank the four modules we've covered as: S2, FP2, M2, FP1. I've ranked FP1 as the hardest because I haven't looked at it in a fair few months, so I've forgotten loads of it. It's also my least important module since it's an AS one, therefore I doubt it'll impact my overall grade much.
This weekend and early next week I'm going to focus on some FP2 revision and Unit 4 physics. I need to read over magnetic fields for physics and make some notes on the topic. Apart from that I don't really have anything planned. If I get bored of those two, I may attempt some old FP1 past papers to see what I need to tighten up on!
Matt
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Good luck!
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