Is A Level Physics too difficult?

I want to do Physics at A level, however my friends and family are against because they say its too difficult, and I would be lucky to get an E, judging by my GCSE grades.

Reply 1

welcome_to_the_jungle

9

Do it for a few weeks and see how you fair. At the start of college you should try subjects out and see if you like them, unless you know what you want.

Reply 2

</gibberish>

12

Its abit hit-and-miss with a C in intermediate maths, chemistry should be ok though?

Reply 3

insomniac89

My family were the same, and I got A*A* at GCSE science! I did OCR A Physics to AS, and I found it very difficult at the start for a couple of reasons.
The first module on Forces and Motion has quite a lot of maths, and I'm not the best mathematician especially when it comes to vectors. :p:

Most of my class were doing Maths or Further Maths, so they were at quite an advantage doing M1. However, I worked hard and got help from my teacher to understand everything. With this, and a lot of past papers, I managed to get an A in this module. The rest of the AS course was more theory based, and the maths was more basic, mainly remembering simple equations and substituting the values. If you memorise the facts and go through a lot of past papers, you start to find the same things come up most years, often just with rephrased questions. I've dropped it now, because I wasn't enjoying the subject anymore and I didn't enjoy the introduction to the A2 course we had before the summer.

I wouldn't judge your capability at A-level based on your GCSE results; it's all about how hard you are willing to work now. With lots of effort and preparation for the exams, I'm sure you can do well. I hope this helps! :biggrin:

Reply 4

PlaystationStudies

8

My GCSEs are worse than yours and I got an A overall in my AS Physics (278 ucas). Just put the work in at home and try understand what's going on. And do lots of past papers. Hope that it doesn't bore you too much, that's when it gets hard.

Reply 5

ebam_uk

20

insomniac89

My family were the same, and I got A*A* at GCSE science! I did OCR A Physics to AS, and I found it very difficult at the start for a couple of reasons.
The first module on Forces and Motion has quite a lot of maths, and I'm not the best mathematician especially when it comes to vectors. :p:

Most of my class were doing Maths or Further Maths, so they were at quite an advantage doing M1. However, I worked hard and got help from my teacher to understand everything. With this, and a lot of past papers, I managed to get an A in this module. The rest of the AS course was more theory based, and the maths was more basic, mainly remembering simple equations and substituting the values. If you memorise the facts and go through a lot of past papers, you start to find the same things come up most years, often just with rephrased questions. I've dropped it now, because I wasn't enjoying the subject anymore and I didn't enjoy the introduction to the A2 course we had before the summer.

I wouldn't judge your capability at A-level based on your GCSE results; it's all about how hard you are willing to work now. With lots of effort and preparation for the exams, I'm sure you can do well. I hope this helps! :biggrin:

I was in a similar situation to you. except i had 3 A*'s in triple award science & A* in maths. I also did OCR A, i found that Forces and motions was ok as long as you learnt the maths concepts, vectors etc and applying equations of motions very well.

Definitely the easiest way to get an A is through repetition of past papers. It also worked for. I found the other modules a lot easier Electrons and photons and waves by just doing loads of past papers. so in the end i got an A in every module in physics.

So physics is hard if you want to do it. Make sure u get used to the wording of the questions because most of physics is understanding the question and context and applying the physics formulas correctly.

Reply 6

gunner01

1

listen i say go for it...big deal ur gcse esults arnt all that...u got in A LEVEELS....and if u really wanna do physics...u can do it...nothing worth doing is easy....just focus thats all u need...**** ur gcses...sooo over it!...im sure u can do it....if u try hard....!!

Reply 7

-G-a-v-

16

You've got C's in Maths and Science. Technically you have the right grades, although B's are often preferred. If you work hard enough, it'll be do-able. Just practice the important maths skills such as trig, pythagoras, graphs, rearranging equations and standard form as those are the main aspects of GCSE that come into AS Physics.

Reply 8

Profesh

20

You got a 'C' in Maths: they're probably right.

Reply 9

Kaela

2

A Level Physis is HARD!! I got a B in GCSE and got a C in AS and I struggled. I did Advancing Physics (OCR B) It's not a nice course, a lot of my friends got U's. It's all maths. It's horrible.

My advice? Don't take it.

Reply 10

iceman_jondoe

18

Kaela

A Level Physis is HARD!! I got a B in GCSE and got a C in AS and I struggled. I did Advancing Physics (OCR B) It's not a nice course, a lot of my friends got U's. It's all maths. It's horrible.

My advice? Don't take it.

BAD advice! just because you found it difficult doenst mean the OP will too. Its depends on the person, how hard they are willing to push themselves etc etc. You can get a B/C at gcse science yet still get an A at A level physics/chem/bio.
If your willing to put the work, in and do enough exam practice it should not be too difficult.

Reply 11

Ibn al-Khattab

i did ocr physics and got a c although i would have got a good b had it not been for my practicals...i've never been any good at them and they brought my marks down a great deal...

you may struggle at first but if you stick at it and put in the effort, unlike me, then there's no reason why yu won't come out with good grades and to be honest the maths is not so difficult...other than learning a few derivations and applying them it's just about learning equations given and when to use them...

Reply 12

sunspoon

14

Do maths as well and you should find the two subjects compliment each other nicely. I got an A in AS physics wiht around 5 hours total revision in week before the exam.

Reply 13

iceman_jondoe

18

i did no maths when i did AS physics, i think i just got lucky in the exam lol

Reply 14

fay_102

4

can anyone comment on Edexcel AS physics? whats your experience with it ?

Reply 15

bobbles_lass

7

I'm doing Edexcel physics and loving it (starting y13). I don't know how it differs from AQA particularly, but for AS we did 1 - Mechanics and Radioactivity, 2 - Electricity and Thermal Physics and then 3 was the topic module. My college did the medical physics option, however, the other options are astrophysics, solid materials or nuclear and particles.
I got an A overall at AS, we had 3 written exams and one practical exam.
I also did AS maths alongside it, but didn't particularly notice it helping ( it didn't need much that wasn't covered in GCSE). However, A2 physics is helped by AS maths as we needed radians (one guy in my class is doing stats rather than maths and had to learn the relevant bits as extra).

Good luck with it!

Reply 16

K!&R@N

9

Along with Chemistry, it is the hardest A level!!! Although i find physics really simple!

Reply 17

xx-Samantha-xx

16

what do people here think of the AQA A spec of physics

i got BB overall for science modular GCSE and got AA for the physics bit of the moduels it seems ok for the first day but im not sure what to expect

i also got a B for Maths in GCSE

Reply 18

iceman_jondoe

18

bobbles_lass

I'm doing Edexcel physics and loving it (starting y13). I don't know how it differs from AQA particularly, but for AS we did 1 - Mechanics and Radioactivity, 2 - Electricity and Thermal Physics and then 3 was the topic module. My college did the medical physics option, however, the other options are astrophysics, solid materials or nuclear and particles.
I got an A overall at AS, we had 3 written exams and one practical exam.
I also did AS maths alongside it, but didn't particularly notice it helping ( it didn't need much that wasn't covered in GCSE). However, A2 physics is helped by AS maths as we needed radians (one guy in my class is doing stats rather than maths and had to learn the relevant bits as extra).

Good luck with it!

I absolutely LOVED the medical physics option. I self taught myself the entire AS course and i say that as a proud guy considering i only got a B in gcse maths and didnt do maths at AS level, yet still got an A for the AS..just goes to show you how easy it is, any average joe can do well in it :biggrin:

Reply 19

chidona

15

iceman_jondoe

I absolutely LOVED the medical physics option. I self taught myself the entire AS course and i say that as a proud guy considering i only got a B in gcse maths and didnt do maths at AS level, yet still got an A for the AS..just goes to show you how easy it is, any average joe can do well in it :biggrin:

The problem with Physics lies in the way you have to think and formulate your thoughts in it. I know very capable mathematicians who take further maths with me, who struggle pretty heavily with physics - and these are all A grade maths candidates. It's also much more wordy than maths, so the ability to switch quickly between qualitative and quantitative analysis is pretty key.

If you worked hard at the subject and really pushed it to the limit while enjoying it - i don't see why you couldn't get a C at least.

Is A Level Physics too difficult?

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