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PeacheyRoses' Journey Through A-Levels 2017-19

Hi!

I just finished GCSEs and will be starting A-levels next year and I've seen a lot of these kind of blogs so I decided to make one to track my progress - and it'll be nice to look back at once I finished my A-Levels.

GCSE 2017 Grades

Maths - 9
English Language - 7
(Just got my remark back and it got moved up to a 7! :smile:

)
English Literature - 9
Biology - A*
Chemistry - A*
Physics - A*
Geography - A*
French - A*
Art - A*
RE - A*
IT - A*

Spoiler

Subjects I'm taking at A-Level and My dreams

Next year I'm going to be studying Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry + EPQ (it's compulsory at my college :s-smilie:

) I've always been a little worried about further maths up until the end of year 11 I've never considered myself to be very strong in maths but after the exams and getting a 9, it's kind of reassured me that I am actually good at maths.

My dream would obviously be to get A* A* A* A* + A* as I'm one of those people who always wants to be the best of the best but realistically I wouldn't be disappointed in A A A A + A as a minimum.

I'd like to do something STEM related at university - I'm looking at either engineering (aerospace) or physics. I'd like to have a job within space exploration (I'm a massive sci-fi and star trek fan!!).

My dream universities are Oxford (not Cambridge as I already live in the area - I wanna be moving away for uni! :tongue:

), UCL, Imperial, Bath... TBH I'm not too sure mainly because I'm not at the point where I'm looking at universities but these are the ones I quite like. It would be a dream to get into Oxford but at the same time, I'm not too sure if I'd actually want to go? Mainly because I'd like to study in London but idk atm.

sO that's it for now, I'm going to try and update weekly maybe once I start college to just record my process and the workload and how I'm finding it.

Year 12 Mock Results

Maths - A / 68%
(was happy i got an A which is the highest but really annoyed about my percentage ugh)
Physics - A / 85%
(this was a really high A and was super proud of it)
Chemistry - B / 69%
(was reallyyyy disappointed in this as I was initially sure I would get atleast 80% but still what i got was pretty good)
Further Maths - E / 39%
(lol this went soooo badly but it's okay because I'm dropping and next year maths will be too much easier because I already learnt all the year 2 maths this year)

UCAS Grade Predictions

Maths - A*
Physics - A*
Chemistry - A

So A*A*A which I'm really happy about.

Current University Choices
I'm planning to apply for Mechanical Engineering at:
Imperial
Bristol
UCL
Leeds
Southampton
I decided that Oxbridge wasn't really for me so I'm not going to waste my time applying.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 1

thotproduct

I follow your journey with anticipation, we both have similar engineering disciplines in mind! I've made one of these myself and it's great to see everyone supporting each other!

good luck!

Original post by peacheyroses

Hi!

I just finished GCSEs and will be starting A-levels next year and I've seen a lot of these kind of blogs so I decided to make one to track my progress - and it'll be nice to look back at once I finished my A-Levels.

GCSE 2017 Grades

Maths - 9
English Language - 6
(2 marks off 7, predicted 8 so getting remark)
English Literature - 9
Biology - A*
Chemistry - A*
Physics - A*
Geography - A*
French - A*
Art - A*
RE - A*
IT - A*

Spoiler

Subjects I'm taking at A-Level and My dreams

Next year I'm going to be studying Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry + EPQ (it's compulsory at my college :s-smilie:

Reply 4

peacheyroses

So this is my first post :smile:

There isn't much for me to say as I've so far only been to sixth form a couple of days for induction (lessons start on Monday). I'm pretty excited to start A levels but at the same time, I'm going to miss being able to do whatever I want and just lounging around at home. I really love the sixth form (especially the library - it's so nice it makes me want to study in there!) but it's so big it'll take some time to get used to and I've already gotten lost several times. I'm still very overwhelmed about the amount of students there are, I'm not used to seeing so many unfamiliar faces. This makes me both uneasy and excited as I'm a very shy person but atleast we're all in the same boat so this is the prime time to start making a new friendship group :smile:

I've already made a few friends in my form but it's unlikely it'll stick since we're all doing different subjects (and form only meets once a week). I'm hoping to make friends in my subject lessons.

I got my timetable (14 lessons a week, 8 frees and one of EPQ, form and enrichment). It's not bad as a couple days I can come in an hour later but my frees are a lot more spread out than what some other people have. This though is a good thing as I'm more likely to actually do work in my frees rather than just go home. I think it's going to be hard adjusting to having to do so much work after having about 3 months of just doing nothing but I'm determined to do well and work loads. I just hope all my teachers are nice and that I'm able to keep up with everything.

Reply 5

peacheyroses

15/09/17 - End of first week

So I just finished my first week and it's been good. A part of me does miss secondary school and it's simplicity and not having such a big expectation of me. I'm definitely enjoying the social aspect of sixth form so far - I feel much less of an outsider (mainly because nobody knows each other etc) and I've made some new friends along with bonding more with current ones. The school day feels much more spaced out as I don't have back-to-back lessons all day and on most days I have only 3 lessons, sometimes 2; the frees have been great as I usually spend them hanging out with friends and doing some casual work (mainly because I haven't yet been given much work and homework to do), sometimes they do get a bit boring though I expect this will change once I get more work.

Maths/ further maths has definitely been the biggest step up so far (but that's mainly only because we're yet to properly start learning content in both physics and chemistry). My first proper lesson, I spent most of it panicking as I had no idea what was going on (turns out I wasn't the only one - the teacher had wrongly assumed we all had already been taught Pascal's Triangle - something that I'd never heard of until then). We're currently doing binomial expansion with one teacher and circles/ straight lines with the other. Luckily the next few lessons I had, I understood it a lot more but the pace of the lesson is something to get used to - we go through the content so quickly and we're expected to be able to learn things a lot quicker than at GCSE.

A levels are definitely hard but very definitely manageable. I know I'll have to work hard to get my target of A*s - especially in maths but I'm really determined to do it :smile:

Reply 6

peacheyroses

25/09/17 - Beginning of third week

I can't believe I'm already at the beginning of my third week at sixth form! In my last post I said maths had been the biggest step up - one week later and I'm definitely finding physics to be the biggest step up - but that's mainly because one of my teachers just loves setting us really hard questions for homework - a lot which I've never even been taught how to do so I'm finding it hard. Maths isn't too hard, it now just feels a lot like it did at GCSE just at a bit of a faster pace and everyone around me is just as good, or better. To be honest, I'm still waiting for chemistry to get hard. I hear a lot about chemistry being the hardest a level and I definitely do believe that but at the moment, everything we're doing, I already know how to do and it just feels like GCSE (which I very much like!).

In maths, we've just finished binomial expansion, circles, straight lines and coordinates, indices and surds (wow that is a lot!) and we're now moving onto functions and proof (which is my least favourite topic in maths). In physics we've been doing a lot of electrical stuff, especially equations to do with I = nAve. There's been a steep learning curve with some of the questions there but I'm managing to hang on!

I'm still loving the social aspect of sixth form - I've made some new friends and I feel generally more accepted than I did in secondary school. Here there is less of a 'popular' group and cliques - I think that's because no one knows each other therefore it's harder to establish a 'popular group'. I really love this.

Reply 7

peacheyroses

02/02/18 - Nearing the half way point of my second term

AGGGHHHH I literally CANNOT believe how much time has past since I last wrote in this blog - I've been neglecting it so much! Well, I haven't been going on TSR as much anymore, less than once a week nowadays. The excitement about school and school work quickly wore off and going on TSR just reminded me of all the stress of a levels.

I haven't been doing too badly tbh, but my performance in my subjects could definitely improve and definitely needs to if I'm ever going to achieve my target grades. I'm at that point where it's okay to be doing average but I really need to pick up my grades before it's too late (mocks are in MAY!).

Maths & Further Maths
This is probably my most enjoyable subject (or just the one i hate the least really). It honestly hasn't been as hard as I expected but obviously still pretty difficult. I'm pretty confident I can get atleast an A in the normal A level maths but it's the further maths that i'm kinda worried about. I've basically been doing around slightly above average/average in my double maths class? I'm actually really happy about it though because doing average in a double maths class at my school still means you are wayyy above average in comparison to everyone in the year who's taking maths. So far, my test scores are as such:
Diagnostic Test: 95%
October Test - 85%
Nov/Dec Test - 65%
January Test - 55%

So as you can see I started off pretty good, near the top of my class and have slowly been moving downwards. Actually, I probably found the questions in my january test the easiest but I ran out of time while also making a lot of stupid mistakes which contributed to my low score. In most of my lessons, I actually really struggle a lot but when I go to revise and get to actually go through all the content myself at my own pace, it suddenly gets really easy. I guess I'm just not suited to the fast paced class environment. In terms of the actual people, I much prefer my maths class by far. I think it's probably because I have two more lessons of maths than the other subjects so then I spend more time with them and so it feels a lot more like a community.

Physics
My grades in physics has fluctuated from really good to really bad. It's definitely my most difficult subject - but difficulty really depends on the topic though.
I had 2 major tests before christmas - one for the Materials topic and the other for Sensing which I find to be 10 times more difficult than materials.
I got 39/47 in materials (near top of the class i think) while just 30/47 for sensing (this is about average).
We've had some other smaller insignificant tests around that which I've pretty much just been scoring average for - they're all multiple choice tests which I find extremely difficult - I really hate how my school really likes to give us multiple choice questions because they are far harder than normal test questions!!! (and usually only worth 1 mark so they expect you to only take like a minute to do them!).
I really like the people in my Physics class, like in maths, I've made some good friends that I chat to and laugh with and it's great.

Chemistry
This is my least favourite subject but probably by far the easiest so far. It's the subject that still feels like I'm doing GCSE sometimes. I've had two tests so far, one in November time and the other one in January.
I got 38/50 (72%) in the first one and 43/50 (86%) in the second one so I definitely have done really well but at the same time, although these are my highest test scores out of all the subjects, it's the ones that I feel like i could have most done better in.
I honestly don't really like my chemistry class, I don't feel a bond with anyone like I do in my other classes. I think it's because we never have a set classroom - my school's chemistry department is weird and so we change rooms every single lesson (it's very annoying as I always have to check what room I'm in before every lesson).

Socially, sixth form has been really great! Of course there are some off days but in general I've made so many great friends - especially ones I now probably consider my best friends and it's crazy that just a few months ago, we didn't know each other existed.

Reply 8

nyxnko_

those GCSE grades!!! They're so good!
We take the same subjects!! :hugs:

Good luck with updating this blog and just A-levels in general!! What are you researching for your EPQ??

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 9

peacheyroses

Original post by nyxnko_

those GCSE grades!!! They're so good!
We take the same subjects!! :hugs:

Good luck with updating this blog and just A-levels in general!! What are you researching for your EPQ??

Thank you! :smile:

For my EPQ I originally was going to do a dissertation on 'The future of space exploration' but I've now narrowed the title down to 'Making Humans a Multi-planetary species'. I'm mainly gonna talk about mars colonisation and do some stuff about reusable rockets and other things like that.

Reply 10

nyxnko_

Original post by peacheyroses

Thank you! :smile:

That's so cool!! (I realise I sound really geeky :tongue:

)
How do you balance your life out? I had wanted to do an EPQ but then realised that I would then probably spend my life at my desk so I gave up on the idea...

Reply 11

JamoJar

Good Luck with your A-levels, I’ve got that to look forward to next year :s-smilie:

your GCSE grades were astounding and I’m sure you’ll have astounding A levels too

Reply 12

peacheyroses

16/08/18 - Summer After Year 12
Lol I'm kind of annoyed I didn't keep this up but oh well - there's much to catch up on!

Overall I have LOVED year 12, it is probably been the best school year of my life. I feel like I've blossomed so much and have made so many friends and really feel accepted which is a big change from secondary school. I'm really sad that I only have a year left :frown:

I met my bestest friends in the entire world and wish it could last forever.

Mocks were in May and were extremely stressful but it all paid off (mainly lol). So I got (A was highest you could get):
Maths - A / 68% predicted A* I'm extremely happy i got an A with predicted A* as i was extremely disappointed with just 68% because i know i can do so much better and originally though i would only be predicted an A
Further Maths - E / 39% predicted D lolll i know it went sooooo badly but I'm dropping :smile:

Physics - A / 85% predicted A* went soo much better than expected and I'm extremely happy
Chemistry - B / 69% predicted A I was very very disappointed (lol wanted to cry) since i though chemistry had gone sooo much better and was almost certain i would end up with an A* prediction but that's life eyyy

So in total I will have a prediction of A*A*A next year which I'm very happy with :smile:

of course the perfectionist in me really wanted three A*s but still i know what i have is already amazing.

i will be dropping further maths next year and I'm so happy about it because it was definitely too much and because in further maths this year we just learnt the year 2 single maths it means I basically already have learnt everything that i will be doing next year

In june/july i went to a load of open days and also spent a week at Sheffield uni doing a broad-based engineering headstart course which I loved, met so many amazing people and helped with deciding on a course. I've also decided not to apply to Oxford as it is just not somewhere i'd like to go, just didn't like the city and also i don't like the college system - i just can't imagine ending up there and it also takes off sooo much pressure to get my application done on time etc.

so my current choices are - Mechanical Engineering (M.eng)
- Imperial college london
- UCL
- Bristol
- Leeds
- Southampton

Lately I have been thinking about other courses such as neuroscience but I think I will end up applying for engineering.

overall year 12 has gone pretty well and my summer so far has been great ! not entirely looking forward to the stress of year 13 though lolll