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Tom's Journey to Awesome AS Levels

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Reply 20
Original post by Protostar
Ahhh that makes sense then, and if you enjoy them then there's nothing wrong with doing lots of them at all! :hugs:

You'll cope, I know it :yep: Oh trust me I'm that kid too - I've ranted at many teachers for going (what I think is) too slow :colondollar:


I hope I'll enjoy all the ones I haven't tried yet! I used to be a person that just said no to everything, so I really am trying to do as many things as I can these days!

Thank you :h: Haha, it's pretty frustrating being that kid isn't it? I ended up very flustered in my genetics lesson the other day because we spent about 30 minutes on the starter task and I was just like "all I want is an A, can we please just learn the spec now?" :colondollar:
Reply 21
It's actually become iconic how every few weeks I pop on here like "oops I'm gonna try and keep to a schedule now!" and it just doesn't happen hahahahah :colondollar: It's actually been 2 months, what the?

How has everyone been? I've been pretty good. School isn't too bad although I am having a slight crisis about my A Level subjects.

I'm finding Physics supersupersuper boring at the moment and I really really wish I was doing Geography instead but obviously catching up on Geography would be a lot of work, but I'm just really missing that subject tbh :frown: Okay, Physics isn't as bad as I have been making it, it's just that when my teacher was selling it to me she described it as being a looooot more interesting than it is. We've done motion and forces with one teacher and solids, stars and particles with the other. Motion and forces are dry but fine I guess. Solids makes me want to cry. I love space, but the stars topic on our spec is so brief and there's nothing particularly interesting, it's basically just luminosity and stuff like that. Particles is my favourite topic by far. After Christmas, we'll be doing electricity with one teacher and light/waves/photons with the other. The light side of the course sounds pretty good but damn, I despise electricity. Where is all the nuclear physics, space orbits and quantum stuff my teacher told me we would study? :angry: Meanwhile, I absolutely love the topics they're studying in Geography: oceans and plate tectonics. I really wish I had realised how much I preferred Geography at the start of term. I technically could take it, but the workload on top of three others could be too much :s-smilie:

BUT, it's not all negative! I am loving Biology, Chemistry and English Literature so much :biggrin: In Biology we have covered biological molecules, cell organelles, enzymes and nucleic acids. We are currently doing cell membranes with one teacher and the cell cycle with the other teacher. I have got As in both of the tests we have done in Biology :smile: In Chemistry, we've done formulae and equations, basic ideas about atoms, chemical calculations, bonding and solid structures. We're now doing periodicity with one teacher and equilibria with the other. In Chemistry I had got 4 As, 3 Bs and 1 C, which I am thrilled with, especially considering how hard it is!

English Literature is a very enjoyable subject for me. I'm not so much a fan of the content in poetry, but the poetry teacher makes the lessons engaging and fun. :tongue: The Mayor of Casterbridge is certainly not the best book out of all of the books on the course, but I'm finding it fairly easy to grasp and understand. I am, however, a little bit worried about Casterbridge. We are supposed to finish studying this text by Christmas because my teacher for this book is leaving for maternity leave, but we've nowhere near covered all of the chapters. I'm quite good at independent study, so this isn't the end of the world for me if we don't learn every chapter, it's fine to do that in revision. But I'm worried about developing essay writing skills and knowing what to include in essays. We spent far too long analysing Chapter 1 and now there is no way we will reach Chapter 45 before the holidays :redface:

Some other school related stuff I've been up to:

- In October half term I did my medical work experience! I did it in psychiatry and got to shadow psychiatrists in a bipolar clinic and a personality disorder clinic. I got to do ward rounds and discuss results about patients. I also got to help perform an ECG with a nurse. The week was very enjoyable and interesting but I don't think I want to be a psychiatrist! :tongue:

- In WBQ our global challenge began today. There are six global issue briefs to research and discuss and I think I'm going to choose the one about population growth affecting resources.

- I'm on the school's engineering team for physics, which isn't very exciting but should be useful for my WBQ.

- I've been on a few Seren network trips, where I've attended masterclasses in biogeochemistry, neurobiology and general university application advice.

- I attended 2 masterclasses in Cambridge. One on biochemistry and genetics and one on evolutionary biology. They were both brilliant. :biggrin:

- I went to a seminar about applying to medical school. It was certainly useful, but I'm beginning to question whether or not medicine is for me. I'm very passionate about it, but it also sounds so stressful. I'm planning on doing some more work experience soon, to help me decide.

That's about all I can think of right now. I can't keep to a regular schedule, but I'll try not to have another 2 month gap :colondollar: Maybe once or twice a week? I hope everyone is well and see ya soon!

(Also any advice on the whole physics/geog thing would be very appreciated!)
Reply 22
Yo, I'm back again. I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and a great rest from school because jeez school is tiring! So, the first Term of Year 12 is over (old news, I am aware) and I have 3 more days of holidays, so I'm just taking some time here reflect on my subjects and how I think I'm doing in them :biggrin:

Biology
I freaking love bio. The content is so interesting for me, I feel pretty on top of my work, I've gone back to the start of the content and am tracking my way back through and doing past paper questions. I definitely want to study something medical or biological at university now :smile:

Chemistry
I was so scared going into A Level Chem, since I had heard from so many people (even some teachers) that it's the hardest A Level and people often don't cope and all of that, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's not easy or anything (definitely not), but it wasn't the big nightmare I was expecting and I'm really enjoying the content. I have my Physical and Inorganic mock in a few weeks time, so I've been working a lot for that, treating it like a real exam. My test results in chem have been good, I've had 1 C, 1 B and 6As, which I am so happy with :biggrin:

Physics
*sigh* I'm still really confused with Physics, I don't know whether I should carry on or not (my school has said it's not too late to switch to Geo since they've done so little of the course - only 8%!). There are 2 topics in Unit 1 that I like (stars and particles), I'm not such a fan of the mechanics topics and I find a lot of it quite confusing. I don't know what I'm going to think of Unit 2 when we start it this term, as at GCSE I DESPISED electricity and I quite like waves, although I did find them quite difficult in Year 11, so it's not looking good (but the stuff about photons and lasers sounds really interesting). The problem is that I thought the course would be all super mind-blowing stuff about particles and the universe and maybe a little tiny bit about all the boring GCSE stuff like forces, but so far I was wrong :frown: I've been getting consistent A and B grades (I even got full marks in 2 of the mini mid-topic tests), but honestly I don't know how, since I've gone into the test literally not understanding any of it. I've tried past paper questions and just had no idea what to do (I think the tests use old-spec questions, which might be easier? :s-smilie:) The issue is, Physics would really help with my application to medicine or biochemistry or whatever it is I decide to do, so I'm scared about dropping it!

English Literature
I have always loved English, it would be mad of me not to take it for A Level! I just love analysis and find it fascinating how people can all interpret the same language differently and how literature can be used to study history, sociology and psychology. If I'm honest, I'm pretty fed up of The Mayor of Casterbridge at this point (and we're studying it until February), but I'm super looking forward to starting A Streetcar Named Desire in class because I absolutely love it. The poetry side of the course is slightly less interesting for me, but my poetry teacher is great and makes it so much more enjoyable and I am starting to appreciate the poems a lot more. I think I'm going to like Sylvia Plath's poetry about more than Hughes' when we get onto that in the next few weeks. My essay marks have been really good (except for one which I crammed 20 minutes before the lesson and got 9/20 on - completely my fault for forgetting I had homework :redface:). So yeah, English Lit is great. :tongue:

WBQ
Meh, I don't think I'll ever like this subject (although the individual project will be fairly fun I guess). I hate that I was forced to take it, when I could be using the lesson time doing something more directly linked with my subjects, but I just have to get on with it really. The first internal assessment begins as soon as I get back to school (kind of sad that I have to take these lessons seriously now :colondollar:). The assignment I chose to do was based on the brief "The world's population needs to be controlled or we will run out of resources". And I basically have to write an 1000-word essay where I evaluate 4 different sources on the topic and use them to illuminate my own personal standpoint on the issue, then I have to come up with a "solution" to the issue and do a presentation about it and finally I have to do a 'personal reflection'. It's all extremely boring and I hate it, but may as well do my best to get a good grade out of it (:angry:).

Other
I think I've been pretty good in terms of doing loads of extra stuff this year. I've attended plenty of subject masterclasses, done some work experience and stuff like that, I have more of both of those things lined up for the coming months. I've also got the school play (Oliver) coming up, in which I play Mr Brownlow (and I should probably start learning my lines since the rehearsals for my scenes start next week :redface:). I'm trying to get more involved around my school as well, helping out younger students in form time and in Spanish lessons. I am also hoping to apply to the Oxford UNIQ Summer School this year!

So yeah, here was a bit of an update on everything school-related, I hope everyone is having a great New Year! :biggrin:

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