En Route A*AA

Okay so I'm currently in year 13 and I am probably the laziest person I know. The A Levels I'm taking are: maths, chemistry and physics. I'm hoping to study aeronautical engineering at university which obviously requires relatively high grades.

For AS last year I didn't really do much of anything outside of lesson (when I turned up), even though I liked deluding myself into thinking I was. Because of this I seriously under-performed and ended up getting a C in maths and D's in the sciences.

What I'm aiming for this year probably sounds unrealistic but I know if I actually work this year I'll definitely get the grades I want. I've never really tried academically and the few times I have in the past paid off, so I'm not sure why I don't just get on with it.

Anyway, I plan on getting an A* in maths as it's my strongest subject and for the uni course I want to do i need either A* in maths or physics (never happening). In physics and chemistry I want/need A's and I don't think that it's unattainable with hard work.

So with this blog I'll be making updates every few days and one big summary of my week on Sundays. The reason I want to do the blog is just to hold myself accountable to something and also it will help me remember when I did particularly things for school.

Reply 1

Erdon

Good luck! I'm in a similar boat to you with those A Levels, and it's definitely possible to improve them substantially within a short period of time! :biggrin:

Reply 2

noted

So today I only had one lesson so when I get home I'm gonna work on chemistry. I'll make notes on equilibrium for both AS and A2, kind of like a giant fact sheet in the entire topic then work on some of the book questions. Hopefully it shouldn't take me too long , so I can go on Exam solutions to go over what I've done in maths so far. After that I'm gonna do the Solomon topic sheets and that to me sounds like a solid day of revision.

Reply 3

bornFizzle

As someone who went from BCD at AS to A*AA at A level, this is totally do able. I would suggest using your frees wisely now without too much extra curricular studying so you don't get burnt out, just use them to make up the knowledge you obvisouly didn't have in year 12. Then about a month before your first exam you're going to want to absolutely kiss goodbye to your social life and do around 6 hours of revision a day spaced out, moving up to 9/10 in the exam season. I was the exact same as you, never achieved an A in any exam I took however I always knew I had the potential, but just never applied myself.

Message me if you want to speak further.

Reply 4

noted

Okay, today in the college library I found these massive books that have hundreds of chemistry and physics math based questions. Literally a god send. So today I'm going to finish the questions on momentum I started in my free period and start the equilibrium ones in the chemistry book. I think they're quite challenging, hopefully this gives me practice I need answering questions quickly.

Reply 5

noted

So I've decided to focus today on physics as that is the subject that I need to work on most. I'm making concise notes from the textbook, revision guide and my class notes covering everything we've done this year. I should be finished with gravitational fields (where we are in class) and after that I'm going to do more questions from the book. Hopefully if I complete the questions I can start reading ahead for this weeks lesson, that way I can stay on top of it all.

Reply 6

noted

Today in chemistry was a near disaster. We're doing a2 energetics and it's alright but when I have to draw from my AS knowledge I just get stuck. I never really learnt that topic last year, so that's an obvious huge gap in my knowledge. I've spent about 1hr30 in the library just starting the topic again from AS. So far it's not that bad and it really does clear up the stuff we've been doing in class. When I get home I plan on finishing my notes on it and starting some calculation questions on it. I still have to do my physics practical write up for tomorrow's lesson and some chemistry homework. I really need to get all that done tonight so that I can focus more on maths because I've really been neglecting it and it shows in my class work, I'm not as confident answering questions. Obviously if I want the A* in maths I have to be constantly practicing so from tomorrow I'm going to do at least an hour of maths everyday just to get my confidence back.

Reply 7

noted

Found out I have my first topic test next Tuesday in chemistry on equilibrium. I'm feeling confident on the topic but time will tell. I'm back home now and I'm just about to start on my c3 homework (we got this massive booklet of past aper questions). Not much to do today so after my homework I'll finish off learning AS kinetics and make more notes on that.

Reply 8

noted

Assessed homework on equilibrium came back yesterday and I did quite well 41/42 (I lost the mark for not fully explaining myself). Fingers crossed I can do this for the rest coming up. Also, on wed to have a test in physics on everything we have learnt so far (momentum, circular motion & gravitational fields). At this moment I'm confident with the first 2 but I missed a couple of lessons in gravity fields, so I have to go over it agin this weekend. Here's hoping I get good grades next week so that I can show my teachers I actually have potential (and so they can give me a good prefixed grade).

Side note - I'm still struggling with putting my personal statement together. I have a rough draft with what I want in it but I'm struggling to expand upon it. I really want to be finished with it by the end of October but at this rate I'll miss the ucas deadline.