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Philip Allan Revision Guides

2

I have been looking around for some revision guides and stumbled across the Philip Allan ones. They are specific to each exam board e.g. AQA A and there are separate books for each unit as apposed to one book for any exam board and all the topics; so are they any good? anyone had any experience with them? (heres the website)

http://www.philipallan.co.uk/content.aspx?page=HOME

Cheers!

Reply 1

Sarahl89

15

they are amazing i love them and they have saved my A level life seen as that my chem teachers are ****. yay.

Reply 2

rahmed

yes I've used them, albeit for the edexcel syllabus. I found them to be quite good, they covered most things, but you would still need a general Biology textbook.

The Collins revision guides are generally better, but I don't know if they are available for your subject.

Reply 3

AnastasiaJ

I've been to 3 Philip Allan French days in the last couple of years, and they've been pretty helpful. I think if there are any nearby to you then go for it. Also a good excuse to get out of school for a day :wink:

As for the books, I haven't got any... :s-smilie:

Reply 4

quintsy

17

I used the AQA A Core Processes in Physical Geography one for my exam yesterday; they're pretty helpful because they can include topics specific to your syllabus which other revision guides might neglect. The books are best for the kind of subjects where you need to know a little about a lot of topics, rather than a lot on only a couple because they don't go into that much detail. I can't say how much it helped me specifically, because our exam ended up being one of those which focused on tiny segments of the syllabus, which neither our textbook nor revision books concentrated particularly on, but it depends on the subject you're using it for. :smile:

Reply 5

Lili!

1

Ahh man, Philip Allan is amazing! I have the OCR Economics one.. Has everything I need to know, is easy to understand, and lots of nice pictures mixed in aswell :smile:

awesome

Reply 6

bharatk

ahhh yessss philip allan was the soul reason i passed my A-levels in economics edexcel... they're are seriously the greatest revision books.

no reason why you cant get minimum B with these books

Must Buy!!!

Reply 7

hessajee

15

It depends on the subject. These books are very hot for OCR Chemistry, as they are all on loan during the exam period at our college library, and I used them myself for AS Chemistry last year. Does help quite a lot. However, our college got Module 4 OCR Physics from them, and they cannot cover all the detail, just the main stuff. However the Q&A are good from it for Physics.

So it entirely depends on subject, module, exam board and content (and personal preference). Hope that helps.

Reply 8

Laura2712

4

Really, the Philip Allan guides I looked at had very little subject content, just a list of what you needed to know really, and then about half of it was just exam practice. What I really wanted was a revision guide for Geography and Economics - are there different types of book for each subject and I looked at the wrong one or not?

Reply 9

The Toffy

2

Laura2712

Really, the Philip Allan guides I looked at had very little subject content, just a list of what you needed to know really, and then about half of it was just exam practice. What I really wanted was a revision guide for Geography and Economics - are there different types of book for each subject and I looked at the wrong one or not?

Yeah same here. I think they're meant to be used as a unit guide not a revision guide. I found the CGP ones awesome :biggrin:

Reply 10

Nintendus

It really depends on your exam board and subject. For AQA economics they didn't seem to cover a lot for me, but the practice questions are always helpful. With Edexcel A Geography they seemed pretty comprehensive.

Reply 11

M.A.H

17

biology ones are tooo brief and the chem ones are good (all edexcel)

Reply 12

vinsta

12

has anyone bought them for OCR economics OCR SALTERS chemistry and EDEXCEL maths????? if so, how were they??

Reply 13

Lili!

1

vinsta

has anyone bought them for OCR economics OCR SALTERS chemistry and EDEXCEL maths????? if so, how were they??

I bought the OCR Economics one. I've only had it since starting A2 though.. I got by ok without it at AS but couldn't live without it this year! It's way better than my teachers, it's easily gonna be what gets me through the exam :rolleyes:

GET IT!

Reply 14

vinsta

12

Lili!

I bought the OCR Economics one. I've only had it since starting A2 though.. I got by ok without it at AS but couldn't live without it this year! It's way better than my teachers, it's easily gonna be what gets me through the exam :rolleyes:

GET IT!

ok thank, i probably wil buy it as i need a good grade this year (A)
has anyone done oce salters tho, theres diff books for diff modules which is weird, anyone used these????
also has anyone used these books to get >90% UMS?????

Reply 15

Rob 07

13

Ive got the ones for AQA Economics AS+A2, i think they are great especially for last mintue revision, the exam practice section is also good giving example answers and what mark that would of got in an exam.

Reply 16

tetters

theyre fantastic, got the Unit 1,2+3 for AS Politics and covered everything needed. I'd buy the A2 ones straight away if they made them :frown:

Reply 17

dumbdunc

Sarahl89

they are amazing i love them and they have saved my A level life seen as that my chem teachers are ****. yay.

Haha I second that. What is it with AS Chemistry teachers..? :rolleyes:

What exam board are you?

I'm edexcel nuffield and the textbook is appalling. Absolute s*** doesn't even come close to describing its usefulness for revision. None of the important stuff is actually in there, e.g experiment observations.

I've learnt more reading the unit 2 guide for ten minutes than I have from the textbook and my teacher in 6 months...

Reply 18

silent ninja

19

I really didn't like the biology one (unit 4), too brief and nowhere near as good as the Collins ones-- these were only available for AS on Edexcel but I believe the AQA ones cover A2 also. I gave it away to someone on TSR for free and made my own notes.

Reply 19

iceman_jondoe

18

i found the edexcel chem ones contained all i needed to know, and literally i threw away all my other notes and just used these books for my chem alevel.

Philip Allan Revision Guides

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