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Can I self-study A-level Chemistry?

I managed to teach myself most of GCSEs because my teachers were terrible and got out with good results but now I'm struggling in year 13 because my chemistry teacher is terrible. He doesn't explain things properly and all he makes us do is questions. I know that's an integral part of learning but we just don't have the understanding to do the questions properly. He's also incredibly slow and I'm afraid we won't finish the spec by April which is when we're supposed to. I was wondering if I could self study the A2 part of the course by myself and still come out with an A. Also, do you have any helpful tips?
I self taught all GCSE's, all A-levels (chem bio physics maths). I got no less than A's

Very possible.
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Avatar for arobrusker
arobrusker
OP
12
Original post by TheRealAdam1
I self taught all GCSE's, all A-levels (chem bio physics maths). I got no less than A's

Very possible.

Oh thank goodness. Do you have any tips?
Reply 3
Avatar for bxso
bxso
9
Hi, i'm in year 13 too and self studying chemistry because my school basically has no chemistry department. It's completely possible and i think you work at a quicker pace when you're learning it yourself. I set myself targets each week, like I need to learn and make notes on this chapter, do questions on this chapter etc. Look at how many topics you need to self teach and how many weeks you have left and you'll get an idea of how many topics per week you should be working on. It is hard to actually understand some topics - i use notes online and youtube videos when I get stuck. Hope this helps!
Yes definitely. My teachers were useless.
It's also good preparation for uni where you do a lot of self study.
Original post by arobrusker
Oh thank goodness. Do you have any tips?


I simply read the textbooks from start to finish, answered all the questions in the textbook, and any I got wrong I would go back and read over.

Then I would start doing the past papers under timed conditions. I would memorise the markschemes when I come to mark them.

I would mark myself against the grade boundaries of that specific paper to track how I was doing.

Usually, by the end of doing all the papers, I was getting no less than 90% in each paper.

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