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Advice/tips for starting A levels

Hey,


In September I will be starting my A levels and want to make sure that I start off on the right foot. Any advice/tips that helped you?

Thanks :biggrin:
Iโ€™ve just finished year 12 and I do biology maths and geography so the workload was quite high. At the start the work will be overwhelming, I was doing chemistry too but 4 subjects was too much for me, itโ€™s better to focus on 3 and do them well.
Make the most out of your study periods, there are people who just waste them and chat, which is fine do to a few times but the majority should be spent working it will make your life so much easier when you get home!
Also Iโ€™d say you should revise thoroughly for each little end of topic test and make good revision notes as when it gets to the end of the year you donโ€™t want to be panicking and making revision notes for absolutely everything.
Most days Iโ€™d come home and just chill and watch Netflix seeing as Iโ€™d the majority of work at school and I still managed to come out with AAB in my end of year exams, Iโ€™d say if you manage your time well itโ€™s not really that stressful
Good luck!
Itโ€™s much easier to stay organised from the beginning than to get yourself organised later. Some other advice that I found helpful is that it can be easier to just carry around one file to put recent sheets in and then do refiling later than to carry around several folders
Original post by Sophie.roberts11
Iโ€™ve just finished year 12 and I do biology maths and geography so the workload was quite high. At the start the work will be overwhelming, I was doing chemistry too but 4 subjects was too much for me, itโ€™s better to focus on 3 and do them well.
Make the most out of your study periods, there are people who just waste them and chat, which is fine do to a few times but the majority should be spent working it will make your life so much easier when you get home!
Also Iโ€™d say you should revise thoroughly for each little end of topic test and make good revision notes as when it gets to the end of the year you donโ€™t want to be panicking and making revision notes for absolutely everything.
Most days Iโ€™d come home and just chill and watch Netflix seeing as Iโ€™d the majority of work at school and I still managed to come out with AAB in my end of year exams, Iโ€™d say if you manage your time well itโ€™s not really that stressful
Good luck!


Did you make notes as the lessons went on or at the end of a unit?
Original post by d0nkey_dude
Did you make notes as the lessons went on or at the end of a unit?


I always make notes during lessons, it was especially hard in biology as they went so fast through the PowerPoints but my teacher always gave us the PowerPoints so Iโ€™d print them off when I got home. Then when you revise itโ€™s good to consolidate all the information youโ€™ve gathered in lessons into concise things that are easier to learn from!
Original post by d0nkey_dude
Did you make notes as the lessons went on or at the end of a unit?


And yea I only made revision notes after finishing a topic but in hindsight you should probably do it throughout but Iโ€™m lazy ahah
Original post by Sophie.roberts11
Iโ€™ve just finished year 12 and I do biology maths and geography so the workload was quite high. At the start the work will be overwhelming, I was doing chemistry too but 4 subjects was too much for me, itโ€™s better to focus on 3 and do them well.
Make the most out of your study periods, there are people who just waste them and chat, which is fine do to a few times but the majority should be spent working it will make your life so much easier when you get home!
Also Iโ€™d say you should revise thoroughly for each little end of topic test and make good revision notes as when it gets to the end of the year you donโ€™t want to be panicking and making revision notes for absolutely everything.
Most days Iโ€™d come home and just chill and watch Netflix seeing as Iโ€™d the majority of work at school and I still managed to come out with AAB in my end of year exams, Iโ€™d say if you manage your time well itโ€™s not really that stressful
Good luck!

Wow those are great results well done! I'm taking Geography too, anything to remember for that subject specifically? It sounds stupid I know but do people make revison nots daily? What do they put in them..is it just like a summary of the lesson?! Sorry for all the questions I'm moving from the Scottish school system and some of it is quite different :/
Original post by SkyRunner61
Itโ€™s much easier to stay organised from the beginning than to get yourself organised later. Some other advice that I found helpful is that it can be easier to just carry around one file to put recent sheets in and then do refiling later than to carry around several folders


Thanks :smile: So you never have to refer to old sheets? We do that constantly in Scotland :/
Original post by MatildaMiller
Wow those are great results well done! I'm taking Geography too, anything to remember for that subject specifically? It sounds stupid I know but do people make revison nots daily? What do they put in them..is it just like a summary of the lesson?! Sorry for all the questions I'm moving from the Scottish school system and some of it is quite different :/


Thankyou! Geography is the most content heavy subject I do, there are so so many case studies you have to remember so itโ€™s worth taking time to remember a set amount of facts for each one. unlike gcse, if you get a 20 marker question you have to refer to several case studies and compare them all - however itโ€™s important to note that your points should not be case study led (you should start with a point, then link it to different case studies instead).
during the lesson make notes from the PowerPoint and the teachers usually give out sheets to fill in, then before the end of a topic go through all the notes and make them into revision materials!
Original post by MatildaMiller
Thanks :smile: So you never have to refer to old sheets? We do that constantly in Scotland :/


In England for A Levels we donโ€™t have to at least, donโ€™t really know about anything specific to Scotland. At the start of the year, you could always ask your teachers if they would continue with that though and decide how to organise yourself properly then
Original post by Sophie.roberts11
Thankyou! Geography is the most content heavy subject I do, there are so so many case studies you have to remember so itโ€™s worth taking time to remember a set amount of facts for each one. unlike gcse, if you get a 20 marker question you have to refer to several case studies and compare them all - however itโ€™s important to note that your points should not be case study led (you should start with a point, then link it to different case studies instead).
during the lesson make notes from the PowerPoint and the teachers usually give out sheets to fill in, then before the end of a topic go through all the notes and make them into revision materials!


Oh my gosh, that seems so much! I took Nat 5 Geography (Scottish GCSE) and we did 2 case studies in the entire year. Thanks so much for all this, so you'd just remember facts from each case study as you go along? I get what you mean about linking the case study in and not letting it be your main point, thank you for that!
Original post by MatildaMiller
Oh my gosh, that seems so much! I took Nat 5 Geography (Scottish GCSE) and we did 2 case studies in the entire year. Thanks so much for all this, so you'd just remember facts from each case study as you go along? I get what you mean about linking the case study in and not letting it be your main point, thank you for that!


Yeh the a level is much tougher, Iโ€™ve probably done about 30 case studies this year and Iโ€™m only halfway through the course! And yea you should learn them as you go along as itโ€™ll make it easier, I was lazy and before my end of year exams I was frantically cramming the information which worked well short term but Iโ€™ve forgotten it all now ๐Ÿคฆ๐Ÿผ*โ™€๏ธ Itโ€™s really good to do exam practice as revision because no matter how well you learn the content, if you canโ€™t structure an exam question properly then itโ€™s useless! I remember in my mock on a 20 marker, I got 14 instead of 18 because I gave examples of HOW certain things were affected but I didnโ€™t overall state what the effect was haha so annoying! (E.g San Francisco Bay has 2 airports so itโ€™s well connected, but i didnโ€™t say that this means it enables large influxes of tourism and boosting of the local economy)
Original post by Sophie.roberts11
And yea I only made revision notes after finishing a topic but in hindsight you should probably do it throughout but Iโ€™m lazy ahah


Haha thank you!
Original post by Sophie.roberts11
Yeh the a level is much tougher, Iโ€™ve probably done about 30 case studies this year and Iโ€™m only halfway through the course! And yea you should learn them as you go along as itโ€™ll make it easier, I was lazy and before my end of year exams I was frantically cramming the information which worked well short term but Iโ€™ve forgotten it all now ๐Ÿคฆ๐Ÿผ*โ™€๏ธ Itโ€™s really good to do exam practice as revision because no matter how well you learn the content, if you canโ€™t structure an exam question properly then itโ€™s useless! I remember in my mock on a 20 marker, I got 14 instead of 18 because I gave examples of HOW certain things were affected but I didnโ€™t overall state what the effect was haha so annoying! (E.g San Francisco Bay has 2 airports so itโ€™s well connected, but i didnโ€™t say that this means it enables large influxes of tourism and boosting of the local economy)

Oh my goodness :O Thank you for the heads up! Have you had to use all 30 case studies or do you just learn all 30 so you have a option for any question that comes up?
Original post by MatildaMiller
Oh my goodness :O Thank you for the heads up! Have you had to use all 30 case studies or do you just learn all 30 so you have a option for any question that comes up?


Itโ€™s best to learn them all as you never know which ones youโ€™ll need to use and you donโ€™t want to find yourself stuck in an exam!

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