I did my AS last year ago and got:
AB in biology and chemistry
This year I failed my Alevels and got:
DB in biology and chemistry
Reason: honestly gave up on revision when I got rejected from medicine and only revised chemistry 3 days before the exam and did nothing for biology (mostly because I found A2 content soo fudging boring)
But could anybody give their tips/explain the work they did to get the A/A*'s? I'm resitting next year and want to do really well. I feel like the exams have gotten so much harder (specifically biology has gotten more applicational imo 😣). How can I improve?
My plan this year:
Get notes complete by October
Turn notes/textbook into flashcard questions and constantly go over
Complete past papers (from all exam boards)
(I'm studying the ocr A exam board)
Any advice would be appreciated 🤗
Don't know why you gave up. If you had kept up and aced this year you could take a gap year and re apply to your medicine course for 2019.
I sat aqa exam board and achieved an A with 2 marks from an A* but not too bothered since I got my uni. Boards are really not too different. In chem it's just about understanding it as you learn it, don't learn then forget and come back like months later to revise it before the exam. Tbh I did no extra revision outside of school hours during the year (obviously except for before the real exams) but I recommend cgp guide books heavily. Wrote paper summaries as I went over the book and once you finish it, it all fits like a jigsaw after understanding topics. The parts you gotta remember (colours, specific examples of things like catalysts) you just gotta get down by repeating till you can recall them. Make up some sort of rhyme or some s**t in your head for those, helps tbh. Other then that past papers including set 2 specimens if Ocr has those. A lot of questions in this year's papers had come up in my set 2 specimens which helped a lot. Read the spec to know what comes up in each paper.
There’s was usually someone at the front of my classes giving a presentation, talking and drawing diagrams.
I listened to what they said. Slightly helped
Honestly though, OCR A biology is a beast, you need to read the question thoroughly, think about what part of the spec you could apply to it (don’t forget you may have to merge concepts from different parts of the spec, eg. respiration in module 5 with circulation and breathing in module 3, or module 5 stuff with virtually anything in module 1 or 2 as they are the foundations of biology).
Plan your answer before you write it. Does your plan seem coherent and well thought through? Then write it, if not think again. You need to remember the majority of time given for exams if to think rather than actually write
Last edited by HeadHoncho; 5 months ago
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