A level Revision

So I’m doing the new A level course where you sit your exams after the full two years. Therefore because we don’t have AS exams we do mock exams. My results weren’t however that good so my predicted grade will obviously be down that route too.
This year though (year 13) I want to make a change and try to improve my grades. From C’s and D’s to B’s and possibly A’s.
My main concern is how do I revise over the previous years content and this years content at the same time. If I could just get advice on that it would be great.

Thanks. But I’m currently doing Biology, Chemistry and Psychology

Sorry lol. I just realised my answer was funny; I didn’t even read what subject you are studying. I am just bias about my subject. It was entirely subconscious

Hey! Dont panic - it’s totally possible. I was getting Cs and Ds pretty much until study leave and managed to get A*A*AA. It takes a lot of hard work but its worth it in the end!!

The main thing is to find a revision strategy for each subject that works for you. For eg for geography i printed off each section of the spec and made colourful mindmaps around it to make sure id covered everything. This didnt work for me for psychology though so instead (having written brief notes at the end of yr 12) i made online flashcards (i used memrise - understated but v good) for each of my topics.

If you start now, you can definitely get your grades up!! You’ll have loads of time. Just set yourself tasks to do for each day - as you have such a long time you wont need to do much each day to cover it all. Also, i didnt but something i wish i did was revise what id learnt in yr 13 right after id learnt it (it consolidates it and so makes life a lot easier in study leave)!!

Hope that helps a little bit good luck!! x

Thank you so much. Makes me feel like I may have a chance. I was also wondering how did you manage you time. I currently have a Sunday job too and I just need to know how to revise first year and second year content at the same time

A Sunday job will prob be fine until feb/March (or whenever your mocks are) - about then is when I would consider taking a break from it until your exams are all over. As I said before, cover the second year content at the end of each week (which will mean that there isn’t loads to do every week). This could mean make notes, or making flash cards, or making a memrise/quizlet (once these are made they are great for quick revision and will be so useful when it comes to study leave revision!). For the first year content, any notes or anything that you have already are great - make sure you have notes/flash cards/memrise for everything you did in first year now as it is still summer hols. Then each night (or every other night, or weekend etc) you can go through a topic or two. This way you should have covered most things by the time you need to do serious revision!

Also, it may be helpful for you to count every topic in each subject and the amount of days/weeks you have until exams. (Although this might seem a bit overkill it is good for being able to plan what you need to do and getting a sense of reality of how long you have left!) Then you can work out how many times you are able to realistically go through each topic before study leave.

Your exactly me last year, I didn't do any AS. I got A*s and a B
Listen to my bad advice. I did Bio and Psychology as well but not Chem. I revised Bio the morning before using notes that I made throughout the year and got a B (Biology A2 is easy if you do pre-notes before your lesson , so effectively when your being taught your not completely fresh. Our teacher gave us a date by date lesson plan of what topics we should prepare to be taught on what day)
I revised Psychology a week before and got an A*
Both year content to me just mashed together nicely. I'm very lazy but I've been wrongfully blessed with good retention skills
I'd say, instead of trying to learn things again. Make notes. Revision cards are ass, make nice condensed notes and read them intensely. I also had a unique way of making Psych notes, we made many acronyms especially for statistical tests.

Hi, this is great advice!
Just wanted to ask: when do you recommend revising year 12 content and when for year 13?
I'm going into year 13.
I was planning on revising year 12 content on the weekend and year 13 content during the week .

What do you recommend?

I didn't use this summer to my advantage at all which is why I'm worrying as I've got to revise both year 12 and year 13 content now!
I've done my notes but didn't do any past paper Qs or do any revision for English or history as I had originally planned to!

I do Psychology, English literature & history by the way.

I hope you can help me!

Thank you:-)

[ul]
[li]Don't worry - I didn't use the Year 12 summer to my advantage at all either when it came to revision. It is most absolutely doable, and you will be in a great position, if you revise Yr 12 stuff at the weekends and Yr 13 stuff during the week. You will be consolidating everything that you know and so when you come round to revising in study leave you won't have to reteach yourself stuff that you learnt over a year ago!! Having all your Yr 12 notes done by now is also an amazing position to be in - much better than I was! To be honest, I left most past paper questions until study leave as that proved to be the best way to identify the areas where my knowledge was lacking and what I needed to practice before the exam that was in a few days time (especially as past paper qu's are so limited at the moment for a lot of boards). [/li]
[/ul]
[ul]
[li]I can't say for English and History (although I assume it's the same), the best thing to do at the moment is lots and lots of practice timed essays. (If you don't have time or can't be bothered make a detailed plan - this is useful to do as well as the essays anyway though!). Write it out using your notes and then try and memorise it, and rewrite it while not looking at it and see how much you remember. It takes a while but you've got a whole year!![/li]
[/ul]
[ul]
[li]You sound like you are very on it so I wouldn't worry too much. Just work really really hard this year and then, when summer comes around next year, it'll be better than ever. Good luck x[/li]
[/ul]

Thank you very much!
That's fantastic advice!

I have created a GYG thread to monitor my A level journey:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5548744
Would love it if you could check it out!

Thank you for your honest reply, for explaining it in detail (with your own experiences) as it was very helpful .. I'm a huge worrier!

* Breathes a sigh of relief *

Thank you for your kind and encouraging words

Good luck in your future endeavours too!

My pleasure - glad I could help

Just seen that you want to do Psychology! I am starting Psychology at uni in September so if you have any questions lemme know and I’d be more than happy to help x

Yay! Thank you
Will do!

Hope you enjoy it!
Which university of you dont mind me asking?

Thank you

Bristol!!

Wow! Well done!
What did you get at A level?

Hope you enjoy it!

Any tips for revising for Psychology?
How did you revise ?
When did you revise?
How do I stay motivated to revise and do my work on weekdays and on weekend?

Sorry for all the questions !

I guess I don't want to go to sleep just yet lol

I got A*A*A

As I said before, my biggest tip would be to find a specific revision strategy that works for you for each subject that you do. For me, for Psychology, I made online flashcards (I used the website Memrise - a bit more fun than Quizlet). Before making them (as I didn’t revise a lot in Yr 12, I didn’t have time to make loads of pretty notes so I bought the revision books, highlighted the key facts of AO1 and AO3, and then transferred these onto Memrise). Afterwards, do plenty of practice questions and essays to get the exam technique good, as you can gain a lot more marks by just phrasing something differently!

In study leave, I revised every day usually from about 11am - 6/7pm. I went on a dog walk every morning first! Then in the evenings, I usually watched something with my family after dinner. I hate working after dinner so I worked hard during the day to make sure I finished everything I wanted to.

Make sure you make a revision timetable with the specific topics that you want to cover on that day. If you get behind, don’t be afraid to restructure the timetable. I found this really helpful as, when I got more and more behind, it made me realise how much I had to do in order to finish everything before the exam.

Stay motivated by making sure you strike a work/life balance. As I said, I went on a dog walk with my Dad every morning before I started revision. This allowed me to get out a bit and do something that wasn’t JUST revision. I also made sure I did plenty of exercise - I loved going to the gym because it allowed me to not think about anything in particular for an hour or so.

That’s probably the best advice I can offer to be honest 😬 hope that helps a little bit?