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What is my best course of action?

Currently doing A-levels and im studying History, Computer Science and Psychology. I would persoanlly say I am working at a DCC in order of the subjects. I may have left it far too late but I am really trying to crack down on achieving a good grade. What I require for my Uni of choice is an AAB with an A being in Computer Science. Along with this I have a few questions that I need answered to kind of build some clarity in my mind.

Have I left this far too late? I really badly want to achieve an AAB and what stood inbetween me trying harder academically before was a few personal reasons that once I had gotton past left me in a slump of laziness. Realisitcally with my full effort of perhaps 3-4 hours a day set aside for studys can I still achieve an AAB in these next few months for the exams.

What is the best way to go through History content? I am currently using the German textbook to begin with, AQA The Quest for Political Stability - Germany 1871 - 1991 and I am finding the simple amount of content and pages in this book to be overwhelming. Due to teachers leaving and going myself and my class have been left with nothing but the textbooks to use to get through the content and revise. Does anyone else have a website or resources that can be used to study and revise from to get through the content quicker or am I forced to just use this textbook.

Lastly, how do you deal with over thinking and stress related to the fear of not getting the grades you want? I feel that if I dont achieve this AAB im looking for my disappointment in myself would be fairly immeasureable and it would mean missing out on an opputunity to attend a university I have been dreaming of for a long time. The stress and thought of it all unfolding and falling apart is what mainly keeps me procrastinating, so what do you all do to bring a little peace and self confidence that you will get the grades your hoping to get.
Original post by Umar.Khalid
Currently doing A-levels and im studying History, Computer Science and Psychology. I would persoanlly say I am working at a DCC in order of the subjects. I may have left it far too late but I am really trying to crack down on achieving a good grade. What I require for my Uni of choice is an AAB with an A being in Computer Science. Along with this I have a few questions that I need answered to kind of build some clarity in my mind.

Have I left this far too late? I really badly want to achieve an AAB and what stood inbetween me trying harder academically before was a few personal reasons that once I had gotton past left me in a slump of laziness. Realisitcally with my full effort of perhaps 3-4 hours a day set aside for studys can I still achieve an AAB in these next few months for the exams.

What is the best way to go through History content? I am currently using the German textbook to begin with, AQA The Quest for Political Stability - Germany 1871 - 1991 and I am finding the simple amount of content and pages in this book to be overwhelming. Due to teachers leaving and going myself and my class have been left with nothing but the textbooks to use to get through the content and revise. Does anyone else have a website or resources that can be used to study and revise from to get through the content quicker or am I forced to just use this textbook.

Lastly, how do you deal with over thinking and stress related to the fear of not getting the grades you want? I feel that if I dont achieve this AAB im looking for my disappointment in myself would be fairly immeasureable and it would mean missing out on an opputunity to attend a university I have been dreaming of for a long time. The stress and thought of it all unfolding and falling apart is what mainly keeps me procrastinating, so what do you all do to bring a little peace and self confidence that you will get the grades your hoping to get.

I think that as long as you use your time super productively between now and exams you could do really well! :smile:

I am also struggling with the sheer volume of content in History - it's a lot! I have printed out the specification and the scheme of work from the OCR website for my topics and I am working my way through all of the points on those using the textbook for the course, other textbooks on my topics that I have bought second hand on Amazon (pretty much all for less than £3 each) and various online websites. Although you do a different exam board, it may be worth finding the options you study on the AQA history A level spec (https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/history/specifications/AQA-7041-7042-SP-2015.PDF) and having a look on the website to see if you can find any relavant teaching resources (like a scheme of work) to help you with making some revision notes or flashcards. To try to make it less overwhelming, use the spec as a list (or write your own) of each of the topics broken down into sections and plans days that you will revise each of them.

Regarding the worrying, I think you just have to keep telling yourself that doing work is a better use of your time than stressing. You've just got to try your best from now and hopefully that'll be enough. At the end of the day, even if it isn't quite enough you have to remember that there are other options. It might feel like the be all and end all but you just have to try to stay motivated, concentrate on now rather than spending all of your time worrying about something that hasn't happened. Use the time to change the outcome :smile:
Reply 2
Original post by itslibby
I think that as long as you use your time super productively between now and exams you could do really well! :smile:

I am also struggling with the sheer volume of content in History - it's a lot! I have printed out the specification and the scheme of work from the OCR website for my topics and I am working my way through all of the points on those using the textbook for the course, other textbooks on my topics that I have bought second hand on Amazon (pretty much all for less than £3 each) and various online websites. Although you do a different exam board, it may be worth finding the options you study on the AQA history A level spec (https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/history/specifications/AQA-7041-7042-SP-2015.PDF) and having a look on the website to see if you can find any relavant teaching resources (like a scheme of work) to help you with making some revision notes or flashcards. To try to make it less overwhelming, use the spec as a list (or write your own) of each of the topics broken down into sections and plans days that you will revise each of them.

Regarding the worrying, I think you just have to keep telling yourself that doing work is a better use of your time than stressing. You've just got to try your best from now and hopefully that'll be enough. At the end of the day, even if it isn't quite enough you have to remember that there are other options. It might feel like the be all and end all but you just have to try to stay motivated, concentrate on now rather than spending all of your time worrying about something that hasn't happened. Use the time to change the outcome :smile:


Thanks for your reply! Your response was actually really helpful so i really do appreciate it. I think im just more pessimistic then I should be... Trying to get like like 3 hours maybe a day to focus on trying to get some work done. Only 4 and a bit months to go before my first exam :/ . Also good luck on getting through that history content haha i know for me its gonna be probably the biggest challenge.

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