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E in end of year exam - predicted D

I did very well at GCSE in physics and am getting B grades in my other two A-levels (geography and product design) but am struggling SOOOOO much with A-level physics (OCR B advancing physics). For my end of year test I read all of the chapters the test was on and answered all of the summary questions, Does anyone have any advice on what I can do to improve and help achieve better grade in year 2 of my A-level and hopefully overall.
Thanks

Reply 1

999tigger

Original post by Nootropics-King

Use the summer to catch up. You obviously havent come to terms in understanding the material. That might get you to a C.
You then need to work on exam technique which stresses recall and application. That would boost your scores. Past papers is an important part of revision. A levels arent really about learning the subject to a certain level they are more about learning a limited amount of knowledge to repeat in an exam format. The exam is everything.

If you arent up to it after talking to teacher then drop it and see if you can fast track an A level. You have the summer and that can be all the difference as revision plans need to be in place come the new year imo.

Reply 2

Joinedup

Have a think about what the problem is... what's not happening in the exams you're doing now that was happening when you were doing gcse and getting results you were happy with.
Think about why are you answering exam style questions when they're in the book but failing when the questions are in an exam.

The differences I noticed when going up to A level (a long time ago) were.
1. pacing - new material comes along at a quicker rate
2. difficulty - you often had to think about it a bit harder

So if you're trying to put the same amount of effort in as you were at gcse that might not be enough to get results you're happy with anymore... basically you know you've put enough effort in when you feel secure in your knowledge and are pretty confident that the examiner can't catch you out on that subject.

Answering the exam questions is IMO a two part process
first you've got to 'unpack' the question - find out what it's really asking you about and identify the relevant physical theory... e.g. if the question describes winching a massive object out of a mineshaft with an electric motor you should start thinking about energy conversion between electrical energy and gravitational potential energy.

second part getting suitable data and formulas, rearranging them and plugging in the numbers.

Obviously there are exam techniques to use - e.g. don't waste time on a question you are stuck with, move on to one you can do and go back to the hard question at the end. Spend more time on high mark questions than low mark questions etc.