AQA A level chemistry and biology

Anyone know any good sites or books for AQA a level chemistry and biology?

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Physics and Maths Tutor has the best resources.
Just type in your exam board.
You can print the flashcards out (they are amazing), then do the past paper questions by topic and I guarantee you will ace your exams.
Then do the exam papers, just before the mocks (not all coz you will need them before the real one)

Reply 2

tatisbjsbd

I wanted to ask, i do biology a level AQA and have the oxford book. people are saying the CGP book is really good aswell. is it worth me getting the CGP book and using both or just use the oxford one. the CGP seems to cut out a load of unnessecary stuff but im worried its not up to scratch with the markschemes. can anyone give me a review of the CGP book, that would be very helpful !

Reply 3

A Rolling Stone

Original post by The-judge-16

Anyone know any good sites or books for AQA a level chemistry and biology?

Original post by tatisbjsbd

avoid the CGP guide at all costs. it is not AQA-approved and a ridiculous waste of paper.

the Oxford textbook contains all of the info you will need, learn it as close as you can to 'off by heart'!

Reply 4

d0nkey_dude

chemrevise for aqa chemistry

Reply 5

Ðeggs

Original post by A Rolling Stone

avoid the CGP guide at all costs. it is not AQA-approved and a ridiculous waste of paper.

the Oxford textbook contains all of the info you will need, learn it as close as you can to 'off by heart'!

I like using it and the CGP questions practice book.

Reply 6

A Rolling Stone

Original post by Deggs_14

I like using it and the CGP questions practice book.

you might as well save the practice questions for past papers

the CGP guide only contains D-grade level detail for Biology. granted it has some pretty good gags in it

Reply 7

hwpo1

Original post by A Rolling Stone

avoid the CGP guide at all costs. it is not AQA-approved and a ridiculous waste of paper.

the Oxford textbook contains all of the info you will need, learn it as close as you can to 'off by heart'!

I couldn't disagree with you more. The Oxford textbook is really bad even though it is approved by AQA. The CGP textbook (not revision guide) is miles better. It follows the spec EXACTLY.

I have both, but I stopped using my Oxford textbook last year and it has been under my bed since. It contains a lot of unnecessary information and does not follow the spec as the CGP textbook does.

My teachers even endorsed the CGP textbooks in favor of the Oxford textbook. I go to a private grammar school so my teachers are supposed to be top-notch lol.

Reply 8

A Rolling Stone

Original post by hwpo1

welll.... all i can say is i wish you the best of luck in doing as well as i did at A level...

Reply 9

hwpo1

Original post by A Rolling Stone

welll.... all i can say is i wish you the best of luck in doing as well as i did at A level...

Arrogant asf.

Reply 10

A Rolling Stone

Original post by hwpo1

Arrogant asf.

that is one perspective, however a far more productive perspective is that i am someone who almost got 100% UMS in my AQA Biology A level a few years ago and I am keen to pass on my tips to those who struggle with what is a very difficult A level content-wise

Reply 11

hwpo1

Original post by A Rolling Stone

New spec or old spec?

Reply 12

A Rolling Stone

Original post by hwpo1

New spec or old spec?

it was the brand new spec at the time when they overhauled the style of the question etc, not sure if they've changed the spec again more recently

Reply 13

hwpo1

Original post by A Rolling Stone

it was the brand new spec at the time when they overhauled the style of the question etc, not sure if they've changed the spec again more recently

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Did you do your Bio A-Level post-2015?

And how did you go about memorising a whole textbook? I have condensed notes from the Oxford Textbook that I bought.

Reply 14

A Rolling Stone

Original post by hwpo1

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Did you do your Bio A-Level post-2015?

And how did you go about memorising a whole textbook? I have condensed notes from the Oxford Textbook that I bought.

nope was around six years ago

'to summarise' is the wrong way to mentally think about the notes, rather, think 'to cue'... you should write cues that will guide you to the finer details that you have learnt but just not actively remember.

in plain English, you have actually memorised far more than you realise, you just need that one word or phrase to jog your memory of it with a cue.

conversely, if you think of notes in terms of summarising then you are brushing over all the fine details that are critical in biology

Reply 15

hwpo1

Original post by A Rolling Stone

Rigghhtt I actually get what you mean lol. Thanks for your advice man.

Reply 16

Reality Check

Original post by The-judge-16

Anyone know any good sites or books for AQA a level chemistry and biology?

There is nothing wrong with the CGP books. We recommend them all the time to students. You may or may not like them, so have a look and see.

There is no evidence that the books contain 'grade D' material, so please ignore this. Ask for evidence of claims like this before making decisions on which materials to use.

Reply 17

Reality Check

Original post by hwpo1

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Did you do your Bio A-Level post-2015?

And how did you go about memorising a whole textbook? I have condensed notes from the Oxford Textbook that I bought.

'Memorising textbooks' is about the worst way you could spend your revision time, apart from maybe 'copying out notes in neat'. You need to be synthesising, not learning things by rote.

Reply 18

hwpo1

Original post by Reality Check

'Memorising textbooks' is about the worst way you could spend your revision time, apart from maybe 'copying out notes in neat'. You need to be synthesising, not learning things by rote.

What do you mean by synthesising?

Reply 19

A Rolling Stone

Original post by hwpo1

What do you mean by synthesising?

Be careful of advice from Reality Check, dm me for further explanation. Just avoid CGP guides they are a complete waste of time as they are not approved by exam boards.

However, it is correct to say rote memorising is not the optimal - rather that is the step towards the end goal of genuinely learning the material. you read the textbook over and lean it off by heart such that you memorise it, but then you are only memorising words.... beyond that you will start to actually understand it, but you can only get to that level of understanding after memorising the detail required for the exam