what a-levels should i choose?

You dont need any specific A level subjects for Law - most people find at least one essay-based subject is useful, but this isnt essential.

You will need high grades, so it makes sense to choose subjects you will enjoy studying and where you are confident of good grades.

im thinking of doing english lit, history and im contemplating either picking psychology or politics my third subject and EPQ for my as-level. i want to do law in the future and ik you don't need a specific degree to go into this sector, but what would be the best subject to pair with the ones i've chosen?

Psychology and politics are both great subjects to pair with English lit and history! I would just pick whichever one you think you’d enjoy most, this way your personal statement will be easier to write and you’ll likely get a higher grade.

Hi! I’m doing English lit, maths, politics and history and I would definitely recommend doing politics as it does work really well with the others (there’s a surprising amount of crossover, at least with the options my school does), but if you do do politics then you definitely have to be very interested in it because you need to read the news a crazy amount

Hii! Yeah, I am definitely currently more leaning towards politics, and getting advice from someone who actually is doing this, is reassuring. thank youu!

You’re welcome! If you have any more questions about any of the courses I’d be happy to help

Since you have taken english and history, i presume you did well on it for your gcse? i was wondering if you have any advice or help you can offer. im not horrible at english (grade 8 for lit and 6 for language) or history (currently at a grade 7 but expected to get an 8), but would you have any advice for especially language and also content organising/memorising for history?

I got 9s in all three at GCSE and for history the best thing for me was a combination of retrieval practice and timelines. There is a lot of content so it’s definitely best to start learning it as early as possible. For retrieval practice you can try setting yourself a 5/10 minute timer and write down everything you can remember about a topic, and then look back over your notes and use them to fill in the gaps. You can also use flash cards/ friends and family to test you about certain topics. Once you feel you know the content well enough try planning out some exam questions on a range of topics. This will help you get used to what you’ll have to do quickly in the exam as well as helping you go over the content.

For english language I did AQA so I’m not sure if the questions are very different on other exam boards, but for the questions about language analysis try getting short extracts from both fiction and non-fiction texts and annotating them as much as you can. The more you practice this the more confident you will be in the exam. In terms of the exam itself, read the questions before you read the extract as then you will already know what to look for while you read. For the creative writing section it’s a good idea to have some broad storylines as well as some good descriptive sentences that you can apply to almost any prompt. Some of the best revision you can do for those questions is simply reading fiction, as that will help you get a good idea of the techniques real authors use. For the non-fiction writing try to read a wide range of newspapers and articles, as well as watching a lot of speeches and noticing what makes them successful. I found that question the hardest to practice for, so I think exposing yourself to the various things you could end up writing and then having a go at some questions themselves is probably the best thing you can do.

I realise this is quite a lot of information but I hope at least some of it is helpful!

For history that's what my teachers tell me to do as well. Set up work in timelines, mindmaps, flowcharts etc. and revise in short spontaneous bursts. So I will definitely be trying that out!

I did AQA for english too and i think it is quite different from other exam boards? I try to find extracts to analyse but I dont know where to look apart from the ones we already given, but the thing is I've done those twice or at least once before. So are there are websites that you might know where I could find extracts?

I would say Q5 on both papers are the ones i struggle on the most, but from now on i will be trying to practice a variety of different themes in those questions ahead, so that it's applicable to any question i might be given in the exam!

Thank you so much for your time and effort, I really appreciate it!! 💕

I’m not sure about any specific websites but for paper 2 at least you can just find any article on the internet and use that, for paper 1 you could try just opening any non-fiction book on a random page and seeing what you can spot. Sometimes there will be absolutely nothing in the extracts/articles you choose but overall it should help to get practice, especially when you’ve run out of past papers