Take our quiz to find out what your revision personality is! >>

I moved to the uk 3 months ago and started A levels despite not having done Gcse help

I started a levels 3 months ago but I didnt actually know how it worked or how difficult it would be because I just moved here. My parents said this is what students do after year 11( which is suitable for my age as I did grade 10 CBSE in another country before coming) I thought I would do perfectly fine as I was relatively an above average student. I knew I wanted to do medicine in the future so I felt pressured to take A LEVELS Biology, Chemistry and Psychology despite not having known about course structure or how exams take place here. I have my year 12 mocks next week and I am hopeless as I dont think I will even get my predicted grades ( BDD). If I knew how difficult courses normally are in the uk, I may have reconsidered my subjects. I feel its too late to turn back now and I have been reading articles of how year 12 mocks give unis your predicted grades and this took away the little hope I had left. I am also mentally struggling as I may have undiagnosed depression and all of this makes me feel miserable. I dont know what to do as I cant focus on studying.

Anyone who's been in my place before, please help out if you think you can :frown:

((

(edited 3 months ago)

Reply 1

BCU Student Rep

Official Rep

Original post by kes1a__

I started a levels 3 months ago but I didnt actually know how it worked or how difficult it would be because I just moved here. My parents said this is what students do after year 11( which is suitable for my age as I did grade 10 CBSE in another country before coming) I thought I would do perfectly fine as I was relatively an above average student. I knew I wanted to do medicine in the future so I felt pressured to take A LEVELS Biology, Chemistry and Psychology despite not having known about course structure or how exams take place here. I have my year 12 mocks next week and I am hopeless as I dont think I will even get my predicted grades ( BDD). If I knew how difficult courses normally are in the uk, I may have reconsidered my subjects. I feel its too late to turn back now and I have been reading articles of how year 12 mocks give unis your predicted grades and this took away the little hope I had left. I am also mentally struggling as I may have undiagnosed depression ad all of this makes me feel miserable. I dont know what to do as I cant focus on studying.

Anyone who's been in my place before, please help out if you think you can :frown:

((

Hi @kes1a__,

I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this, I hope I can be a bit of help.

Although there are many stories online of how mocks give you a gateway for which university options you can apply to, there are also so many stories of how students were able to flip C's and D's into A's and A*'s in their final results. Your mock results are important, but it's very much possible to turn it around and get higher than what you're expected.

I did biology and chemistry for my A-levels too, maybe my tips can help you. For all of my A-Level subjects I drilled, and did tons of past exam papers to get a better understanding of the format and types of questions I would be asked. You might find it useful to write down some questions you come across on a flashcard, and write the answers in memorable bullet points on the back of it. Flashcards are also useful for memorising biological processes and mechanisms.

In terms of chemistry, for inorganic you would be required to be familiar with calculations so do practice some past paper questions covering those. Whereas for organic chemistry, you would be required to have a good understanding of organic mechanisms and naming organic compounds. You should review all your past papers and identify which answers you got wrong, and try understand why that happened. Knowing you got an answer wrong is one thing, but understanding why you got it wrong is what will strengthen your understanding.

Depending on your exam board, sometimes you'll also find examiner reports for those past papers where examiners identify common mistakes across students and how they should have answered the question better.

In terms of your mental health, is there somewhere in your college you can confide in? Perhaps a counsellor or a mental wellbeing service? If you're uncomfortable with meeting with someone in college, is there anybody else you trust that you can confide in? It's important to have someone you can trust to talk about how you're feeling so you're not bottling everything up.

Let me know if you need any help with more revision tips, hope this helped :smile: