Advice on cramming AS and A levels in one year...

I am a home-school student and I took an additional year to do an extra IGCSE (which I'll be sitting the exam for in May), so naturally, I'm a year behind everyone else in my age-group.
My current plan is to study AS and A level Maths, Physics and Computer Science in one year, to "catch up". I'm not the brightest of people (additionally, I'm autistic), but I am one to push myself.

For anyone that has crammed AS and A level for multiple subjects in one year: How did you go about studying? Do you regret it? What advice, or additional information, would you recommend for me?

Opinions and answers from people who haven't crammed are also welcome and appreciated.

Points to note:
- It is likely that I will be teaching myself via textbooks for each of the subjects, as apposed to an online course etc.
- I'll likely be doing international AS/A level

Reply 1

TSR Jessica

Sorry you've not had any responses about this. :frown:

Are you sure you've posted in the right place? :smile:

Here's a link to our subject forum which should help get you more responses if you post there. :redface:

Reply 2

azure000

Original post by Eae

I am a home-school student and I took an additional year to do an extra IGCSE (which I'll be sitting the exam for in May), so naturally, I'm a year behind everyone else in my age-group.
My current plan is to study AS and A level Maths, Physics and Computer Science in one year, to "catch up". I'm not the brightest of people (additionally, I'm autistic), but I am one to push myself.
For anyone that has crammed AS and A level for multiple subjects in one year: How did you go about studying? Do you regret it? What advice, or additional information, would you recommend for me?
Opinions and answers from people who haven't crammed are also welcome and appreciated.
Points to note:
- It is likely that I will be teaching myself via textbooks for each of the subjects, as apposed to an online course etc.
- I'll likely be doing international AS/A level

hiya i can't help much, not been in your situation and only do maths out of your three subjects.

about doing them purely from textbooks though, i think it might be quite difficult as all the topics build on each other and require a pretty deep understanding, and as you've said you don't "think you're very bright" (don't be so hard on yourself! ☹️ homeschooling is tough, you must be really motivated and smart just to get as far as you've got) so textbooks are already going to take longer than being taught.

I know if you shop around and really do your research, you can get online courses at cheaper price points, it is probably something you're going to need as doing a levels without the structure and external help would be very very difficult.

But also you wouldn't be behind if you did take the full two years as lots of people do take gap years and retake and things like that. It would probably be a lot better for your mental health, and you could probably do a lot better in your exams by taking longer to learn the content and practice.

Reply 3

Eae

I do find myself debating a lot if the sacrifice of my mental health would be worth it; It had been a point of talk for me in regards to studying via textbooks (as I've taught myself my GCSEs from textbook) about whether I would it for A-levels or not, so I'll take your word for it being difficult without structure.
Thank you 😄

Reply 4

eesha.m

Original post by Eae

I am a home-school student and I took an additional year to do an extra IGCSE (which I'll be sitting the exam for in May), so naturally, I'm a year behind everyone else in my age-group.
My current plan is to study AS and A level Maths, Physics and Computer Science in one year, to "catch up". I'm not the brightest of people (additionally, I'm autistic), but I am one to push myself.
For anyone that has crammed AS and A level for multiple subjects in one year: How did you go about studying? Do you regret it? What advice, or additional information, would you recommend for me?
Opinions and answers from people who haven't crammed are also welcome and appreciated.
Points to note:
- It is likely that I will be teaching myself via textbooks for each of the subjects, as apposed to an online course etc.
- I'll likely be doing international AS/A level

Hi I have my AS level exams in 2 weeks, my practical exams are in the upcoming days which I’m confident for as I have plenty of resources but it’s the theory + mcq papers stressing me out, I’ve heard past papers are the way to go for AS levels, it would be really helpful if anyone could reply to this comment and give me tips based off my plan <3;
So, I take bio, chem, physics. I’m doing past papers from 2020-2024, 7 papers per year so 35 papers for both mcqs and theory which is around 70 papers per subject, for physics I’m not going over content that deeply and focusing mostly on practice, for biology and chemistry I’m cramming the content before going into papers, for each paper I’m setting a strict timer like the actual exam and correcting it using YouTube videos of teachers explaining concepts behind each question, every question I get wrong goes into a document for its specific subject e.g ‘biology paper 2 mistakes’, before each paper I’m taking 2 revision days, in the first one I solve every question I got wrong, and 2nd one I actively think through each answer without writing, I end the revision days with reviewing all concepts through full syllabus crash source revisions, and 1 hour-30 mins before each exam I go through the mistake doc once more and look thorough FAQ’S/short revision notes e.g definitions and formulas for physics, reactions for chem. Is this enough to go from an E to an A? In my mocks I didn’t do any of this at all I didn’t go over concepts and attempted topical questions randomly, please adviseee ❤