A level and GCSE cemistry

Amin Abdealbari

which topics in GCSE chemistry will come up in A-level chemistry and which I should focus on. (AQA)

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 1

UtterlyUseless69

Original post by Amin Abdealbari

which topics in GCSE chemistry will come up in A-level chemistry and which I should focus on. (AQA)

There are points that are pretty much the same in both syllabi.

In the first year of A level, all the stuff you did for redox. energetics, kinetics, equilibria and mole calculations at GCSE is taught to you again (with a few new things added, such as the ideal gas law for moles and equilibrium constants for equilibria).

Structure and bonding should cover almost everything you did, though the definition of covalent bonding is different to what you learnt at GCSE and a lot of new stuff is added (i.e shapes of molecules, electronegativity).

Atomic structure is almost completely different to what you covered at GCSE, but knowing a few definitions (i.e isotopes, relative atomic mass etc) and what the masses and charges of protons, neutrons and electrons and how many there are in a given atom, ion or isotope is still expected knowledge.

Much of the inorganic chemistry you learn in the first year will be the same as GCSE, but new principles first discussed in the atomic structure and structure and bonding topics will be brought in.

The rest of the A level syllabus is just mostly new stuff that kind of picks up where GCSE left off. There are even points where what you learnt at GCSE is contradicted and so it’s probably best you ignore most of what you learned previously.