Aqa a level computer science tips

Hi, I'm a year 12 student just about to finish my first year - and I'd love advice on how to improve my marks in both papers, as well as the NEA. Got any top tips?

Reply 1

nickadoodle302

i am so sorry for the wall of text i'm about to paste here, but its from stuff i've written in past discussions and it took me a while so i'm just reusing it :gigg:

so so sorry again :tongue:

but i hope its helpful to any extent
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personally, i would make flashcards using all of the powerpoints or learning resources used in class. i used to use quizlet but recently i've moved onto anki.

quizlet is good because you can generally find other people's flashcard sets for exactly what you need, just by searching "[exam board] A level computer science". its design is intuitive and easy to understand and grasp very quickly, and all of the flashcards you need are on the internet and easy to access.
the only notable drawback is the paywall that blocks free users from doing just about anything that would be helpful for an online flashcard service, such as formatting text, using your own images for flashcards, downloading flashcards to use offline, etc.

anki is another flashcard service (website, pc app, and a mobile app which is expensive on ios app store, but free on android play store). its layout and everything is a little more dated i guess and it's harder to initially understand how to use than the intuitive, modern look that quizlet has.
i'd recomend it because it has a lot of features you can only get from quizlet if you pay for quizlet plus, including all of the ones i mentioned earlier. also, for every flashcard you go through, you can select from 1-4 how confident you felt with it, and it then appears more or less frequently throughout your revision based on how you felt. (quizlet has a similar feature where you choose if you "know" it or are "still learning", but i find the way anki goes about it to be more helpful).
you also dont need internet access in order to look at your flashcards, only to upload or download changes from the cloud. i think(???) you can also look for user-made ankis to import, but i'm not 100% sure. however, anki is also good in that it supports user-made add-ons (plugins). one of these add-ons lets you import a quizlet set into anki, maintaining formatting, images, etc from the quizlet flashcards. so if you or anyone else does decide to use anki but doesn't want to/have the time to make their own flashcards, i would highly recommend having a look through quizlet for some good flashcard sets for your exam board, downloading the "Quizlet to Anki" add-on for anki, and importing them into anki (or make them yourself!! making flashcards encourages you to go through all content, and lets you tailor it to your own level of understanding!)
one of the drawbacks are that its a little hard to learn, as i mentioned, but i think its worth it considering its extra features. i think its a bit of a 50/50 whether you like anki or not, which i understand because using quizlet just kind of felt way nicer to use initially.

also, websites like Seneca can be quite good for varied revision that you don't have to make from scratch. a similar resource is computer neek, which as far as i'm aware just has a bunch of pre-made flashcards for each unit in the course.
Physics and Maths Tutor (PMT) is a godsend. it is sorted by paper, by topic; has massive lists of key words; notes sorted into concise, intermediate, and advanced; flashcards; and all the past papers you'd realistically need. its a great source of information for your own flashcard making, or as a go-to source for pre-made flashcards (downloadable as PDFs), or to fill gaps in your knowledge.

as for youtube, you've probably heard of Craig'n'Dave, who i wasn't a big fan of but others say they're helpful, and MrBrownCS.

there are also textbooks you can buy for each exam board, some with practice questions and some with every last drop of content needed for the exams (it covers everything and is quite helpful for when your own resources don't explain something very well).

for AQA paper 1, i would very much recommend practicing section A (general programming knowledge) and section B (coding) questions from past papers, because that's essentially the entire basis of paper 1. if you know the theory behind programming, and how to read and write code well, then you'll be in a very good position for sections C and D (which use the skeleton code you're given around December/January of year 13). the more confident you are at programming, the easier it will be to understand the skeleton code and any curveball 12 mark questions they can throw at you in sections C and D.

for paper 2, i recommend even more to use past papers, because the more exam questions you do, not only will you understand the content more, but you'll exhaust a lot of the different types of questions and topics that can come up in your real exams/mocks. this way, you'll have a way better idea on how to answer most questions they can throw at you. you don't even have to time yourself doing the papers, just pick one up and do a couple questions from it here and there. of course do time yourself at least sometimes, because its helpful to build the 2.5 hours of stamina you need for the exam, but the main focus should be to just understand the wording of questions and the points you need to hit to get marks.
also, the magnitude of all paper 2 content is very very daunting, so on top of doing past papers or exam questions, maybe try to look over just a few flashcards (or youtube videos, or whichever resource you end up using), literally 5 minutes worth, every day or every few days? being year 12, you have plenty of time to really understand the content. i only started properly looking back over flashcards less than a week before my paper 1 a level exam, so please learn from me that you should definitely definitely do little and often over an extended period of time, rather than cramming for 4 days straight. treat it like a duolingo or snapchat streak or something - i was far more keen to keep up my duolingo streak than to revise for my exams so try not to make that same mistake lol.
computer science is a very memory-based subject, like generally if you've just memorised key words then you'd be able to waffle to fill in the gaps in your answers and still potentially secure an A, but if you do manage to actually understand the content and how things work and what is going on, you'll be in a very good place. this can be done by using flashcards for the surface level content, and exam questions to know specifically how to make the examiners happy.

i realise how much i've written now, oops. this was instead of revising for my maths exam on tuesday.
tl;dr: use quizlet for easy flashcards, anki for flashcards with more features, and do past paper after past paper!!
other resources: youtube, textbooks, PMT, seneca, computerneek

coursework
essentially, try to waffle about every little aspect of your project that you can. the more words you write (making sure it still makes sense), the more your teachers will commend you (in my experience). just make sure its all relevant.

try to justify the features of your 'problem', focusing on providing reasons as to why each aspect of it makes it a plausible problem in need of solving. just a reminder that your 'solution' will just be the thing you make, so the problem could be a gap in the market, or lack of database structure for a local shop, etc. so, try your best to explain as much about the problem as you can, and then try and go into a lot of detail about your planned project and how your idea(s) would help to resolve this problem.

try to research lots about it as well - this is a good way to start writing references to sources in your document (which makes you look smarter and is recommended to get higher marks), and also to easily increase word count by just extracting/taking pre-written and researched information from different sources.
for example, for my project i made a basic ecosystem simulation game/program using unity, so in my analysis section i researched and explained in detail a specific pathfinding algorithm, using websites and youtube to help me to understand it enough to write about it and make diagrams to further explain it. i also researched about procedural generation and talked a bit about that, too. basically just research individual things that you would need to know about or know how to do, and talk about them. building this knowledge also helps with actually creating the project later.
also, find and research different products that are similar to your problem and proposed solution, and talk about these in relation to your ideas and how they compare, etc. (in my case i looked at some ecosystem simulation games that are already out and have different features).

basically just talk about anything and everything related to your project lol. 'analysis' = overanalyse everything you can to sound clever and as though you know a lot about your project and ideas.

one more tip, i'd recommend trying to keep on top of your nea work as you go through it, maybe even working a little ahead. getting it finished earlier not only feels great but helps you to focus more on revision as you get closer to more mocks and exams. it also gives your teachers more time to give you feedback. if your tutor is unhelpful the rest of the time, keep asking questions online and finding resources that can guide you through your nea. it does suck having to self teach stuff but itd be so worth it - its a nice feeling knowing that a good chunk of the marks i need have already been obtained, it makes the computer science exams a little less stressful.