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Got an A in A-Level physics, ask me anything.

Hi! Physics can be a hard subject to take at A-Level for many, especially if you don't take maths as well (like me!). Feel free to ask for tips or suggestions if you are thinking of choosing it for A-levels or are already doing it. My exam board was OCR A, so that’s where I can help best.
What other subjects did you take and how hard was it compared to them?
How often did you get to do practical experiments in lessons?
How did you revise?
Is there anything you wish you’d have done which you didnt for this course?
How was the step up from year 11-12 and year 12-13?
Reply 2
Original post by DerDracologe
What other subjects did you take and how hard was it compared to them?
How often did you get to do practical experiments in lessons?
How did you revise?
Is there anything you wish you’d have done which you didnt for this course?
How was the step up from year 11-12 and year 12-13?

Hi!

I took chemistry, biology, and the EPQ as well! Content wise, i’d say biology was the hardest. A2 has many more units and its concepts can be hard to grasp at the first reading. There then comes a lot of small parts in the units that require just memorisation towards the end, so not having had a lot of time to get them in my head before exams was worrying. Question/exam wise, i’d say it’s a tie between biology and physics. Biology has a very specific mark scheme where marks can be dropped from using/not using a specific word, but physics can draw upon many different topics in one question and it’s up to you to use the right formulas and laws to get the answer.

I think my class ended up doing a practical about every 2 weeks throughout year 12&13. They weren’t always the required practicals but it helped a lot to do as many as we could so we had first hand experience in what the questions could be asking.

For revision I had access to the online textbooks, so i’d spend a couple hours every other night or so going through all the work from year 12 to 13, over and over so all my definitions were memorised and that my lessons/teachers hadn’t missed anything. Watching youtube videos by ZPhysics and PhysicsOnline helped me grasp harder concepts like electromagnetic fields too. Lastly, I also tried to complete all the topic questions from Physics and Maths Tutor on each module and did timed past papers (AS + A2).

The only thing I would have done differently would be to have used my year 12 frees properly to go over my lessons and start drilling in all the memory based specification from the beginning. I wasted a lot of time in year 12, which left me scrambling to fix that in year 13. A deeper understanding of what current actually was really helped in electricity topics, especially when asked to explain something in terms of current.

The step up from year 11 to 12 was not hard at all, a lot of what you learn at GCSE still carries on through A-Level, just more content is learned with some new concepts that aren’t difficult to understand. The amount of content in the modules at year 12 is also less than year 13. The jump to year 13 was a big difference. Not only does the work load increase, but the difficulty increases too. If you find yourself struggling to understand something after a lesson, it should be a priority to immediately look it up and get comfortable with it or it may pile up.

Hope this can help!
Original post by TheUniversii
Hi!
I took chemistry, biology, and the EPQ as well! Content wise, i’d say biology was the hardest. A2 has many more units and its concepts can be hard to grasp at the first reading. There then comes a lot of small parts in the units that require just memorisation towards the end, so not having had a lot of time to get them in my head before exams was worrying. Question/exam wise, i’d say it’s a tie between biology and physics. Biology has a very specific mark scheme where marks can be dropped from using/not using a specific word, but physics can draw upon many different topics in one question and it’s up to you to use the right formulas and laws to get the answer.
I think my class ended up doing a practical about every 2 weeks throughout year 12&13. They weren’t always the required practicals but it helped a lot to do as many as we could so we had first hand experience in what the questions could be asking.
For revision I had access to the online textbooks, so i’d spend a couple hours every other night or so going through all the work from year 12 to 13, over and over so all my definitions were memorised and that my lessons/teachers hadn’t missed anything. Watching youtube videos by ZPhysics and PhysicsOnline helped me grasp harder concepts like electromagnetic fields too. Lastly, I also tried to complete all the topic questions from Physics and Maths Tutor on each module and did timed past papers (AS + A2).
The only thing I would have done differently would be to have used my year 12 frees properly to go over my lessons and start drilling in all the memory based specification from the beginning. I wasted a lot of time in year 12, which left me scrambling to fix that in year 13. A deeper understanding of what current actually was really helped in electricity topics, especially when asked to explain something in terms of current.
The step up from year 11 to 12 was not hard at all, a lot of what you learn at GCSE still carries on through A-Level, just more content is learned with some new concepts that aren’t difficult to understand. The amount of content in the modules at year 12 is also less than year 13. The jump to year 13 was a big difference. Not only does the work load increase, but the difficulty increases too. If you find yourself struggling to understand something after a lesson, it should be a priority to immediately look it up and get comfortable with it or it may pile up.
Hope this can help!

Thanks so much, that’s really helpful!
Original post by TheUniversii
Hi! Physics can be a hard subject to take at A-Level for many, especially if you don't take maths as well (like me!). Feel free to ask for tips or suggestions if you are thinking of choosing it for A-levels or are already doing it. My exam board was OCR A, so that’s where I can help best.

What else do you think you should've done if you wanted to get an A*
Reply 5
Original post by sound-famous-
What else do you think you should've done if you wanted to get an A*

I definitely should have done wayyy more revision on vectors, forces in action, and energy changes!

Vectors in circular motion I was praying wouldn’t be in my paper 1 this year but I think it was, I kept avoiding it as it was the one thing I kept getting wrong in past papers. The 2023 paper 1 had a big question on this so you may be able to see what I’m referencing.

Forces in action, specifically on the topic of the Archimedes principle, where a tether is tied to the bottom of a submerged object was something I neglected as it has such a short section in the textbooks. This is a topic where you will most likely get a 4 mark question on the forces involved or calculating the up thrust or tension.

Questions on energy changes may involve efficiency- I hadn’t seen a question involving efficiency since year 11 then randomly had one in a past paper midway through year 13. You will likely have to find both input and output energies, which I struggled with. Another type of energy change question may be on moving objects, and it would have helped if I had gone through mark schemes on those types of questions more often.
Hi, soon I'll be doing A-level physics, maths, computing, and EPQ. I'm worried about the intensity of the course (physics) because I heard that I will have to sacrifice a lot of my social time to revise because it's very content heavy. The problem is that I spent most of my GCSEs revising, especially on weekends, so I didn't have much of a social life. Despite this, I still want to do well on my A levels, but I don't want it to be as overwhelming as GCSEs. So I was wondering to hear from the perspective of someone who did A level physics if it's a manageable course and if the amount of content will affect grades in the other courses which is also another concern.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Any advice is appreciated!
How does the way Physics is taught differ from GCSE to a level? (Would also be helpful to know for biology!)
(edited 2 months ago)
Reply 8
Original post by Deerfox
Hi, soon I'll be doing A-level physics, maths, computing, and EPQ. I'm worried about the intensity of the course (physics) because I heard that I will have to sacrifice a lot of my social time to revise because it's very content heavy. The problem is that I spent most of my GCSEs revising, especially on weekends, so I didn't have much of a social life. Despite this, I still want to do well on my A levels, but I don't want it to be as overwhelming as GCSEs. So I was wondering to hear from the perspective of someone who did A level physics if it's a manageable course and if the amount of content will affect grades in the other courses which is also another concern.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Any advice is appreciated!

Hi!

During my time studying physics, I definitely made sure to have time spent with friends. I did this by either using my frees/study sessions to get a good chunk of revision done, leaving my afternoon/evening available, or I would dedicate a whole weekend day for revision, leaving the other day to hang out. These schedules didn’t always stay, but having a good balance with school and social life is definitely manageable. This is also due to how you’re only doing 3 subjects now (4 counting EPQ) instead of about 10.

As you’re starting year 12, you may even realise as the terms go by that you don’t have as big a workload as you thought. I took the three sciences and EPQ and had much less work to do in year 12 outside of lessons than my essay subject friends. The physics course has a lot of content, but you only really see this in year 13, so even if you find yourself with free time, it’s best spent doing AS practice papers and learning the mark schemes.

The crossover with maths and physics is very helpful, which is why a lot of teachers recommend that if you choose physics, you take maths as well. In this case, spend the same amount of time on those subjects as they often go hand in hand, ie projectiles and vectors.

Feel free to ask more about it!
Hi...found this post all the way from New Zealand!. I'm a Year 12 student studying physics and I'm having a really tough time grasping the topics in class. Do you have any ways that you were able to memorise the content easily? Or also some studying methods that you found useful since exams are coming up soon :smile:
Hi! Firstly, congratulations on your grade!! Really amazing!
What course at uni are you going to do?
What do you think is the bare minimum time to spend per week to get the top grades?
Thank you very much!!
Reply 11
Original post by DerDracologe
How does the way Physics is taught differ from GCSE to a level? (Would also be helpful to know for biology!)

Sometimes, this can entirely depend on teachers, but my physics GCSE teachers were very ‘read from the powerpoint’ in class and not really getting us to come to our conclusions on what was being taught- just keeping us within the mark scheme. This changed at A-Level, where we then given the background details of a discovery like x-rays and any other information surrounding its mechanic, before drawing our own conclusions on how those images were formed and such. This way of teaching forced us to think of past and adjacent topics (possibly emission spectra, attenuation techniques and coefficients etc), preparing us for the types of exam questions that could come up.

This was similar in biology, yet as it is so content heavy, there was less opportunity for it at A2. Perhaps it is best like that, though, as the mark schemes can be frustratingly specific, and it can be best to memorise ideal answers for a wide range of long answer questions. One of my biology teachers taught us directly from powerpoints, which made half the course all memory based for me with less deeper understandings of some units. At that point, it’s up to you to find out more.
Reply 12
Original post by SmilingCrab14
Hi...found this post all the way from New Zealand!. I'm a Year 12 student studying physics and I'm having a really tough time grasping the topics in class. Do you have any ways that you were able to memorise the content easily? Or also some studying methods that you found useful since exams are coming up soon :smile:

Wow! Hello from the UK!

Pre-reading before class was always something that my teachers recommended. Having access to an online textbook helps a lot. If you can do this, then making notes on any definitions or laws you come across will boost your understanding in class. Pre-reading will also let you single out specific areas you’ve struggled to understand, so take notes on those and go back to them after class. I know the exams boards may differ in spec, but the physics should be the same regardless, so check out ZPhysics and PhysicsOnline on youtube as they do unit specific videos that saved my A-Levels!

I didn’t have that many different study methods, but for definitions and small key pieces of information, you could never go wrong with flash cards. Make them early and I urge you to keep using them any time you remember, as the more you use them, the less you’ll need them. Some you’ll remember better than others so keep those in a separate pile so you can spend more time on the harder ones. In the UK, pretty much everyone uses Physics and Maths Tutor (the site has a lot more than just physics and maths) and it has a bunch of past paper questions that are topic based. If you know of a site like that for your exam board then you’ve got to use it religiously as you need to be familiar with how you will be tested. You can also spot which questions come up often and use the mark schemes to crack down on the specific words they’re looking for you to use.

Another study technique i found useful was blurting, think of one area or word from your course like ‘the electromagnetic spectrum’ and then fill the page with as much information as you can think that surrounds the EM spectrum. Doing this with others is better as you can help each other ideas and what things can link to it to make sure your course content is stuck in your head.

Hope this helps!
Reply 13
Original post by idkwhatXD_lol
Hi! Firstly, congratulations on your grade!! Really amazing!
What course at uni are you going to do?
What do you think is the bare minimum time to spend per week to get the top grades?
Thank you very much!!

Hi! Thank you so much!

I’m actually going on to do an integrated masters in chemistry, starting this month! Not to physics-y, but i’ll definitely be keeping up with reading physics related journals in my free time.

While it may seem best to do as much studying possible for exams, you’ve got to make sure you have time for friends and family and yourself so you don’t get burnt out. Compared to my 4 hours a week of class time in physics, I did about 7 more hours each week for the subject often in frees or the evenings. Doing the same for your other 2 subjects may be difficult to juggle, but as long as you prioritise what needs to be revised, then spending a little less time revising is fine.
Original post by TheUniversii
Hi! Physics can be a hard subject to take at A-Level for many, especially if you don't take maths as well (like me!). Feel free to ask for tips or suggestions if you are thinking of choosing it for A-levels or are already doing it. My exam board was OCR A, so that’s where I can help best.

Hi, just looked through your replies to other people. I also take biology, chemistry and physics and I am in year 13. Biology is my hardest subject, physics and chemistry is not as difficult for me. But I feel like that's because I spend a lot more time on physics and chemistry than I do on biology, because both chemistry and physics are really hard subjects to get my head around. I think I have knowledge gaps in biology, which is worrying me, but I am unable to spend enough time on bio due to the amount of time I am spending on physics and chem to make sure I don't fall behind. Do you have any advice as to how to go about equally giving time to all three of my subjects? I got CDE in my year 12 mocks, C and D in physics n chem, and an E in bio. My predicteds are BCC, B in physics, and C in chem and bio. Obviously, my personal goal is to get AAA in my final exams, I am really working as hard as I can to get there, but I need help planning what I am going to do to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, understand content and get in enough exam question practice. All recommendations, advice and tips are appreciated

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