A-Level Physics vs Chemistry OCR

Hi! I do ocr physics (year 12) and have enjoyed it so far. At this point in the course ive done the electricity topic and also some of the forces and motion topic. With electricity, i didnt find it much harder than the gcse content (i got a 9 btw) but it was more interesting to me as its focused more on why things work the way they do (focus on ions in wires for example). I haven’t made my topic test back yet but I dont think it went too badly despite me not having time to revise in the days before for personal reasons. I would recommend it if you’ve enjoyed gcse physics but then again ive only studied it for a half term so I haven’t experienced the whole course yet but at least my experience might give you an idea of the step up from gcse to a level physics. Still, if you have any questions i can try to answer them.

Thanks so much for your response! Did you happen to know the usual format of the tests - I know they're a mix of short/long answers, but what is the maximum number of marks that a writing question would be?
Also, would you say that the content overall (based on how much you've done so far vs the whole textbook content) is quite long and therefore fast paced compared to GCSE (also congrats on getting a 9!)?

I might be wrong, but from just looking through some past papers and based on the past homework questions and stuff ive done i think theres usually a multiple choice section first and then the rest is mixed long and short answers worth between 1 and 6 marks (quite similar to gcse really).
I haven’t found it particularly past paced yet, i dont find it an issue to make class notes as i sometimes do in biology where theres a lot more content to get down (i usually have to use textbook notes for bio with my class notes to make resources but physics is generally fine in that respect). Your teachers should be able to teach the content in the time but theres a lot of emphasis on doing questions and reading to the next chapter for homework (at my sixth form at least!).
With the amount of maths involved, it’s quite extensive. There’s calculations involved in pretty much every lesson for electricity but theyre mostly just plugging values into equations and graph stuff. For forces and motion its a bit more problem solving based and you do need quite a bit of practice to get your head around some of it but a lot of emphasis is put on practicing calculations (i get weekly Isaac physics assignments for example).
Hope that helps, let me know if you want me to try answer any more questions 🙂

Hi everyone!

I'm considering taking A-Level Physics or Chemistry as an option and was wondering if anybody had any feedback on either (or both) of the subjects - things like how hard the subject is, the level of maths (I quite like maths so it won't be too much of a problem) and the content itself (how interesting it is, and how content-heavy the subject is in general, etc.)

Thank you!