Alevels (y12)

hi , I finished my GCSEs and wondering which flashcard app would be best for Alevel?
I’m planning on taking maths , chemistry and biology.
I’m thinking of using StudySmarter,Anki ,quizlet etc!

Can you please give me some advice
Also for the summer holidays would you suggest looking at Alevel material and making some prep stuff like notes?

Reply 1

leisurely-expert

As an A Level student who takes the exact same subjects (finishing exams next week) I can confirm that Anki and Quizlet are great. I haven't heard about StudySmarter so I can't comment about that. I also recommend gizmo.

Reply 2

BCU Student Rep

Official Rep

Original post

by N1c0l3z

hi , I finished my GCSEs and wondering which flashcard app would be best for Alevel?
I’m planning on taking maths , chemistry and biology.
I’m thinking of using StudySmarter,Anki ,quizlet etc!
Can you please give me some advice
Also for the summer holidays would you suggest looking at Alevel material and making some prep stuff like notes?

Hi @N1c0l3z,

Congrats finishing your GCSEs, A-Levels are a big step up, but you’re already thinking in a really proactive way.
In terms of flashcard apps, it kind of depends on your preferences and how you learn:
I've heard that Anki is a bit more “bare-bones” at first, but it’s extremely powerful once you get the hang of it. Anki’s spaced repetition algorithm is really effective for retaining large amounts of information — perfect for biology and chemistry. There are lots of free decks available online, or you can create your own.

Quizlet: If you prefer something more user-friendly and visually nice, Quizlet is a great starting point. It’s less customizable than Anki but easier to use immediately and has lots of practice decks made by other A-level students.

StudySmarter: This is a more all-round revision app — it lets you create notes, flashcards, and practice questions all in one place. It might be helpful if you like having everything integrated.

About whether you should prep over summer: It’s a very good idea to do a little bit of light prep, just to ease yourself into A-Levels. But you definitely want to enjoy your holiday and not overwhelm yourself. Here are a few things you could do:

•

Look over the specification for your subjects (you can find these on the exam board’s website) to get a feel for what’s to come.

•

Watch some YouTube videos (like from Primrose Kitten or SnapRevise) to preview key A-Level content.

•

Make some summary notes or flashcards for topics you find challenging, or those you know you’re weak at from GCSE — this can be a nice way to stay engaged without overloading yourself.

Hope this helps,
Danish
BCU Student Rep

Reply 3

Unrei

Original post

by N1c0l3z

hi , I finished my GCSEs and wondering which flashcard app would be best for Alevel?
I’m planning on taking maths , chemistry and biology.
I’m thinking of using StudySmarter,Anki ,quizlet etc!
Can you please give me some advice
Also for the summer holidays would you suggest looking at Alevel material and making some prep stuff like notes?

Honestly, if you are on a budget and also quite smart the thing that i found worked for me was to make a Chemistry, and Biology excel pdf (Maths you mainly need to do practise questions, so not really relevant for this). Then make different sheets specific to your Modules or Papers, so each sheet is basically a big unit.

Then, make a column of notes for each subtopics as you go through them in class and/or in your spare time.
Once you have made notes, you then need to reinforce notes by topic questions from past papers.
For topic tests in school, doing a bunch of exam questions is the best way to revise, cause they literally use those in your topic tests.

Now say that a lot of time has passed, and you are unsure about a topic or maybe you want to go over it again quickly to see if you know it, this is where AI comes, which is really good for biology recall.
Copy the whole column on notes and type into chatgpt, "Can you make a quick 20 minute, written test based on these notes AND on (chosen exam board) A Level Biology specification:" And paste in the notes from your excel spreadsheet only on a specific topic.

You can adapt the opening phrase as you see fit aka asking for multiple choice test asking for a 10 minute test or asking for a 40 minute test, the key thing is that you paste in your notes AND specify your exam board and the fact it is A Level.

I was originally used quizlet at the start of year 12 and the whole format ended up just being off-putting for me by the time I was in year 13, it wasn't time efficient at all and doing flashcards instead of exam practise near your exams is kinda crazy, especially for biology, where you need to be good at applying knowledge more than knowing knowledge.

Also after doing exam questions, add to or adapt your notes especially if you are getting some questions wrong.

Finally, do as many past papers as you can, by your exams aim to have done every single one, it is the best way to get better and the fastest way to get better.

Maths, watch Bicen Maths videos or whoever else on youtube whose explanation you like and then spam topic questions and exam questions. They might say just do questions from the textbook at first, which I guess is good too but doing exam questions is just better because you know what to expect from the exam, no surprises. To get topic exam questions, go to yesterday maths, and by the time you have done all of those for a topic you are good. People also say maths genie, but I just haven't used it much since year 7.

Also, active recall is important too, so if you are feeling like you can't remember something just do a quick written test and you can also adjust the difficulty, if you want to be ready for hard questions in the exam.

This is just what worked for me, but yh, I found it really helpful in year 13, especially cause I need to go over many things but didn't have time to start doing notes and flashcards just annoyed by year 13, the whole format of it was so dull. I made my spreadsheet colour-coded and stuff, I actually enjoyed making it fr and making notes of more topics when I had the time.

Reply 4

leisurely-expert

Original post

by N1c0l3z

hi , I finished my GCSEs and wondering which flashcard app would be best for Alevel?
I’m planning on taking maths , chemistry and biology.
I’m thinking of using StudySmarter,Anki ,quizlet etc!
Can you please give me some advice
Also for the summer holidays would you suggest looking at Alevel material and making some prep stuff like notes?

Regarding summer prep, I know my school gave a bridging booklet for each subject and the first thing it had was a quiz based on your GCSE knowledge showing the transition between GCSEs and A Levels. Additionally, we had a 6th form induction day just to see what a typical day at 6th form actually doing our subjects would be like. I'd highly recommend going if your 6th form offers one because you can meet your teachers for your subjects and they can answer any questions that you have regarding how to revise for this subject, should I get a revision guide or not, revision tips, etc.

Reply 5

jasmineva3128

I use an app called 'Knowt', which you put your notes into, and it makes the flashcards for you. I find this is really useful and saves me a lot of time as I have really content heavy subjects.

I previously used an app that was simply called 'flashcards', and whilst it wasn't anything fancy, it got the job done, and I liked it.

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