Advice for A level options

8

Hi everyone, I’ve just started year 12 and am doing Bio Chem Math and Psychology for A-levels - I need to do 4 as the entry requirements for the course I want to apply for needs 4 A*s (HKU medicine).
I really like the content in Psychology (we’ve started with paper 2 AQA) but I’m really unsure about it now as the teaching is really bad and no one from my school has ever gotten an A* despite getting predicted one, which is really off-putting. I’m only taking the 4th subject for HKU and will need an A* so I’m thinking of switching to something easier (or actually attainable) such as business, as they don’t care what the 4th subject is (EPQ doesn’t count) but I really like the content in Psych (I also don’t think an A* is impossible but it would take a LOT of work from my understanding). I’m also not extremely interested in business but I’ve heard it’s ridiculously easy, and am pretty confident in getting an A*. What should I do?

For reference I got 8x 9s and 4x 8s at GCSE

Thank you so much🙏🏻🙏🏻

Reply 1

kruv

6

I dont do do AQA A-Level Psychology but I do Edexcel and got an A*, initially in year 12 I got an E twice in my mocks which was really off putting, and your exam board for psychology has many more resources online than mine did, so it is much more possible for you to get an A*!! what I did is after every lesson I made flashcards on quizlet using the all the information from the worksheet they gave us in class, then I would grab a whiteboard (if you dont have a whiteboard buy it!! its a great investment) and blurt your flashcards over and over again until its all etched into your brain, it will take time and dedication but if you stay consistent you will make it, once you blurted everything go on physics and maths tutor and do past paper questions or exam questions, thats literally it! blurt and exam questions will boost your grade in ways you can't even imagine, all you need to do is stay consistent, also since Psychology is an essay based subject as well with 8 or even 16 markers sometimes, I would write and do the essays after revising a certain topic, then the next day I would give it to my psych teacher for her to mark it and she would give me feedback within 2-3 days! this is what helped me a lot with he longer questions because sometimes the mark scheme can be confusing for these questions so your teacher is a go to and much better than the mark scheme when it comes to the longer questions

Hope this helps :smile:

)

Reply 2

jc_031115

OP

8

Original post

by kruv

I dont do do AQA A-Level Psychology but I do Edexcel and got an A*, initially in year 12 I got an E twice in my mocks which was really off putting, and your exam board for psychology has many more resources online than mine did, so it is much more possible for you to get an A*!! what I did is after every lesson I made flashcards on quizlet using the all the information from the worksheet they gave us in class, then I would grab a whiteboard (if you dont have a whiteboard buy it!! its a great investment) and blurt your flashcards over and over again until its all etched into your brain, it will take time and dedication but if you stay consistent you will make it, once you blurted everything go on physics and maths tutor and do past paper questions or exam questions, thats literally it! blurt and exam questions will boost your grade in ways you can't even imagine, all you need to do is stay consistent, also since Psychology is an essay based subject as well with 8 or even 16 markers sometimes, I would write and do the essays after revising a certain topic, then the next day I would give it to my psych teacher for her to mark it and she would give me feedback within 2-3 days! this is what helped me a lot with he longer questions because sometimes the mark scheme can be confusing for these questions so your teacher is a go to and much better than the mark scheme when it comes to the longer questions
Hope this helps :smile:

)

this is very reassuring, thank you so much!! for the evaluation of most topics, did you memorise the points with flashcards too?