Advice on my year 12 A-levels academic journey?

9

So a bit of context:
I study A-level: Maths, Further Maths, Economics, Russian and EPQ
GCSEs: 98876666655
Currently I have sat 3 tests: Economics (60% - C) Maths (Ran out of time so 56% - C) Further Maths - B)
For the universities I will be applying to they require A*A*AAA as a minimum (giving the alevels I take), And The A*s are in maths and further maths. So predicted grades, need to be A*A*AA.
How should I be revising effectively/allocating my time/ working on timings in exams (I don't have extra time). To be without a doubt predicted those grades?

Reply 1

Lonsk

10

Hi, this is unlikely to be the reply you would want, however I am wondering whether you could drop one of these subjects? Are you able to study Russian recreationally and open up some revision time for your other subjects, or let go of the EPQ, knowing you are already showing your breadth by studying languages and maths for example?

I do not doubt all your subjects provide you different skills and advantages in the application process, but it may be hard to maximise your grade potential when you are balancing so much, meaning you may actually forfeit offers.

I really wish you well, and know that my experiences are not at all universal. I am taking my 3 A-Levels this year (also expected high grades like yourself) and tried to make it as simple and efficient as possible, making my goals realistic. This meant me dropping EPQ, and funnily enough, not taking the Russian A-Level (what are the chances!).

Giving yourself free time and lowering the pressure may result in a better performance and likely reduce burn-out.

However, in terms of practical advice for revision, especially maths, drill the mixed exercises for each topic in your textbook and give yourself strict timeframes. Similarly, do practise papers in less time than normally given. I find that with maths, often it's not that your knowledge isn't good, but that knowing what maths knowledge to apply to each question, and fast is what boosts the grade. Also, knowing when to give up and go on to the next question, to return to harder ones at a later point in the exam.

Hope some of that was useful. You're doing really really great, and your ambition and breadth of interest already speak volumes, so I wish you all the best!!

Reply 2

‎♡₊˚ ୨୧・₊✧

12

Original post

by lizziekoz09

So a bit of context:
I study A-level: Maths, Further Maths, Economics, Russian and EPQ
GCSEs: 98876666655
Currently I have sat 3 tests: Economics (60% - C) Maths (Ran out of time so 56% - C) Further Maths - B)
For the universities I will be applying to they require A*A*AAA as a minimum (giving the alevels I take), And The A*s are in maths and further maths. So predicted grades, need to be A*A*AA.
How should I be revising effectively/allocating my time/ working on timings in exams (I don't have extra time). To be without a doubt predicted those grades?

hi 🙂 i'm in year 13 and i'm predicted A*'s in maths and further maths, so hopefully i can help a bit

firstly, it may be worth asking your teachers now what they base your predicted grades off of. at my school, maths/fm predicteds were based entirely off of my marks on the pure papers so i prioritised pure when it came to my exams

for normal pure maths, timing is definitely a big issue people tend to face at first. to be honest, this is just a matter of adapting to the level of difficulty. the more timed exam questions you do, the better you'll get at working quickly. a big piece of advice i'd give is to use your calculator effectively. now, i'm not saying to be reliant upon your calculator, but for things like solving a quadratic: don't sit there and work it out by hand when your calculator can do it more quickly. getting to know how your calculator works is a huge time-saver and you don't want to be fumbling around in the exams :smile:

for pure, i would really recommend doing full past papers as soon as you've covered the content. particularly for exponentials/logs/differentiation modelling questions, the format is incredibly repetitive: it's just a case of reading behind the fancy wording to understand what they want you to do. this is normally the same every time (i believe that laws of logs tends to be a weak topic among students so try to understand this topic when you get to it!)

a lot of people get put off by mechanics. i'm a physics student so a little biased, but i honestly think it's the easiest section of the course because the questions are very repetitive. i struggled a lot with the SUVAT section at first but once you crack it (by doing lots of questions), the style of question never really changes, so you can guarantee to do well in this chapter

i'm not a huge fan of normal stats tbh but hypothesis testing will become very simple, because again, it's just learning a method. if you can guarantee you'll get these marks quickly, you'll be left with more time to tackle the harder questions.

in core pure, for further maths, the question style again is repetitive though i think they do like to throw in one or two curveball questions each year, so you do actually need to understand rather than just 'learning a method'. for example, in the argand diagrams topic, if you can understand why different loci form different equations, that that will make it so intuitive to solve questions in comparison to trying to memorise the method.

another thing i'd point out is that normal maths content can come up in further maths. i know this sounds obvious, but this caught me out a bit in my AS further maths paper. i'd not gone over trig identities before my further maths paper because they weren't part of the further maths content, but they did actually come up within a matrices question. so, it's good to remember that what you learn in further maths builds upon your normal maths content

also, for further maths, when you get to vectors, please do your best to understand them. imo they were by far the hardest part of the year 12 course because there's just so much to learn - do your best to consolidate this topic as you go because they're very hard and exam boards like to make questions worth a lot of marks

i don't know which options you do for further maths - if you do stats 1 or mechanics 1 i can help with those too!

i hope this was useful, and i wish you the best of luck :biggrin:

Reply 3

Kingston Eve

Official Rep

13

Original post

by lizziekoz09

So a bit of context:
I study A-level: Maths, Further Maths, Economics, Russian and EPQ
GCSEs: 98876666655
Currently I have sat 3 tests: Economics (60% - C) Maths (Ran out of time so 56% - C) Further Maths - B)
For the universities I will be applying to they require A*A*AAA as a minimum (giving the alevels I take), And The A*s are in maths and further maths. So predicted grades, need to be A*A*AA.
How should I be revising effectively/allocating my time/ working on timings in exams (I don't have extra time). To be without a doubt predicted those grades?

Hey @lizziekoz09!

Which universities are you hoping to apply to? UK universities typically only need students to have three A-Levels; whilst some students do choose to study four, very few choose to study both four A-Levels and an EPQ. Are you applying internationally?

It might be worthwhile considering dropping the EPQ. If you need an A*A* in Maths and Further Maths for university and are currently working at a CB, the time you would save by not doing the EPQ could be dedicated towards improving your grades in these subjects. What's your current revision schedule like? If it's already packed, you'll need to find a way to make time either by dropping a subject or by dropping both a subject and the EPQ to ensure you meet your grade requirements.

Hope this helps and best of luck with your revision,
Eve (Kingston Rep).

Reply 4

lizziekoz09

OP

9

Original post

by Kingston Eve

Hey @lizziekoz09!
Which universities are you hoping to apply to? UK universities typically only need students to have three A-Levels; whilst some students do choose to study four, very few choose to study both four A-Levels and an EPQ. Are you applying internationally?
It might be worthwhile considering dropping the EPQ. If you need an A*A* in Maths and Further Maths for university and are currently working at a CB, the time you would save by not doing the EPQ could be dedicated towards improving your grades in these subjects. What's your current revision schedule like? If it's already packed, you'll need to find a way to make time either by dropping a subject or by dropping both a subject and the EPQ to ensure you meet your grade requirements.
Hope this helps and best of luck with your revision,
Eve (Kingston Rep).

Hello! I'm planning to apply for cambridge / UCL/Imperial/LSE / Kings college London etc. The thing is, I already started my EPQ, so it's too late to drop as our EPQ reacher has already put us down for me qualification, she paid the fees a ready).

Advice on my year 12 A-levels academic journey?

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