A-Level Physics?

JoeWed

JoeWed

JoeWed

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Hi all,

I'm interested in finding out from anyone here who has done it, how difficult did you find A-Level Physics?

I dropped out of school when I was 11 due to illness, the only GCSE I have is an A in Math (and 4 A's in 'GNVQ Computing') - which was all self taught. So I have little to no grounding in any science subjects. This year (well, 3 1/2 weeks time) I'm starting A-Level Computing, Math, Physics & GCSE English.

So far all I've had is 6 hours of home tutoring (and I have 6 more to come) - the tutor thinks I should be fine, but I'm worried about Physics :p. Which are the most important bits to learn before in the limited time I have? Anyone have a lesson plan of their past Physics A Level? Also, are they likely quickly go back over the important GCSE Physics bits... or just jump right in where GCSE left off?

Any answers/advice would be appreciated, thanks in advance!
 
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If you got an A in Maths then you should be ok, I personaly havn't done it but I know from friends/relatives that it can be pretty tough and strong mathematical skills are definetley required. Oh and A-Level computing might suck.....
 
If you are doing 'mechanical' maths that will cover quite a large portion of your physics course and put you in good stead. That said it is hard, of the 4 subjects you will probably need to put more time into physics than the others to achieve a grade A
 
Oh and A-Level computing might suck.....
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Hah, yeah I expect it will, but I need 3 A-Levels and they're the only 3 things I'm interested in. Two years of Delphi... not great, but could be worse. :p

Here's the links to the courses (Math, Physics)

I do really enjoy Math so hopefully I'll get on OK with that side of it, not quite so sure about the particle sections though - so much to revise, so little time. Do people actually remember the majority of the periodic table?
 
hey man, ive done a level physics and have just finished my first year. Like everybody else in this thread i expected it to be pure maths and formulas (like in GCSE maths/physics) but i soon realised it isnt. It really depends on which board you are doing, I mean some boards will have pure maths modules with everything related to mechanics. The board that i do has 2 modules on Remembering stuff and 1 module on pure mechanics. As i also do a-level maths the mechanics was pretty easy stuff (except remembering the laws of each dude) however the particle physics module and the module on electricity was pretty difficult as it was all learning from books and revising different facts and just knowing one thing from the other, nothing to do with maths whatsoever. So if your good at remembering stuff and also applying maths to your problems your first few modules should not be hard (that is if you put time and effort in). I personally try my hardest in college and got a grade C (two marks off a B) for my first module. My results are coming out next week and i will be over the moon if it averages out at a B. Just remember that physics a-level is also really respected when applying to university as the tutors their know how hard it is to receive a good grade in it.
 
Did A-Level Physics here, along with Maths and Chemistry (gained three A grades), I found it quite easy to be honest. If you've done well in the subject at school, and also maths, you shouldn't have a problem stepping up to college level.

Although in all honesty, I was at college for my A-Levels back in 88-90 so things have probably changed quite dramatically. :p
 
my fav. a-level subject, really enjoyable and interesting imo and wasnt that tricky (the course we did anyway). GCSE did help i guess but we went in to things like astro-physics which we didnt do at gcse.

buy a couple of a-level books and study the parts corresponding to the exams your taking and you should be fine.
 
I scraped an A in Physics at A-level after resitting 2 As modules. I then went on to get a 1st in Physics at a top UK university. You'll need to be very keen on the subject and spend a lot of time on it. That's what held me back at A-level. I much preferred my Maths at the time and if I was working it was always on Further Maths. Put the time and effort in and you'll be fine. In your situation it may be wise to visit the BBCs GCSE Physics Bitesize websites. They should give you the necessary grounding you'll need.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_aqa/
 
I did Physics A-level (albeit 10 years ago), it's fairly straightforward if you're good at GCSE maths.

It required the most work out of all my A-levels (mainly down to the practical assessments needing a few hours extra a week on top of the classroom work). I'd guess this is where you may find yourself coming unstuck, as with no background in physics (and presumably very little in the way of messing about with apparatus) this could be quite unfamiliar territory for you.
 
Nobody (except for teachers) will know much about what you will do, because the specifications of all of the boards are changing for your academic year.

I finished my A level course this year, so I can tell you about my course. If you do Maths, it'll make the second year a lot easier, I found that the As year required Maths, but it wasn't as complicated as the A2 year.

Looking at a GCSE syllabus, or bitezise as above, will help a lot. Try and be up to speed with all of the basic electricity equations that are studied at GCSE. For A level you don't need to learn more than about five equations over the whole two years, you'll always have a data sheet.

If you want to be ahead of the game (for both physics, and M1 maths), without too much effort, have a look at SUVAT equations. If you can understand them then As level physics won't trouble you too much, and they aren't very hard themselves =]

If you want to ask me any specific equations, I'm on msn, address in trust.

Edit: I've just seen the above, there isn't much to worry about on the practicals. There aren;t set techniques that you have to learn, you get told how to do the experiment,. Most of the marks are from your analysis, usualy quite arbitary things (2sf in all tables, columns labelled with units, 3 repeats, etc.)
 
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I did both a-level maths and physics (and history n politics), and found A-lelev maths really easy when taught well (13 marks off an A as i didnt resit one of my AS modules that in hignsight i should have done but i like my uni anyway), but physics was almost impossible! (I got an overall U at AS-level and jsut gave up to save time).

The things that make it are good teaching (i didnt have that as only one of the 2 physics members of staff was a trained teacher) and a real desire to do all of the extra work they ever suggest (i had a mate that got a B overall as he jsut read the text books cover to cover repeatedly).

Maths on the other hand is just fun! (dont do further as its a lot of pressure and the further part of the course is all done at uni)
 
Physics is very easy if you can get your head around the concepts and can do quite basic maths (e.g. no calculus). They generally give you most of the formulae and constants you need. You could probably get a C at AS just with calculator skills :)

EDIT: having read what Ben M said, it might be a little tricker for you. Exam boards generally start out with an appropriately challenging exam and then let standards drift. I wrote A Level Physics in 2005 and it was noticably easier than the 2001 exam.
 
easy and we did the hard one (although it's all changed since then). But I suppose it's all down to what subjects you like.
I did chemistry and maths and failed them. Even though I attended classes and did much more work for those subjects.
 
i've just finised A2 physics.

wait a week and a half and i'll tell you how hard it was :p
 
Seft said:
Physics is very easy if you can get your head around the concepts and can do quite basic maths (e.g. no calculus). They generally give you most of the formulae and constants you need. You could probably get a C at AS just with calculator skills :)

EDIT: having read what Ben M said, it might be a little tricker for you. Exam boards generally start out with an appropriately challenging exam and then let standards drift. I wrote A Level Physics in 2005 and it was noticably easier than the 2001 exam.
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The A level Physics are getting a bit more... mickey-mouse, after this revision of the syllabus. I think. It's getting more similar to the GCSEs in that it's less learning the science, more useless ****

To use a GCSE example, you're less likely to be asked how a coal fired power station works, and more likely to be asked why we should be using renewable power.

I don't know how much like that A level is going to become, but it is going to be more like that.

Aod said:
i've just finised A2 physics.

wait a week and a half and i'll tell you how hard it was :p
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8 days mate... :(
 
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Azagoth said:
Coat fired? Is that any more energy efficient than say coal?
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yeah. what you do, is get a fire, then fan it with coats!

it's a bit like goat fires, except, with goat fired, the goats fan the coats for you!
 
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