A level newbie!!

I did maths, chemistry, further maths (but dropped it during AS), psychology, media studies and general studies last year.

Out of those subjects, chemistry was the hardest by a mile. Seriously, learn from my mistakes - put a lot of effort into it. Last year it was my strongest subject, and I got an A* in it and feel that it is now my weakest by a large amount.
 
3 months into as levels, ive now realised some of the things youve said.

Im doing well on my weekly homeworks, A's and B's mostly (1 C). Chemistry isnt very hard but bond shapes are a pain in the ass. Exam questions are a lot harder to work what to write especially in biology. Maths is probably the easiest subject so far and geography is the most boring one.

Ive been working quite hard, but not as hard as i could. But with exams next month im doin 4 hours revision a day and will do more over the holidays. Im going over my notes and making sure i understand everything, im writing stuff out again in spider diagrams. Im also doing past paper questions. Will this be sufficient?

Yes this is a mega bump and my grammar and spelling are as bad it was a few months ago but id appreciate useful posts.
 
I would say that should be more than sufficent, you are doing more revision in a day than i did in 2 years of a levels :/. Just keep doing practice papers and work on the ares you are finding hard. Just keep at it, it will all pay of at the end. Dont make the same mistake i did lol
 
Congrats on picking some good A-levels. It sounds like you are doing the right types of things, mixing in revision notes/testing your memory of the series things you must remember/past papers.

Try and get as many years of past papers as the teachers will allow you. Keep bugging them for more if you can saying you have done all they have given you. You may see patterns in the style of questions set and thus be able to more easily predict to type of questions you will be asked.

Focus on the style of exam and start timing yourself if you can on answering questions so you are not flustered with time during the exam. Otherwise keep it up and good luck!

//edit Do not let others put you off saying you are doing too much, I did less work than I wish I had done and its one thing I would like to change if I could. Keep up a little extra work now will make life much easier down the line. You will see where all the material is leading and so better understand it whilst everyone else gets left behind.
 
redporshe said:
Ive been working quite hard, but not as hard as i could. But with exams next month im doin 4 hours revision a day and will do more over the holidays. Im going over my notes and making sure i understand everything, im writing stuff out again in spider diagrams. Im also doing past paper questions. Will this be sufficient?

Yes this is a mega bump and my grammar and spelling are as bad it was a few months ago but id appreciate useful posts.
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Everyone revises and works differently. I can't set myself 'hours of work' to do a day because then you are just making it a chore rather than something you wish to achieve.

My big hint for Chemistry and Biology would be to buy CGP revision guides for your course (the ones with the guy with glasses on the front). Each of these subjects more or less requires you to remember certain facts or certain words in your answers. CGP books are very good at giving this information to you briefly with minimum faff - also they are filled with subtle mildly amusing jokes (although it might be hard to come to terms with the fact you are finding the jokes funny).
 
It sounds like you are doing well.

The one single piece of advice i would give anyone is dont believe the hype. You will be getting told that if you dont study you will fail and there is no way back. Every year in school i was told that "this is the most important year" for one reason or another. There is always another chance if you mess up. Study by all means but make sure you have fun as well.
 
Maths, if single, will be a doddle. Be glad you didn't do Physics, it's harder than every course you've taken put together... :o
 
Did Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Geography AS, then carried Maths, Physics and Geography to A level.

Chemistry was definitely the hardest, probably because most the stuff they teach you at GCSE is actually contradicted in A level! Just make sure you really understand the first few weeks as some of the later topics are impossible without understanding the principles.

Maths was fine, but I think our maths department was pretty high quality. Just make sure you look at tonnes of practise papers, normally helps bring everything together. Maths will be very useful if doing Geography at Uni, not that its compulsory but some of the fieldwork analysis relies in differentiation concepts from A level.

Geography topics were quite easy to understand but I never grasped the essay writing so didn't tend to score that highly. Topics will depend on what the teachers choose, so might vary slightly in difficulty. Advice: Try to write as many practise essays and get them marked/given feedback by teachers in good time before any exams.
It helps having Maths as there are some statistical/investigation paper questions depending on the board.

Oh, and unfortunately not as much colouring in this time around than GCSE!
 
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I did an A/S in maths, and I found it pretty hard. I was predicted a U but got 1 mark off a B... Basically it was tough since I only did the intermediate maths tier at GCSE so I started off on a back-footing.
 
I'm finding maths a breeze at AS level, Physics is fine other than particle stuff as there is just so much to remember. Computing A2 isn't hard either.

But, I struggle in geography. Why? I have no idea. I am unable to do well in human geography and I really, really don't understand why.

I could never set myself to do 4 hours revision a day, it would kill me :p
 
I'm finding the step up from GCSE to A Levell quite big :p

Maths is quite hard, Geography i seem to struggle in, BIology is fun, just theres a lot of big words to remember and ICT is quite easy :D

I just feel i need to do more work outside of the lesson, as well as the homeworks set...
 
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