I can't get good grades.

flibbage0 said:
Never thought about it that way.
Click to expand...

Not sure if serious or sarcasm, but that was my problem (though ultimately I realised I was wasting time and just left it alone). Initially I made a variety of cribsheets with bullet points for my Chemistry & Biology lectures and put them either side of my monitor. It helped in that as i was looking at my screen I saw my revision (handy) but also reminded me I should be focusing on my studies.
 
Hi mate, you're the year above me right? I'll try to advise you as best as I can, from what I know. What boards are you doing for each subject.

Biology- gonna throw it out there and say that this is the easiest subject that you're doing. Why? Because really, all you have to do is rote learn a whole of stuff and throw it all up in the exam. Once you've learnt the stuff, look at past papers and mark schemes to find the best way of answering it.

Maths- can be hard, really depends on the person. How good are you? If you're pretty good at maths, then it's just about practice practice practice? If you feel you're quite weak, then focus on getting a VERY SOLID understanding of the fundamental theory behind each topic, and then practice practice practice. Also spare a thought for me, I'm doing further maths :p

Chemistry- Possibly the worst. It's hard AND I've found the AS course to be very boring. If you have a basic understanding of everything, I'd focus on doing past papers and then looking back at the mark schemes. In fact, doing each paper twice might even be helpful, as they tend to ask similar questions just with different words

Physics- by far the hardest subject :( We recently did a past paper and it was 57% for an A. You really need common sense, scientific and mathematical intuition, and a bit of luck for Physics. What I found is that you can pick up a lot of marks even without too much knowledge of the course itself, if you just use your brains and basic science intuition.

Good luck mate :)
 
MrLOL said:
Thats rubbish. My parents still had their A level textbooks from when they did A level chemistry and physics 30 years, the stuff they had to learn was mind numbing. Hell yes the current A levels are easier.
Click to expand...

Maybe you are right, there is less content these days but the way they ask it is very different.

I remember looking at AQA physics specification for 2001 and there was more to learn but the questions they asked in the exam were so much easier, I enjoy learning stuff but I'm not the best at applying it to different situations.
 
TheCenturion said:
Maths- can be hard, really depends on the person. How good are you? If you're pretty good at maths, then it's just about practice practice practice? If you feel you're quite weak, then focus on getting a VERY SOLID understanding of the fundamental theory behind each topic, and then practice practice practice. Also spare a thought for me, I'm doing further maths :p

Physics- by far the hardest subject :( We recently did a past paper and it was 57% for an A. You really need common sense, scientific and mathematical intuition, and a bit of luck for Physics. What I found is that you can pick up a lot of marks even without too much knowledge of the course itself, if you just use your brains and basic science intuition.
Click to expand...

When you say "57% for an A" does that mean you only need a score of just over half marks to get the top grade? I don't mean to be sarcastic, but that doesn't sound "hard". What grade are you supposed to get for 60,70,80,90,100%?

On another note, if you think Physics is the hardest now, don't underestimate Further Maths! I did Maths+Further at A-Level. The upper level modules are KILLER.
 
flibbage0 said:
I enjoy learning stuff but I'm not the best at applying it to different situations.
Click to expand...

This is one of the key ways in which past papers/sample questions will be of help - learning how to apply your knowledge to exam questions, which will usually (not always it's true) take a similar format from year to year.
 
Define good grades, I got AAB (Maths, Physics, Further Maths) a couple of years ago but I don't define that as particularly good grades compared to most of my course mates. How high are you aiming?

If you know your maths, then its easy in physics to get a B or higher, its just simple application. To get a higher than that you need to try and get your head around the scientific principles behind it. So improving your maths actually improves two of your subjects.

From what I remember about AS chemistry its mostly wrote learning, and from what friends have told me biology is more so. For that you've just got to sit down and read stuff, fun times eh?

As far as exams, I've always found that a good nights sleep, a decent breakfast, and remaining hydrated trumps most forms of revision. If your relaxed in the exam, things just seem easier.
Also learn the basic exam techniques, read the paper front to back BEFORE you start answering questions, this lets you think about stuff before you approach it and really does help. If a question is difficult, come back to it later. You will always find some questions easy, and getting them out of the way can be a good little confidence boost. Remain calm while learning, and calm in the exam and things just work.
 
AJK said:
When you say "57% for an A" does that mean you only need a score of just over half marks to get the top grade? I don't mean to be sarcastic, but that doesn't sound "hard". What grade are you supposed to get for 60,70,80,90,100%?

On another note, if you think Physics is the hardest now, don't underestimate Further Maths! I did Maths+Further at A-Level. The upper level modules are KILLER.
Click to expand...

My physics exams A boundary was nowhere near 57%, so was probably just a one-off. (plus there's the A* now).

Further Maths! I managed Fp1 OK (well, not got results back yet though), so I thought 'oh, FP2 can't be that much harder'.... IT IS SO HARD! M2 doesn't seem too bad, and we haven't started M3 yet, but FP2 is definitely the hardest module from any of the maths physics chemistry A levels I've done/started. I'm just happy I'm not doing FP3. (Although I have to say FP 2 and 3 actually look very interesting!).
 
GreatAuk said:
My physics exams A boundary was nowhere near 57%, so was probably just a one-off. (plus there's the A* now).

Further Maths! I managed Fp1 OK (well, not got results back yet though), so I thought 'oh, FP2 can't be that much harder'.... IT IS SO HARD! M2 doesn't seem too bad, and we haven't started M3 yet, but FP2 is definitely the hardest module from any of the maths physics chemistry A levels I've done/started. I'm just happy I'm not doing FP3. (Although I have to say FP 2 and 3 actually look very interesting!).
Click to expand...

Haha, I thought similar about FP2 at the time (MEI right?), its generally considered the hardest module at A-level ( no matter the discipline). However its difficulty pales in comparison to university maths :(
 
AJK said:
When you say "57% for an A" does that mean you only need a score of just over half marks to get the top grade? I don't mean to be sarcastic, but that doesn't sound "hard". What grade are you supposed to get for 60,70,80,90,100%?

On another note, if you think Physics is the hardest now, don't underestimate Further Maths! I did Maths+Further at A-Level. The upper level modules are KILLER.
Click to expand...

You needed 34/60 for an A.

Trust me, it is very hard. For a number of reasons. You get an 'A' grade if you get above 34. But obviously the higher you get, the more chance you have of getting an A* at the end of the full A level.

It's hard for a load of reasons. It's not like GCSE where you would be taught a topic, and the exam would have questions on that topic. Sometimes, in AS Physics, they give you questions that aren't necessarily covered in the syllabus, but are related to topics covered, so you have to use your intuition to figure them out.

Not only that, but for this particular paper, when it was done apparently a lot of people in the country struggled to finish it. This would have decreased most people's marks.

Also, they tend to screw you over in the calculations. When I did this paper, I wasn't really concentrating and so many times forgot to convert units and there's usually 2 to 3 conversions per question, so most of the time I only got 0 or 1 out of 3.

Physics is hard. It's known to be one of the most difficult A levels.

I'm currently doing quite well in further maths. Core 3 is pretty straight forward, so is Stats 2 and FP1. I think that I got close to 100% in c2 and around 90% in s1 in my january modules, so fingers crossed :D
 
flibbage0 said:
Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Maths.
Click to expand...

I did biology, basically its all memory work..

In AS i got a C for biology, basically doing no work, i wasnt happy with myself because i thought i did better, so results were like :(.

So for A2 i just copied out all 3 text books word for word on all relevant modules, drew all the formulas and diagrams I read that about 50 times over, and i did like 20 mock exams, until it felt extremely repetitive.

And got like 97% on the A2 exam, the "boffins" were like wtf platinum87 beat everyone, wtf?? (and yes my real name is platinum87).
 
I will offer a suggestion you might want nothing to do with but have you considered a BTEC instead of A-Levels. There are no exams required, just coursework and the subject you pick will go into a lot more depth than A-Levels on just the one subject instead of three/four. I found A-Levels dull at the time, still regret not trying more but I find the BTEC far easier and it should still get me into a decent university.
 
platinum87 said:
I did biology, basically its all memory work..

In AS i got a C for biology, basically doing no work, i wasnt happy with myself because i thought i did better, so results were like :(.
Click to expand...

You got a C doing no work, impressive, I got a D and did quite a bit of work (but all of our practicals got moderated down a lot last year) so I would have got a C.
 
perhaps the level of giving A grades upwards has decreased (i.e; lower mark needed for higher mark) rather than a-levels becoming easier... (lot of people 30+ listening to news) when really news report "more people getting A, A+ grade" then comes the "in my day we got C and A was rare...." I think they need to correct the way they mark the papers and raise the boundary on what mark gives what pass grade.

Keep up with the a-levels, if you know your stuff push through. A levels aren't easy so don't be dumbed down by people around you (or here for that case).

Start learning at home, practice exam papers and you'll get there at the end. Don't give up and choose the easy route - you'll regret it at the end.

Keep it up.

Also keep in mind that some people can do it whilst 'doing everything else' - meaning they've done it before or are studying at home on the sneak and making out the know it all. Only way is head in the book, meaning some people need their head in it for longer but if it achieves the same result so be it!

good luck.
 
You say about the January maths, I had the same problem. Practice papers no problem, really easy, but during the exam I just didnt see how to answer 1-2 questions , both of which were actually very simple :(
 
TheCenturion said:
You needed 34/60 for an A.

Trust me, it is very hard. For a number of reasons. You get an 'A' grade if you get above 34. But obviously the higher you get, the more chance you have of getting an A* at the end of the full A level.
Click to expand...

Not quite true, Doing A2 Physics at the moment and you need 90% average over the final year's exams and practicals. That 57% for an A) Can remember doing that as a mock, the others change - there in the 70%'s for an A but yes, its a very hard a level.

To the OP, what I'd suggest is doing a past paper marking it harshly, then going through it with your teachers, and pick out where your losing marks, then do some practice on those areas, then do another.

Try getting some of your friends that are doing the same subject as you to explain certain parts - once some of the past papers have been done - they'll often be better at explaining stuff to you than teachers, as they have a better idea of how your mind works..
 
flibbage0: Sir, do you have a moment? I seem to get bad grades from you quite often, and it's worrying me. I want to do better in my studies and I wondered if you could spare some time to tell me where I'm going wrong and how I can improve.

Teacher: Sorry, who are you?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom