STEPPING UP

TO A-LEVELS
FROM GCSES
HANDBOOK
Contents
1 Researching Your Subjects
Where to begin before the school year starts

2 The Specification Document

A look at your essential course content guide

3 Specification Example Notes

How to follow the specification to create useful notes

4 Getting Proactive
Using your time productively outside of lessons

5 Exam Technique
Pointers that will help you crack an exam paper

6 External Reading and Research

How to get greater context around what you're learning
Researching Your
Subjects
Where to begin before the school year starts

A-level courses cover a much wider breadth and depth of knowledge in

your chosen subjects - typically twice as much material as your GCSE
course. Whilst this may seem slightly scary at first, you can get started with
researching and learning your subjects long before school starts to ease
you in.

By no means are you expected to learn the whole course before

September or learn any complex theories, but having a look at the exam
board specifications topics and reading around those can help you get
ahead. The best place to start is to check what is covered across the two
years. Make sure you’re aware what periods of history you’ll be covering, or
what specific parts of biology you’ll be learning. Getting this information
early will help get you prepared.

Many schools set summer work to complete, and it’s very important that
you complete this so that you have context for when lessons start in
September. Summer work often provides you with an introduction to the
first topics you will learn when returning to school. While your teachers
may not collect this work from you, this work gives you an opportunity to
get a head start on the course and also make a great first impression from
day 1 of A-levels.

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The Specification
Document
A look at your essential course content guide

The exam board specification

document for each of your subjects
will be your core reference guide
throughout the duration of your A-
level studies. This document details
absolutely everything you will be
taught and is used by the exam boards
to form the basis of content that you
will be tested on for your exams.

You can easily locate your subject’s

specification document by searching
online for the exam board, the subject,
followed by ‘A-level specification
document’. Usually, the specification
document will be near the top of the
search results. For example, the OCR
You can also take some time to
A-Level Chemistry specification will list
look at the other resources
all the key topics and sub-topics you
available from your exam board.
will learn, from the Periodic table and
Their websites have an
energy to Core organic chemistry.
abundance of resources such as
the candidate exemplar past
The exam board specification
papers. These exemplar past
document will be incredibly useful and
papers are useful for seeing the
can be used as a checklist for your
level of detail that is expected
learning. Ultimately, this will save you
from you now you have
large amounts of time when it comes
progressed to your A-levels and
to planning your future revision as the
also provide key tips from
document states all the key
examiners into how they prefer
information necessary for you to study
students to tackle the exam
for the exams.
questions.

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Specification
Example Notes
How to follow the specification to create useful notes

Taking a look at the A-level

AQA Biology specification,
we can see the points
required for a specific
topic in the specification -
in this instance, proteins.

Below is an example of
how you might make notes
based off of the
highlighted specification
points for AQA 3.1.4
Proteins, ensuring that you
have covered everything
that you would need to
know for the exam for this
particular topic point.

SAMPLE NOTES

Specification Reference: 3.1.4.1 General Properties of Proteins

Amino acids are the building blocks used to make proteins - they are monomers.
All amino acids have the same basic structure:

- They have a central carbon (C) atom

bonded to a carboxyl group (-COOH),
an amino group (-NH2), a hydrogen
atom (-H), and an R group (-R)
-
There are 20 naturally occurring amino
acids that each have a different R group

Each amino acid has a different R group which can vary in size, polarity or
charge. This gives every amino acid different properties

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Getting Proactive
Using your time productively outside of lessons
One of the key differences between GCSE and A-level is the quantity of
independent study required of students. Therefore, keeping organised and
using your time effectively is essential for your A-level studies, especially
so you can keep on top of deadlines, prepare for mock exams and fit in
some time for revision.

Make sure to prepare for lessons. Get homework done early.

Due to the large levels of content for
each subject, teachers do not have
enough lesson time to cover all parts
of the course thoroughly so you are
expected to be responsible for your
learning. Rather than being fed all of
the information, your teachers will
encourage you to complete your
homework, wider read and take
notes from this to solidify your
learning.
The volume of homework is also
likely to increase at A-level so it is
crucial that you are completing all
your homework to solidify your
learning and understanding. If you
miss any of your lessons or
homework deadlines, you are trusted
by your teachers to catch up on this
in your own time as your learning is
your responsibility.

Get your time organised. Use free time wisely.

Creating a weekly schedule can help
you manage your studies, social life
and extracurricular activities. This
enables you to understand what can
be achieved with the available time
you have so you can prevent yourself
from falling behind. You should aim
to start your homework the day it
has been assigned rather than
leaving it to the last minute so you
are not rushing your studies, but to
also reduce your stress levels so you
can utilise your other time for
revision purposes.
You will find that you have more free
hours during your school day now
compared to GCSE due to free
periods. It is really important that you
make good use of your free periods
rather than using this time for
socialising or leaving school to go
home early. Your free periods can be
used for a multitude of activities such
as getting a headstart on your
deadlines, condensing your notes
from lessons, reviewing past paper
questions, creating flashcards and
even reading up on the next topic
before your next lesson!

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Exam Technique
Pointers that will help you crack an exam paper
One huge difference between GCSEs and A-levels is the necessary step up in
exam technique. Understanding how to breakdown and answer questions
becomes even more important in A-levels, as there are a greater variety of
question types. This can catch out even the most well-revised students, so
making sure you have practised and understand technique is key to success.
Here’s how you can prepare.

The first thing to do to a question is to break it up and identify its context,

command word and directions.

CONTEXT COMMAND WORDS DIRECTIONS

is information in the are the instructions tell you what information
question and identifies that tell you how you you need to include in
which part of the should write your your answer to get full
specification it is from. answers. marks.

These will be key to structuring your answer, as question types are indicated
by their command words. For example, in the question:

This question is about a laser pen.

Define the terms phase difference and coherence
[2 marks]

Context is shown in green, command words are shown in red and directions
are shown in blue.

You'll start to encounter essay style questions which make up a high

percentage of your exams marks. As a result, differences between grades can
hang on your ability to answer these questions. Have a look at some past
papers so you can get a feel for what these are like. Remember to always
make a relevant point, describe it and link back to the question.

You also have to start to have your own opinion about subjects and reflect
that in your answers. The only way to do this is to have the information by
learning it, and then thinking about it. Read around your subjects, stay up to
date with the latest news about it and discuss it with friends and family.

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External Reading
& Research
How to get greater context around what you're learning

Reading around areas of your Brushing up on what you learned at

courses that interest you is great for GCSE for your chosen subjects is a
familiarising yourself with the good place to start when preparing for
course. Reading magazines or news your A-levels. Often, your course will
articles and watching YouTube use the basics taught from GCSE and
videos or TED Talks are a great way build upon this in greater depth at A-
to introduce yourself to the content. level. Teachers do not always have the
You can even save particular time to teach the basics again in detail
YouTube channels which you find to so it’s great practice to make sure you
be of interest to you to refer back to are confident with this to help your
in the future! These methods are a understanding of future topics. This is
great way for you to view how your particularly relevant for languages as
subjects fit into society and daily life. not having practiced this for six weeks
All this can also come in extremely means you may forget key vocab.
helpful to use in your personal Flipping through your notes from
statement in the future. GCSE or watching revision videos
should be a good way to jog your
If you have already decided which memory and keep the knowledge fresh
subjects you are going to study, it is in your mind for when you begin your
a good idea to research into any A-levels.
learning and revision resources.
There are a wide variety of resources
out there such as textbooks and
online revision platforms which can
come in useful to consolidate your
learning and help with revision in the
future. It is key that you find out
which exam board you are studying
to ensure these materials are in line
with what you will need to learn.
Researching these platforms now
can help you save time when
beginning your studies as you have
these platforms to hand already.

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