The A Level Review

One month ago, I discussed Millwall's season and promptly vanished from the internet. I have a good excuse - I was doing my A Levels.

When you're reading this post, I should have finished my final exam, and I will update this blogpost to mention how my final two exams went - because I am doing them today. All in all, it's been a busy, somewhat surreal, and mainly chaotic month of revision, preparation, answering, and panicking. And I've managed to live through it all.

First, some context is key. My firm university choice is Imperial, and I needed AA grades - A in chemistry, and A in physics - to get in. My insurance choice is UCL, where I need AB grades - A in chemistry, and B in either physics or further maths. Obviously I'd like to get into Imperial, but my mindset was always focused on being content to get into either Imperial or UCL: both are in London; both are amongst the ten best unis globally; I wouldn't need to either go through clearing or take a gap year. From this context, my following decisions shouldn't come off as too alarming. 

20th May, 2025: Further Maths (Core Pure 1)

I came into this paper having barely revised, yet I managed to cope well with the first few questions. Then there was some question about a rambler, and it all fell apart. I even answered a question with pencil, but I'm hoping the scanner won't mind. From this, I reckon I'll get 55 or 59 marks max, depending on the scanner situation.

22nd May, 2025: Further Maths (Core Pure 2) 

Round 2 came not too long afterwards, and again I hardly revised. Everything that didn't come up in paper 1 came up here, and I think it went better for me. Alas, I didn't finish the exam, and I didn't get a matrices question, because I hadn't revised matrices. A maximum mark of 63 might be my fate, but I'm not entirely convinced I'll get it.

The main reason why it reads as if I had gambled my future away is because, if I did well in physics, I'd manage to avoid putting in a shift for further maths. Obviously I wanted as high a mark as possible, because a D isn't anything to take joy in, but I didn't want to do the exams either. The right choice would have been to drop further as soon as I got my Imperial offer, which was back in March. Yet school communication made me think this would be costly, and people encouraged me to try the exams anyways. In hindsight, this was a mistake, albeit one that hopefully won't affect me too much. 

23rd May, 2025: Physics Paper 1

I was finally going to sit the main paper, the one that would hopefully remove all the demons that were hanging over me from maths. And I think it went okay, despite my initial feelings when I opened the paper. It was only until question 14, a rather straightforward particle physics question, when I managed to understand what the other questions were wanting me to say, since Q14 had calmed me a bit. I answered every question in time, even if some answers weren't so good, and I left feeling content that my revision had paid off.

So I was somewhat surprised to see everyone else's reaction was mainly "what was that?" - and sure, that was my initial thought when I was doing the paper, but I thought I'd recovered enough for it to not be a concern. Then I realised I forgot to read a maths question properly (goodbye two marks) and it turned out a momentum question was actually very easy (goodbye three marks). Now I'm not sure what to think - a maximum of 74 marks is waiting for me, I think, and that's only on a very good day.

Afterwards, half term struck, which left me with seventeen days free of any exams. If not for me sitting my maths A Level last year, I would have had an exam on the 4th June, yet I luckily didn't. In fact, it's for the better I hadn't, because the exam timetable was only now going to get a lot more hectic.

9th June, 2025: Physics Paper 2

This was the paper I had no clue how it was going to go before I sat it. On one hand, I hardly knew all the content well enough to be confident - on the other, I knew the material I needed to know wasn't actually that in depth.

It ended up being alright, barring a lenses question and a graph. 59/90 marks were for calculations and the like, and I think I got a good share of them. There was even a question featuring the Pink Floyd album cover, which I think I got right, albeit in a convoluted manner. I think this one went better than paper 1, but I also think the paper wasn't necessarily better. I'd say I got a maximum mark of 80 or so, but I'm expecting 75 to be a realistic maximum. 

10th June, 2025: Chemistry Paper 1

I got up early for what I was expecting to be the most important A Level exam I would sit. I'm intending to study chemistry, if you're unaware, and this paper focused on physical chemistry, which is the more mathematical aspect of it. Having revised tirelessly for it, I got up early and headed to school, nervous yet also bullish.

And yet...the exam wasn't what I wanted it to be. We started after a 23 minute delay, because some students sitting a Polish exam didn't have the materials they needed. And when I did the exam, I failed to know what a melting point graph should look like, and I got a titration calculation wrong. It was overall a rather stressful experience, and I was convinced I hadn't done enough. I was ashamed that I could belong in the same exam hall as the other students.

At this point, it's worth mentioning the Student Room, which is a forum full of rather geeky students. Many believed the exam was easy - and I, as someone doing OCR A, agreed (it seems that those doing AQA and Edexcel truly suffered). The exam wasn't full of difficult questions - I had merely failed to answer them correctly. But some days later, I'd calmed down a bit and realised that I was only certain I had lost six marks. So that means my maximum mark was 94/100 or so, but realistically that might go down to 90 or the like. By far my least favourite exam to this point.

From here I had another six days off, before my final stressful exams were to come up. Five exams in five days, at a time when many humanities students had long finished their papers. 

16th June, 2025: Chemistry Paper 2

On the 10th, having done Paper 1, I suspected I needed to perform much better in Paper 2, which focuses on organic chemistry. I wasn't so good in it, however, so I took to redoing almost every A Level paper for OCR A. The results were good, so I felt ready for paper 2 - not perfect, but also not completely bewildered.

The exam took place in a classroom, the door open due to high temperatures, and I could hear muttering the whole time from the corridors, and at one point loud talking from people who had sat an exam in the room opposite. This strangely made me more focused, as I find slight noise to be more reassuring than complete silence. And the exam actually went quite well, though yet again there were some confusing questions which I likely lost marks on. The maximum mark I can get is 96/100, though yet again this is only on questions I am certain I got wrong - I likely made various other mistakes, so 90/100 is the more realistic maximum for me.

The final question was an NMR question, which is where the Student Room yet again comes into play. I got an answer which I later changed for something else, something I was certain was right. And yet the forum almost unanimously sided with my first answer, which had me doubting my abilities once more. From euphoria to dysphoria, in a matter of minutes.

However, my final answer later turned out to be more of a possibility than they had expected, all because someone in the forum brought up a mass spectrum - the exact same mass spectrum I had used to justify my answer. Now, I'm not sure if I got the question right or not, but the fact I'm not alone cheers me up a bit, especially as I love proton-NMR questions - they're like crossword puzzles, albeit ones you need a thin rulebook to read before starting.

17th June, 2025: Physics Paper 3

The end of physics...shambolic. I don't know what the question writers were thinking.

Papers 1 and 2 didn't include questions on capacitors, diffraction, the particle nature of light, and circular motion. None of those topics came up in paper 3...yet they decided to include a six marker on pressure and momentum again. A very similar question came up in paper 2, and sure, I knew how to answer it, but I didn't think they would repeat a question from the same exam series. 

There were many weird questions, including one on finding the Young modulus which reminded me of A Level maths, where you'd find ratios of quantities and use them to get your answer. It was a playful question, one I enjoyed doing, when I actually managed to work out what it meant - before then, it was merely frustrating.

There was a question on particle physics, in what was meant to be a paper focusing on practical techniques. No school that I know of has access to a particle collider, yet here we were, having to answer a six marker on it.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this paper, but I'm also not sure if it went as badly as I thought it did. I'm likely to get max 90/120, but more realistically I'll be stuck at a maximum of 75-80. Still not bad, and it means that if my estimations are correct, I'll be going to at least UCL, maybe Imperial, should I do well in chemistry. 

18th June, 2025: Further Maths (Further Pure 1)

You forgot I was doing this subject, didn't you?

In the previous month, I hadn't revised any further maths. I sat down to do two hours, and entered the exam hall somewhat annoyed that I hadn't dropped this damned subject. If I did as well in physics as I thought I did, I wouldn't need to do well here. 

The first seven questions were good, the final two were awful, I'll get a maximum of 57-63/75 marks. 

20th June, 2025: Chemistry Paper 3

This was merely a top-up paper to me, since I thought I'd done enough in Papers 1 and 2. However, I still wanted to do as best as I could - and I think I performed very well. I'm delighted with how it seems to have gone for me, and I reckon I can get a maximum mark of 65 - and perhaps, I'll be looking at an A*. Not bad at all, though there was an enthalpy question at the end which tripped me up a bit.

20th June, 2025: Further Maths (Decision 1)

Coming out as I entered, exactly a month after it all started. And I think this paper went well; considering how important timing is in Decision, I answered every question aside from a fiddly five marker at the end. My maximum score is 70, but I reckon it will be closer to 60. Not bad for a paper I hardly revised for. And, like that, it was all over.

Epilogue

Well, it's all over now, isn't it? After seven years, I'll no longer need to go to school, sit in uniform even when temperatures are far too high, study subjects I regret choosing, or seeing the same people every day. It's odd that it's gone so quickly, but I'm also looking forward to the future - especially the one where I get to enjoy university and whatnot. And also the one where this blog returns to its previous state, not least as its second birthday looms. 

Which reminds me - I've been in sixth form and revising A Levels for as long as this blog has existed. What an odd thought.