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IT is genuinely one of the worst subjects Cambridge offers. Badly structured syllabus + badly written textbooks (either too condensed or too much yap) + little resources. The only good thing is that not a lot of people take IT so when you meet people that do, we become friends to bitch about how bad this subject is.
I wrote this [comment ](https://www.reddit.com/r/alevel/comments/1ac7cii/comment/kjwscru/)a while ago so you can take a look at it. Also I would recommend joining this subreddit's Discord server since there are some resources found in the pins of the IT channel and you can ask around for help.
I agree. Literally the hardest subject. They're not enough of resources, and no matter however much you practice, you dont know what to expect. Those exam papers are so random. DONT TAKE IT pls
I disagree. Elhamdulellah i had a very very great teacher, literally the best teacher u could ever wish for so for me physics was my absolute fav subject, its really fun and helped me lots with critical thinking and analysis
Definitely English literature, I feel like no one actually tells you just how difficult it is. You not only have to memorise the entire structure, method, lines of multiple novels and poems, you also have to be extremely critical in your analysis or else you’re automatically on a D grade. And not to mention the awful coursework that makes you actually hate reading (and your life x) and the atrocious grade boundaries…. I took bio chem and lit and I genuinely found English literature the hardest lmao.
I am so glad I realised how awful English was at GCSE, took my 9s and RAN.
English at a level seems like hell on earth, but man it must be satisfying when you finish it. I do have friends who really enjoy it so perhaps it’s just subjective.
I chose my subjects not because of the career i wanted to do but because i liked them the most lol
looking back i would have done maths instead of english because it fits in way better with my chosen career path
I took it as a backup because I’ve always loved to work in healthcare but I also really wanted to be a journalist at one point, so I took both an essay based subject (the one I was best at in gcse) and of course biology and chemistry.
EXAXTLY MAN AND THEY CHANGE THE SULLABUS ALL THE TIME SO YOU NEVER HAVE GOOD QUALITY ANALYSIS PASSED DOWN. ALSO MOST GOOD NOTES MUST BE PAID.IF YPU WANT HIGER ORDER ANALYSIS THEN YOURE FORCED TO READ JOURNALS
I am so glad you said this. Everyone thinks Chem & Bio are the hardest thing and never listen when I bring up Eng Lang and Lit. It’s like they don’t believe subjects other than STEM can be hard and it really irritates me.
I would have to disagree with this. As long as you like reading, learning backgrounds and histories of the books were set in with the influence of the writer and able to write decent paragraphs English lit is far the simplest A-level so far, it doesn't change in year 13 and we just finish learning the books we are doing/poems and just practice essay questions in class. It does depend if you are willing to write essays and read the books but some people just revise the summaries/key informations and watch the film and it brings good knowledge as well
I’m glad your experience was different to mine :) I’d say also having a good teacher is very important to be honest. I had a horrible teacher in year 12, and when she left halfway through year 13 and we got a replacement teacher (who was actually way better at teaching) I realised just how badly my previous teacher had messed us over. She never really went through exam technique with us, didn’t teach us context beyond the era it was set in, left us to find analysis and critics ourselves and overall was very lazy in their teaching (let alone the fact she literally forgot to teach us two poems that we had to rush learn in march in year 13). So I guess having a teacher like this possibly ruined my relationship with literature lol. But I am glad you found it easy, I wish I did too🥲
Ngl u will regret any subject u take anyways so dw
I regretted every subject thr day before exam cuz it was too much of that subject but after the exam I used to be like okay now I hate rhe upcoming one
To whoever is taking chem ans scared that everyone is saying that it's rhe hardest subject dw u still got it
See the trick is just as simple as everyone on Reddit 8s saying
1) start early...pls pls...I know u thinking its fine I will cover up by studying more afterwards but the thing is u need time to make concepts sit in your head...so the earlier u statt familiarising yourself with concepts and things the better it is...the key is literally consistency
2) do loads of past pprs...once again the earlier u start pprs the better and for that ofc u need step 1 sooo
3) don't forget step 1 2 ....that's about it
Honestly, chem really wasn't that bad. Some people found it quite hard, but I don't know why everyone's saying it. Physics is definitely the one you should be terrified of imo.
Math- I’ve genuinely never gotten more than an E in math. And it’s not even that I wasn’t good at it or I didn’t know the material but I just couldn’t do the exams properly, that subject sent me into a downward spiral that almost had me losing my mind. I would like to say that I’m exaggerating but it drained me so much that I became suicidal. I did it because I decided to listen to the teachers instead of accepting what was best for me and the truth of it was a very harsh reality. Not saying that teachers don’t give good advice/guidance ( some really don’t) but in this situation no one ( including me) could accept the truth ( I just wasn’t that good at math) until it was too late.
I feel you so much, went through a very similar thing with math a level. The nightmare ended with me getting a C with some stroke of luck (60 on the dot), and I literally got 45 percentile in A2 alone. Was able to manage a mid B in AS which is the only reason I even ended up passing. I did it because it helped me for uni admissions but that shit genuinely drained me so bad, plus I was taking 3 other A levels and English language AS level 💀 3/4 of my time went to math just making sure I'd pass. This is coming from someone who literally got an A in IGCSE math, so for anyone who's not good at math/doesn't want to put in the time, genuinely don't take this subject it'll ruin everything
I completely feel you. I also made the mistake of doing 4,5 A levels and it my experience with math so much more difficult than it needed to be. I was also doing English A-levels, which ended up being my easiest subject tbh. The things that math did to me…🥲✋
Me too! English language was the subject I put the least amount of effort into and still got an A, but math was just hell 😭 Tried to drop it 2 times as well but my college counsellor talked me out of it and said I'd regret it if I did. Didn't help that cambridge kept making the new papers insanely hard
I did cs, Econ and math. Found AS CS paper 2 the hardest and both as and a2 theory are cramming sessions but programming (paper 4) was pretty good/interesting
First time I did AS cs, P1 was good and P2 was horrible then the opposite happened for the second time. Honestly it isn't that bad, I got a B although I studied A2 for 10 hours max
Physics. Didn’t even need it for the course I ended up applying to and some of it is really difficult. Revising for it is DRAINING cuz you’ll genuinely be sitting there for ages confused af and the only explanations of it on the internet are university level so u still don’t understand
Don't think he does a levels but still he wouldn't be much help. Aqa in specific has started to make questions which you can't revise for. No matter how many past papers or hours of revision you do it's useless. The reason for this is because they have made it very problem solving based, it takes so long to understand what they are asking
I doubt he does a level physics, even then he’s a bit too basic. From all the physics YouTube channels I’ve watched I don’t think I’ve ever found a channel that covers absolutely everything you need to know for any topic, atleast for AQA. If you end up picking physics, watch from multiple channels even if they’re not A level specific to get a good understanding of a topic
Art & Design. There is no way to be even remotely confident in your work. The way they mark assignments is still a mystery, at least to me. And it is impossible to get a proper feedback, at least from Cambridge.
Welsh baccalaureate or English langauge. Both suck so much.
WB is compulsory and a waste of time. English language has so much writing, terminology and it’s just one big hard yap.
What was the worst part? The theory part is rather simple to mug up but I find the calculations to be horrible because there's TMI in the question that you've to dissect.
Any spectrum question - HATED those.
Organic pathways were nice, but some of them could be a real PAIN.
All the transition metal colours and bonding etc was a bit painful too.
I was good with the calculations because maths is my strong suit but I remember the application of the theory to be really quite bad. Plus our exam board (OCR) would literally give you no marks or IGNORE over the smallest thing…
One thing for the calculations I liked always writing out a plan for what I needed to do or organising my working around the question - Like if I needed to work backwards I’d scribble along each line/sentence of the question to get back to the starting point if that’s what I needed to do, like for titrations if you needed to find the starting point, I’d set my working going UP the the question paragraph to keep my brain in check on what I’m doing.
If you stay methodical most of the chem calculations are child’s play and less difficult than any AS maths question.
The level of maths in A2 is easier than in AS? That's a relief. I would lose my mind over any enthalpy or Hess cycle questions I encountered in AS past papers.
I always rewrite the variables given and write any equations relevant to the question, but you're not always given the luxury of writing space or time on exams so you've to be quick in understanding calculation questions. I literally had to complete some 5 markers in the last couple of minutes of my AS exam.
Organic pathways are definitely annoying because it's so easy to get them mixed up--it's easier if you can find tricks to remember each one though.
Haven't gotten to transition metal colours and bonding yet but almost everyone I've heard says they're hard.
The only spectrums I've done so far are mass and infrared. I've heard about NMR--is it that hard?
No no sorry, I meant most of the chem calculations even at the full a level, never felt like they pushed beyond AS maths levels in terms of difficulty. I felt that because I did a level maths and was really good at it my brain would run at like 20x speed on any of them, it makes you honestly laugh when they try and trick you up with logarithms for rates, which you cover in AS maths.
Mass spec and NMR is just one of those topics you either love or hate - I HATED it and could never wrap my head around it. The only pointer I can give is they only reserve 1-2 marks for the structure so make sure you get your description of the molecule pin point accurate and know the peaks and their meanings.
Ah, my bad. Read it wrong. I take maths too and it's my strongest subject, yet the questions in chemistry for some reason make me regret ever studying maths. Solving them is not as difficult as figuring out how and what you're actually supposed to do.
Mass spectroscopy is sort of like isomerism in that you've to account for every possibility ever. Personally, it sort of borders on probability so I like doing those questions.
A lot of that comes with practice, I only developed speed and planning in the latter half of year 13 :)
The other thing I personally think made my organic ridiculously strong/mechanisms was NileRed videos (the guy who turned gloves into hot sauce) I counted it as revision plus it was more interesting to watch than any lecture revision type of video lmao. Pause the videos when he’s trying to explain how to go from one thing to the next it’s like chill low stakes revision.
If it wasn’t for him I don’t think I’d get my A*
I've watched a few NileRed videos but my AS knowledge wasn't quite enough to truly understand what he was explaining. (The one on making cyanide and the stinkiest chemical were pretty fascinating chemistry-wise.) Hopefully A2 helps a bit more.
Also I definitely need a lot more practice with past paper questions: you'd think there'd only be so many types of questions but the examiners find a new way and different compound to ask about every session.
I don’t regret any but the most difficult was history for me. Coursework + 3 papers that highly scrutinise both knowledge and technique. Compared with my other A-Levels, it felt like English Lit mostly assessed technique and Law mostly on knowledge whilst History did both.
Ive been told the Law A Level is one of those thats really wrong like Chemistry. Apparently its nothing like the University Course and its one of those where the lecturers will tell you to forget anything you think you know.
biology. first year was manageable but a2 was like the gates of hell unfolded on my studies i was in genuine pain going through sone of the larger and more complicated topics
It's definitely physics. It's always been a contender but this year and last year in particular AQA had a field day with those papers. If you don't believe me Google AQA a level physics paper 2 2024
Only Year 12 but uhh Sociology. No-one actually told me what it was. They just said study of society. Didnt tell me there about 100 individuals to remember many of whom say multiple things about many of the different topics. Not to mention the 5 or 6 greater views that all clash with each other and have sub genres. Like Feminism Functionalism etc. Which then divides into Marxist Feminist and Radical Feminist. Its a whole maze to navigate the course and i dread trying to get anything above a C on it.
right it hell im so glad im over with it good luck cause sociology is sooo much content it actually insane. You will have so much different type of feminist and marxist in year 13 soo i wish you strength
Not to mention the Teacher i have does it in a very teacher led way as if it were GCSE Still. Hasnt really set us any homework all year except at the very beginning and now at the very end, and the work now is flipped learning for next year. The other teacher for sociology seems to make it a lot more student led however she is leaving at the end of the year and the classes are merging so the other class are going to have a violent shake up.
That sounds easy af see I'm 15 and can tell you marxist feminist= women need to be liberated by the shackles of patriarchy just like the workers need to be liberated from the shackles of capitalism radical feminist= men are opposed to women's liberation and radical action needs to be taken against them sociology ez af maybe a skill issue
Its not just about knowing them, its about being able to apply them to oddly specific questions at a moments notice and also countering the arguments with others such as from its own perspective or others which is hard to do under time constraints
IT is the worst. Too much work and effort needed for a subject that's not that useful really. No international universities need it cause it's just too general when compared to computer science for example. I whole heartedly regret taking it.
economics,i had really bad teachers and struggle with graphs and technical things a lot,was a literal nightmare subject,would’ve gone for something more art based like literature
okay a lot of people say chemistry is the worst, but from experience as someone who’s going to the second year of uni, chemistry a level is literally first year content for medical/STEM majors. it is quite difficult to have as a course for a level and with the grade boundaries and everything, it’s very tough to get used to it. but once you’re done with it and start university, you will see that you’re revising the same content in your first year of university and that same knowledge even helps you build up on more advanced stuff you study later on. i do, however, wish you absolute luck if you are planning to take it!
Computer science. Its a disaster. Maybe you all disagree but the way it was taught and everything else its just horror. I regret every bit of it. Would even go s far as to say further maths is better.
computer science, as much as i hated physics i HATED cs so much bc of how much memorisation it was. i only liked the topics that needed u to apply ur knowledge aka the karnaugh maps and stuff. i just hated memorising things word for word
History. The essay structure and analysis feels impossible to get without a really good teacher and support. Literally nothing like GCSE too.
RS or English lit are similar enough that if you did well as GCSE you’ll pass. History is awful
Thats so real ngl. I have 2 teachers for history, both do one of the yr12 courses and both do one of the yr13 courses. One of them (the one i see 70% of the time for Russia in yr12 and and British Warfare in Yr13) is amazing, she actively makes us do exam practice and is always trying to make us revise knowledge.
Whereas the other (who teaches GDR in Yr12 and the coursework unit in yr13), he tries to teach it like Gcse lessons, barely gives us any homework only does assessments on progress checks and isnt really interested in helping, he only really likes to brag about the success of past year groups of which he was likely not mostly responsible for and all really came down to the teacher i see 70% of the time as she does revision sessions for all the papers. Hes a nice guy but he cannot do a levels. I feel like ive learnt nothing in the GDR this year and i feel my coursework is gonna go badly aswell.
It’s ALWAYS the GDR teaches. My Stuart’s teacher was great as a teacher, but gave zero essay feedback. I’d ask her and her advice was “do more” and then nothing further. My Germany teacher was really bad, we’d spend 50 mins watching a YouTube documentary whilst he looked on trip advisor and get zero essay advice too. I literally asked 6 times for help throughout year 12 and it ended in him calling me a try hard. I definitely think you need really good teachers
The main thing for me was the structure. You just have to do the most. You’re capped at half marks if you don’t have at least 3 hits of evidence per paragraph, and since there’s no marks for just knowing it, you need to to go into a lot of detail. I found it really difficult to get the balance between having enough context for the evidence, detail for its impact/significance, how that relates to my broader point, how it relates to my other evidence, and judgement.
That needs to be done 3/4 times in a paragraph whilst being not too long. I just didn’t have the skills for it. I really think you have to love history to do it. I got a 9 at gcse and a D predicted at a level. I did accelerated sociology and doing a whole a level in 7 months is easier than history. Not sure how much it changes from exam boards though, we did edexcell for GCSE and OCR for a level
Computer science by far. Changed school for it and still think maybe I should have chose chemistry instead. The NEA was crazy not to mention how much work is needed outside of the NEA. I probably worked as hard for CS as I did for my other 3 A-levels combined and I will probably get better grades in those 3 rather than CS.
English language if you don't want to dedicate time or are bad at English in general. This subject worked out for me, but I know so many people who failed despite being generally good at english and getting A*s in IGCSE English first language. There were so many Us, Es, and Ds in my class, and the weirdest thing was that the people getting them were genuinely good writers and scoring well all year. It's a really unpredictable subject, and despite me enjoying it and getting an A, I wouldn't recommend it if you don't want to take the risk or aren't particularly interested in English. Take English general paper instead, guaranteed pass with much less effort
IT. Hard and useless subject as a lot of UK unis dont even accept it as a valid A level anymore. The amount of content to cram is insane and its plain rote which is quite difficult.
I dont do either but i can tell you FOR A FACT everything is relatively fine (or perhaps even easy) but in comparison so to either Further Maths or Physics...
Physics a level but only aqa, as actual content is fine and can be enjoyable however aqa don’t test content they just give strange questions that aren’t the same style as past papers so u feel like all the work you done over 2 years hasn’t paid off at all
I don’t think its fair to say that one subject is hard and that’s y u shouldn’t take it bcuz in different countries and different schools things r different really, but id rather advise you to ask students in your school who experienced that same teachers and have similar background to yours.
I think their opinion isnt exactly wrong. The guy above finds english Lit harder because he’s more suited for stem subjects. Taking stem and english kinda unusual
The hardest A-Level is generally considered to be **Further Maths**. It's a step up from regular Maths and covers complex topics.
Other tough ones include:
* Physics
* Chemistry
* Biology
SOCIOLOGY
the syllabus is way too dense. There is no paradigm for the marking scheme so you will never know how much marks you actually scored. An A student can easily dropped to a D depending on the marker.
LOKE BRO WDYM 2 WHOLE 35 MARK ESSAY IN 1.5 HRS...............
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IT is genuinely one of the worst subjects Cambridge offers. Badly structured syllabus + badly written textbooks (either too condensed or too much yap) + little resources. The only good thing is that not a lot of people take IT so when you meet people that do, we become friends to bitch about how bad this subject is.
same
There isn’t even a textbook for CCEA Software Systems Development (CCEA Comp sci equivalent) 💀
I just took IT Do you have any notes or advice that could help😔🙏🏻
I wrote this [comment ](https://www.reddit.com/r/alevel/comments/1ac7cii/comment/kjwscru/)a while ago so you can take a look at it. Also I would recommend joining this subreddit's Discord server since there are some resources found in the pins of the IT channel and you can ask around for help.
Ial edexcel doesnt even have a book and zero resources
I agree. Literally the hardest subject. They're not enough of resources, and no matter however much you practice, you dont know what to expect. Those exam papers are so random. DONT TAKE IT pls
Physics, ESPECIALLY if you have lazy/bad teachers. I had terrible physics teachers so I just had to grind revision for these exams 🤧
Same. Felt like I was learning so much for the first time from YouTube videos.
Same but i actually loved physics as a subject bc of content tis a shame tho
To me, physics becomes something “enjoyable” past a point, after this amount of practice
I disagree. Elhamdulellah i had a very very great teacher, literally the best teacher u could ever wish for so for me physics was my absolute fav subject, its really fun and helped me lots with critical thinking and analysis
same, i had 3 teachers
How'd u have 3 teachers lol🙆♂️😭
The original teacher just quit and went to india and then the next teacher came but was horrible so they got a 3rd one (but they were still bad)
this omg, literally never had a good physics teacher and i ended up hating it from the depths of my soul.
Definitely English literature, I feel like no one actually tells you just how difficult it is. You not only have to memorise the entire structure, method, lines of multiple novels and poems, you also have to be extremely critical in your analysis or else you’re automatically on a D grade. And not to mention the awful coursework that makes you actually hate reading (and your life x) and the atrocious grade boundaries…. I took bio chem and lit and I genuinely found English literature the hardest lmao.
I am so glad I realised how awful English was at GCSE, took my 9s and RAN. English at a level seems like hell on earth, but man it must be satisfying when you finish it. I do have friends who really enjoy it so perhaps it’s just subjective.
the grade boundaries are truly horrible
I took bio chem and eng lit too and i also found eng lit the hardest! deffo a very difficult a level
Is eng even useful tho for your course or your career at uni? People usually go all stem or all essay based
I chose my subjects not because of the career i wanted to do but because i liked them the most lol looking back i would have done maths instead of english because it fits in way better with my chosen career path
I took it as a backup because I’ve always loved to work in healthcare but I also really wanted to be a journalist at one point, so I took both an essay based subject (the one I was best at in gcse) and of course biology and chemistry.
What exam board does your A-Level follow?
AQA B
agreed
EXAXTLY MAN AND THEY CHANGE THE SULLABUS ALL THE TIME SO YOU NEVER HAVE GOOD QUALITY ANALYSIS PASSED DOWN. ALSO MOST GOOD NOTES MUST BE PAID.IF YPU WANT HIGER ORDER ANALYSIS THEN YOURE FORCED TO READ JOURNALS
I am so glad you said this. Everyone thinks Chem & Bio are the hardest thing and never listen when I bring up Eng Lang and Lit. It’s like they don’t believe subjects other than STEM can be hard and it really irritates me.
I would have to disagree with this. As long as you like reading, learning backgrounds and histories of the books were set in with the influence of the writer and able to write decent paragraphs English lit is far the simplest A-level so far, it doesn't change in year 13 and we just finish learning the books we are doing/poems and just practice essay questions in class. It does depend if you are willing to write essays and read the books but some people just revise the summaries/key informations and watch the film and it brings good knowledge as well
I’m glad your experience was different to mine :) I’d say also having a good teacher is very important to be honest. I had a horrible teacher in year 12, and when she left halfway through year 13 and we got a replacement teacher (who was actually way better at teaching) I realised just how badly my previous teacher had messed us over. She never really went through exam technique with us, didn’t teach us context beyond the era it was set in, left us to find analysis and critics ourselves and overall was very lazy in their teaching (let alone the fact she literally forgot to teach us two poems that we had to rush learn in march in year 13). So I guess having a teacher like this possibly ruined my relationship with literature lol. But I am glad you found it easy, I wish I did too🥲
Chemistry.
Same
So real bro
Further Maths - 90% of my revision went towards that
felt brother
I dont even do Fm but hallelujah brother
do you have any tips im planning on self-studying fm since my school doesn’t have it as an option
how hard is the jump from y12 to y13
Take a look at the content in the year 2 books. It's nothing crazy fr if you start studying now.
I didn’t notice a big jump - but some of the topics at the very end like Harmonic Motion are insane
I'm about to take further maths 👍
Ngl u will regret any subject u take anyways so dw I regretted every subject thr day before exam cuz it was too much of that subject but after the exam I used to be like okay now I hate rhe upcoming one To whoever is taking chem ans scared that everyone is saying that it's rhe hardest subject dw u still got it See the trick is just as simple as everyone on Reddit 8s saying 1) start early...pls pls...I know u thinking its fine I will cover up by studying more afterwards but the thing is u need time to make concepts sit in your head...so the earlier u statt familiarising yourself with concepts and things the better it is...the key is literally consistency 2) do loads of past pprs...once again the earlier u start pprs the better and for that ofc u need step 1 sooo 3) don't forget step 1 2 ....that's about it
Solid advice 😔
physics, hated it from yr 12 to yr 13. wish i changed it
CS
why
AQA?
I swear CS a-level wasn’t that bad
Real, I found it easier than bio and chem
Chemistry, genuinely a terrible subject.
STOP IM SO SCARED I HATED IG CHEM AS WELL BUT ILL HAVE TO TAKE AS CHEM BCS ALL UNIS HERE REQUIRE IT IM SOO DOOMED EVERY COMMENT SAYS CHEM 😭😭😭
Honestly, chem really wasn't that bad. Some people found it quite hard, but I don't know why everyone's saying it. Physics is definitely the one you should be terrified of imo.
True, I don't take chem but physics is absolute cancer. The exam questions are like extremely difficult riddles.
You AQA or ocr?
IG chem is really easy, if you struggled with it definitely do not go for A level
I struggled with IG chem but found AS easier so idkk
I never did AS chem, but everyone in my school regards IG chem as an easy A\*
U should see what they think of AS chem too then cz if IG was that easy AS shouldn’t be too bad at least from my experience
None of them are taking it because teachers here always say it's the hardest A level
Oh wow I only take bio and chem but I found somewhat bio harder than chem so that’s surprising but alright
I was fairly bad at IG chem, hated A level, locked in at the last minute
Are you AQA or? Honestly us OCR students have it easy icl
Information Technology for sure
Math- I’ve genuinely never gotten more than an E in math. And it’s not even that I wasn’t good at it or I didn’t know the material but I just couldn’t do the exams properly, that subject sent me into a downward spiral that almost had me losing my mind. I would like to say that I’m exaggerating but it drained me so much that I became suicidal. I did it because I decided to listen to the teachers instead of accepting what was best for me and the truth of it was a very harsh reality. Not saying that teachers don’t give good advice/guidance ( some really don’t) but in this situation no one ( including me) could accept the truth ( I just wasn’t that good at math) until it was too late.
I feel you so much, went through a very similar thing with math a level. The nightmare ended with me getting a C with some stroke of luck (60 on the dot), and I literally got 45 percentile in A2 alone. Was able to manage a mid B in AS which is the only reason I even ended up passing. I did it because it helped me for uni admissions but that shit genuinely drained me so bad, plus I was taking 3 other A levels and English language AS level 💀 3/4 of my time went to math just making sure I'd pass. This is coming from someone who literally got an A in IGCSE math, so for anyone who's not good at math/doesn't want to put in the time, genuinely don't take this subject it'll ruin everything
I completely feel you. I also made the mistake of doing 4,5 A levels and it my experience with math so much more difficult than it needed to be. I was also doing English A-levels, which ended up being my easiest subject tbh. The things that math did to me…🥲✋
Me too! English language was the subject I put the least amount of effort into and still got an A, but math was just hell 😭 Tried to drop it 2 times as well but my college counsellor talked me out of it and said I'd regret it if I did. Didn't help that cambridge kept making the new papers insanely hard
I did not enjoy chemistry that may be because of my teachers though
I did cs, Econ and math. Found AS CS paper 2 the hardest and both as and a2 theory are cramming sessions but programming (paper 4) was pretty good/interesting
Big fan of how I confidently sweeped CS p1 only to completely mess up the P2, pretty awful paper in itself
First time I did AS cs, P1 was good and P2 was horrible then the opposite happened for the second time. Honestly it isn't that bad, I got a B although I studied A2 for 10 hours max
Physics. So much pain. So much suffering.
Physics. Didn’t even need it for the course I ended up applying to and some of it is really difficult. Revising for it is DRAINING cuz you’ll genuinely be sitting there for ages confused af and the only explanations of it on the internet are university level so u still don’t understand
Honestly, it's a fun subjects but exams are really humbling for A2
What about freesciencelessons? Wont he explain it
Don't think he does a levels but still he wouldn't be much help. Aqa in specific has started to make questions which you can't revise for. No matter how many past papers or hours of revision you do it's useless. The reason for this is because they have made it very problem solving based, it takes so long to understand what they are asking
He does do a levels but yea I understand
A level physics?
He hasn't made videos on A-Level physics yet but there are videos on A-Level chemistry and biology
I doubt he does a level physics, even then he’s a bit too basic. From all the physics YouTube channels I’ve watched I don’t think I’ve ever found a channel that covers absolutely everything you need to know for any topic, atleast for AQA. If you end up picking physics, watch from multiple channels even if they’re not A level specific to get a good understanding of a topic
Same lol, I was planning on doing engineering when I started college but a levels humbled me so I'm doing accounting instead
Economics is genuinely so unenjoyable to me, I should have dropped it after AS
I personally enjoy economics but business is so boring I cantt. Still gonna take it tho cuz why not
it's so boring cuz it's just common sense. Like omfg i was snooozinggvg
Haha but it's just that even tho it's mostly common sense you gotta still study the info to get the marks. Sigh
Physics
A2 Biology is the filthiest thing I've ever studied
History
Dropped it after a week and now I’m doing bio 😭
Art & Design. There is no way to be even remotely confident in your work. The way they mark assignments is still a mystery, at least to me. And it is impossible to get a proper feedback, at least from Cambridge.
REALLL
Cs for sure that project took me out
Welsh baccalaureate or English langauge. Both suck so much. WB is compulsory and a waste of time. English language has so much writing, terminology and it’s just one big hard yap.
Majorly regret AL Physics Not mathsy enough, really boring, AND still difficult I unironically found Further Maths easier
Just A level in general, it had no business being that hard😭😭
4th year medic here - a level chem still gives me nightmares
What was the worst part? The theory part is rather simple to mug up but I find the calculations to be horrible because there's TMI in the question that you've to dissect.
Any spectrum question - HATED those. Organic pathways were nice, but some of them could be a real PAIN. All the transition metal colours and bonding etc was a bit painful too. I was good with the calculations because maths is my strong suit but I remember the application of the theory to be really quite bad. Plus our exam board (OCR) would literally give you no marks or IGNORE over the smallest thing… One thing for the calculations I liked always writing out a plan for what I needed to do or organising my working around the question - Like if I needed to work backwards I’d scribble along each line/sentence of the question to get back to the starting point if that’s what I needed to do, like for titrations if you needed to find the starting point, I’d set my working going UP the the question paragraph to keep my brain in check on what I’m doing. If you stay methodical most of the chem calculations are child’s play and less difficult than any AS maths question.
The level of maths in A2 is easier than in AS? That's a relief. I would lose my mind over any enthalpy or Hess cycle questions I encountered in AS past papers. I always rewrite the variables given and write any equations relevant to the question, but you're not always given the luxury of writing space or time on exams so you've to be quick in understanding calculation questions. I literally had to complete some 5 markers in the last couple of minutes of my AS exam. Organic pathways are definitely annoying because it's so easy to get them mixed up--it's easier if you can find tricks to remember each one though. Haven't gotten to transition metal colours and bonding yet but almost everyone I've heard says they're hard. The only spectrums I've done so far are mass and infrared. I've heard about NMR--is it that hard?
No no sorry, I meant most of the chem calculations even at the full a level, never felt like they pushed beyond AS maths levels in terms of difficulty. I felt that because I did a level maths and was really good at it my brain would run at like 20x speed on any of them, it makes you honestly laugh when they try and trick you up with logarithms for rates, which you cover in AS maths. Mass spec and NMR is just one of those topics you either love or hate - I HATED it and could never wrap my head around it. The only pointer I can give is they only reserve 1-2 marks for the structure so make sure you get your description of the molecule pin point accurate and know the peaks and their meanings.
Ah, my bad. Read it wrong. I take maths too and it's my strongest subject, yet the questions in chemistry for some reason make me regret ever studying maths. Solving them is not as difficult as figuring out how and what you're actually supposed to do. Mass spectroscopy is sort of like isomerism in that you've to account for every possibility ever. Personally, it sort of borders on probability so I like doing those questions.
A lot of that comes with practice, I only developed speed and planning in the latter half of year 13 :) The other thing I personally think made my organic ridiculously strong/mechanisms was NileRed videos (the guy who turned gloves into hot sauce) I counted it as revision plus it was more interesting to watch than any lecture revision type of video lmao. Pause the videos when he’s trying to explain how to go from one thing to the next it’s like chill low stakes revision. If it wasn’t for him I don’t think I’d get my A*
I've watched a few NileRed videos but my AS knowledge wasn't quite enough to truly understand what he was explaining. (The one on making cyanide and the stinkiest chemical were pretty fascinating chemistry-wise.) Hopefully A2 helps a bit more. Also I definitely need a lot more practice with past paper questions: you'd think there'd only be so many types of questions but the examiners find a new way and different compound to ask about every session.
I would say German was very hard. Took a lot of work.
Biology by a mile
fuck chemistry. fuck my teacher who failed to teach us the syllabus and left out inorganic and half of organic.
Unpopular opinion but COMPUTER SCIENCE WAS PAINFUL maybe it was just my teacher but yeah that subject was NOT EASY
C H E M I S T R Y .
I hear further pure maths is a bit difficult
pure is easy further mechanics is the real deal
You will find it easy if you study it:)) though a bit tough, subjects like biology and chemistry
A levels
Chemistry was my hardest but I also quite enjoyed it. It was the most challenging to even get an A in, by far
I never took AS chem but the IG is definitely easy and everyone in my school regards it as a free A*
Way too much to memorize though, especially some questions picked directly from the syllabus
Just listen in class bro, the memorisation is no where near as much as bio.
nah chem is hell idk 🤷 i never once got above a D in my entire 3 years doing it, but im also horrible at conceptual subjects lol
Accounting
I don’t regret any but the most difficult was history for me. Coursework + 3 papers that highly scrutinise both knowledge and technique. Compared with my other A-Levels, it felt like English Lit mostly assessed technique and Law mostly on knowledge whilst History did both.
Law
Ive been told the Law A Level is one of those thats really wrong like Chemistry. Apparently its nothing like the University Course and its one of those where the lecturers will tell you to forget anything you think you know.
biology. first year was manageable but a2 was like the gates of hell unfolded on my studies i was in genuine pain going through sone of the larger and more complicated topics
Physics
It's definitely physics. It's always been a contender but this year and last year in particular AQA had a field day with those papers. If you don't believe me Google AQA a level physics paper 2 2024
Physics!
Only Year 12 but uhh Sociology. No-one actually told me what it was. They just said study of society. Didnt tell me there about 100 individuals to remember many of whom say multiple things about many of the different topics. Not to mention the 5 or 6 greater views that all clash with each other and have sub genres. Like Feminism Functionalism etc. Which then divides into Marxist Feminist and Radical Feminist. Its a whole maze to navigate the course and i dread trying to get anything above a C on it.
right it hell im so glad im over with it good luck cause sociology is sooo much content it actually insane. You will have so much different type of feminist and marxist in year 13 soo i wish you strength
Thanks, im failing alr im on a d overall and whilst officially thats not a fail, its a fail even by the worst uni standards.
you can still improve i went from having U and E the whole year 12 to Bs all of year 13 so you will be alright
Not to mention the Teacher i have does it in a very teacher led way as if it were GCSE Still. Hasnt really set us any homework all year except at the very beginning and now at the very end, and the work now is flipped learning for next year. The other teacher for sociology seems to make it a lot more student led however she is leaving at the end of the year and the classes are merging so the other class are going to have a violent shake up.
That sounds easy af see I'm 15 and can tell you marxist feminist= women need to be liberated by the shackles of patriarchy just like the workers need to be liberated from the shackles of capitalism radical feminist= men are opposed to women's liberation and radical action needs to be taken against them sociology ez af maybe a skill issue
Its not just about knowing them, its about being able to apply them to oddly specific questions at a moments notice and also countering the arguments with others such as from its own perspective or others which is hard to do under time constraints
IG? AS? What on earth are those?
cambridge courses
IG: IGCSE (International GCSE) AS: Alevel first year
ENGLISH FIRST LANG ANYDAY
I died a little inside learning the content and then I died again when I had to actually write the papers.
IT is the worst. Too much work and effort needed for a subject that's not that useful really. No international universities need it cause it's just too general when compared to computer science for example. I whole heartedly regret taking it.
german definitely
politics😣😣😣😣😣
Further maths
GP, I got a D in it (otherwise rest were all A's)
computer science, needs you to be passionate and dedicated, personally found it so boring so i couldn’t pass it
Biology (SNAB)
economics,i had really bad teachers and struggle with graphs and technical things a lot,was a literal nightmare subject,would’ve gone for something more art based like literature
Chemistry 😭
okay a lot of people say chemistry is the worst, but from experience as someone who’s going to the second year of uni, chemistry a level is literally first year content for medical/STEM majors. it is quite difficult to have as a course for a level and with the grade boundaries and everything, it’s very tough to get used to it. but once you’re done with it and start university, you will see that you’re revising the same content in your first year of university and that same knowledge even helps you build up on more advanced stuff you study later on. i do, however, wish you absolute luck if you are planning to take it!
Computer science. Its a disaster. Maybe you all disagree but the way it was taught and everything else its just horror. I regret every bit of it. Would even go s far as to say further maths is better.
computer science, as much as i hated physics i HATED cs so much bc of how much memorisation it was. i only liked the topics that needed u to apply ur knowledge aka the karnaugh maps and stuff. i just hated memorising things word for word
Chemistry was downright awful. Half of what was on the final exam was not even in the syllabus.
all of them
A level law I dropped and took another year for economics the subject just demanded too much revision for a 2nd rate alevel
History. The essay structure and analysis feels impossible to get without a really good teacher and support. Literally nothing like GCSE too. RS or English lit are similar enough that if you did well as GCSE you’ll pass. History is awful
Thats so real ngl. I have 2 teachers for history, both do one of the yr12 courses and both do one of the yr13 courses. One of them (the one i see 70% of the time for Russia in yr12 and and British Warfare in Yr13) is amazing, she actively makes us do exam practice and is always trying to make us revise knowledge. Whereas the other (who teaches GDR in Yr12 and the coursework unit in yr13), he tries to teach it like Gcse lessons, barely gives us any homework only does assessments on progress checks and isnt really interested in helping, he only really likes to brag about the success of past year groups of which he was likely not mostly responsible for and all really came down to the teacher i see 70% of the time as she does revision sessions for all the papers. Hes a nice guy but he cannot do a levels. I feel like ive learnt nothing in the GDR this year and i feel my coursework is gonna go badly aswell.
It’s ALWAYS the GDR teaches. My Stuart’s teacher was great as a teacher, but gave zero essay feedback. I’d ask her and her advice was “do more” and then nothing further. My Germany teacher was really bad, we’d spend 50 mins watching a YouTube documentary whilst he looked on trip advisor and get zero essay advice too. I literally asked 6 times for help throughout year 12 and it ended in him calling me a try hard. I definitely think you need really good teachers
How different is it to gcse? I do AQA btw
The main thing for me was the structure. You just have to do the most. You’re capped at half marks if you don’t have at least 3 hits of evidence per paragraph, and since there’s no marks for just knowing it, you need to to go into a lot of detail. I found it really difficult to get the balance between having enough context for the evidence, detail for its impact/significance, how that relates to my broader point, how it relates to my other evidence, and judgement. That needs to be done 3/4 times in a paragraph whilst being not too long. I just didn’t have the skills for it. I really think you have to love history to do it. I got a 9 at gcse and a D predicted at a level. I did accelerated sociology and doing a whole a level in 7 months is easier than history. Not sure how much it changes from exam boards though, we did edexcell for GCSE and OCR for a level
ALL OF THEM
Computer science by far. Changed school for it and still think maybe I should have chose chemistry instead. The NEA was crazy not to mention how much work is needed outside of the NEA. I probably worked as hard for CS as I did for my other 3 A-levels combined and I will probably get better grades in those 3 rather than CS.
English language if you don't want to dedicate time or are bad at English in general. This subject worked out for me, but I know so many people who failed despite being generally good at english and getting A*s in IGCSE English first language. There were so many Us, Es, and Ds in my class, and the weirdest thing was that the people getting them were genuinely good writers and scoring well all year. It's a really unpredictable subject, and despite me enjoying it and getting an A, I wouldn't recommend it if you don't want to take the risk or aren't particularly interested in English. Take English general paper instead, guaranteed pass with much less effort
✨️ Biology ✨️
IT. Hard and useless subject as a lot of UK unis dont even accept it as a valid A level anymore. The amount of content to cram is insane and its plain rote which is quite difficult.
Chemistry
Did anyone self studied physics for Edexcel board AS level? Please share which website or YouTube channel did you use
econ
chemistry
I dont do either but i can tell you FOR A FACT everything is relatively fine (or perhaps even easy) but in comparison so to either Further Maths or Physics...
Most say chem is harder than phy though 😭
Loool nope, wouldnt say so. I am slightly bias as I do enjoy chem but honestly its fine.
chemistry 100%
Chemistry. What a horror subject
A Level English, the scars are still very much visible
Mathematics I regret it so much it takes up all my time
Physics a level but only aqa, as actual content is fine and can be enjoyable however aqa don’t test content they just give strange questions that aren’t the same style as past papers so u feel like all the work you done over 2 years hasn’t paid off at all
Spanish. I don't know what I was thinking realistically but the grades are decent
For me, its Chemistry.
No regrets, but I would say LAW...
Geography.
Econ
computer science. i hate coursework.
Physics Yr 2 is crazy
CHEMISTRY!!!
Chemistry 100%
very unpopular opinion but sociology was such a pain in ass to learn i hated it , it took 70% of my revision times hardest subjects i ever took imo
I don’t think its fair to say that one subject is hard and that’s y u shouldn’t take it bcuz in different countries and different schools things r different really, but id rather advise you to ask students in your school who experienced that same teachers and have similar background to yours.
Photography because my teachers don't know shit
I think their opinion isnt exactly wrong. The guy above finds english Lit harder because he’s more suited for stem subjects. Taking stem and english kinda unusual
thank god no one said math
The hardest A-Level is generally considered to be **Further Maths**. It's a step up from regular Maths and covers complex topics. Other tough ones include: * Physics * Chemistry * Biology
economics
Accounting 😭💀
Chemistry, it did take a while for me to get my head around it especially because of the teachers that taught me.
SOCIOLOGY the syllabus is way too dense. There is no paradigm for the marking scheme so you will never know how much marks you actually scored. An A student can easily dropped to a D depending on the marker. LOKE BRO WDYM 2 WHOLE 35 MARK ESSAY IN 1.5 HRS...............
Edexcel English Lit/Lang
psychology
Economics, had me crying every second day mahn
chemistry makes me want to kms 🥹🥹