The Sunday Mail
. . . Maths A* 92%, Physics A* 91%, Chemistry A* 90%
Cuthbert Musarurwa
Hilbright Science College
There are only two things you will need on this journey in order for you to reach your destination; commitment and a ravenous appetite for gold.
After getting their Ordinary Level results and enrolling for Lower 6, a good number of students tell themselves- the moment they step into an A’level class- that it’s time to put their game face on.
Advanced Level is no joke, if you want proof look at the title, ADVANCED.
The title of this two-year course clearly shows that it’s challenging and requires someone to dedicate themselves to it fully before they can succeed. Please note that I said CHALLENGING not DIFFICULT.
One can easily get at least 3 As in A’level by following the simple steps that I am going to outline. You do not have to compromise things like your social life for you to pass. That is one common misconception.
Now, unlike Ordinary Level where they give you straight forward questions that require straight forward answers, examiners at Advanced Level tend to be a little more ruthless in that most questions will require you to first extract the necessary information from several topics within the subject syllabus.
After that, using the information you managed to extract (NB: this information should be in your brain otherwise you will have nothing to extract), you are normally required to make a deduction using that information and then use your deductions to answer the question.
Of course marks will not be awarded for incorrect answers – normally obtained through half-baked and outrageous deductions which also emanate from a shallow knowledge pool- science subjects like Physics or Mathematics will only have one correct solution.
The question then is: How can one make sure that they have a deep vast knowledge pool and the capability to make reasonable deductions that will ultimately get them straight As? This is the tricky bit right here but fortunately there is a simple answer to this question.
Remember I said you need commitment to pass A’level. This is where you will need it. One A’level topic normally has about 8 subtopics, and the syllabus for science subjects usually has at least 15 topics.
So all in all there are about 120 subtopics that the student should master. Earlier on I did say that the first step in answering an A’level question is extracting the necessary information (from a pool of 120 subtopics), luckily the topics are almost always related so it’s a bit difficult to forget concepts. The algorithm for passing requires one to do the following:
When your tutor introduces a topic in class make sure you read on it before and after the lesson so that you get an appreciation of its contents.
That done one it is necessary to do questions from the textbooks on this topic. These are normally very easy but bear in mind that they are there just for you to practice. The next step is to have your teacher make topic-based worksheets for you to do.
These worksheets have to be compiled with past-exam questions so that you get a feel of how your examination board will ask you questions. This routine has to be repeated for each and every topic and there have to be many worksheets prepared for each topic. This way you can make sure that you have mastered every sub-topic on a given broad topic. However, one has to be careful to keep revisiting these topics in order to ensure retention of the covered work.
Eventually, when your syllabus coverage has exceeded 50%, one has to move on to doing past exam papers. Cambridge students have an advantage here because Cambridge resources are published online after each examinations series. These resources include past-exam question papers, marking schemes, examinations reports (these contain an assessment of the performance of the candidates on each question that was in the exam- they will also tell you the common errors made by students in answering them) and all sorts of other really helpful documents. Some of the sites that contain these resources are maxpapers.com and the infamous xtremepapers.com. ZIMSEC students will have to take advantage of the so-called green and blue books. These however only contain question papers and marking schemes.
Repeating these simple steps throughout the duration of your A’level course will guarantee wonderful results but remember that you have to commit yourself to them and do worksheets and papers every day for those two years.
I will finish by clarifying one last thing. Remember I said you need two things, commitment and appetite for success. I have explained why you need commitment already now let me tell you why you need the appetite.
Following a timetable religiously, taking at least 2 hours out of free time to do worksheets and papers (excluding homework time) and being responsible enough to let go of some luxuries like TV time, are not easy things to do unless you have some motivation for doing it. So basically, the appetite for success should be your motivation for working hard for good results.
Wishing all students a successful 2016!The writer, Cuthbert Musarurwa, was the headboy at Hilbright Science College Eastlea Campus in 2015.He got the following Cambridge results: Maths A* 92%; Physics A* 91%; Chemistry A* 90%.
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