My Preparation Strategy for A-Level Examination

I took my CIE A-Level in 2015 May/June session and got 4A* with an average of 94.25 percentage mark. Learning from me will not guarantee straight A*’s for you upcoming CIE exam but I hope it will!

Here is my advice to prepare for the exam:

1. Revise using the syllabus content

- The syllabus content can be obtained here: http://cie.org.uk/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-advanced/cambridge-international-as-and-a-levels/subjects/. It served as the backbone of all my study materials and shows the connections between topics, especially between AS and A2 topics. It has helped me tremendously as I tend to forget the materials learnt in AS during A2. Using this, I make sure I have covered all the topics

- Read the “Cambridge Learner Guide” – some advices from Cambridge

- Revise, revise, and revise – don’t understand? Read it again

2. Study the past year question papers & the examiner reports

- Study them and learn from it. Strive to understand, not memorising the answers!

- Examiner reports tell us exactly what they are looking for and the common pitfalls that students should avoid

3. Identify what need not to remember

- Remember as little as possible – make sense of the materials and make concepts becoming intuitive to you. I understand it, I remember it; the converse isn’t true.

- Summarise as often as possible – sum up what you have learn all this while. It’s time to connect the dots. See it as a checkpoint of your study. Remember: a stitch in time saves nine. One minute of summarising after class may save hours of frustration before exam. Summarising is about seeing the big picture. Drawing pictures, diagrams, graphs and charts in summary helps a lot. Limit your summary to be under 100 words all in a page.

- Replace your course books and exercise books with your notebooks. Jot down what you’ve learnt, especially the students’ common pitfalls, into your notebook. Update it every time you learn something from doing the past year papers. Revise often and slim down your notebooks over time.

In the end, here’s my favourite quote for you: “Pursue excellence and success will follow.” Hope you will obtain your desire results for your exam. Thank you for reading!