Originally Posted by
تفويض
السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركابه و مغفرته
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I took Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Further Maths (and General Studies but lets not talk about that...) as A-Levels so I know
what your getting into. The science board were AQA.
Biology ranges from the very boring to the very interesting. You will learn about the human body. How the digestive system works in detail, the biochemistry of it, how it breaks down molecules using enzymes, how enzymes work, how cells work and what they are made of, the process of cell division, RNA and DNA and how it is made, how it is duplicated, viruses and bacteria and the immune response. Very very very interesting stuff, I enjoyed it thoroughly. If you have a knowledgeable biology teacher it is many times more interesting. But beware of the excruciatingly painful biology of classifying animals. That was tough period in our lives. Six months spent learning the taxonomy of animals, as well as techniques to measure there population. Then there is evolution. Also a very interesting topic. I enjoyed this one quite a bit too. While as a Muslim I don't believe in man evolving from apes, certain aspects of evolution which is seen in animals and some of its process are fascinating. Mutations, genetic drift, how animals adapt etc also interesting stuff. Brother Maripat gave good advice when he said to make best use of your memorisation. There is a lot of facts you need to learn. It seems daunting at first but you if you have a good understanding of the biology you will come to find that less emphasis is needed on the memorisation bit and things seem to fit together. If you dont understand the biology, then you will have to just learn whatever you come across.
That principle can be applied to the physics also. If you understand the physics, you dont have to remember many equations
and you can quickly derive many of them from a few basic ones. Though this is null and void anyway as they give you a formula sheet.
The trouble I had at uni this year is all my exams (I study Physics) were without formula sheets so we had to memorise lots and lots of equations.
I don't think that's a good system but never mind for A-Levels you wont have to worry about that. Just make sure your Maths is good and with A-Level
Physics you will stroll through it. I noticed you aren't taking Math though. I would consider taking Maths with Mechanics. It will help greatly. The core maths
makes things easier, and the mechanics bit is a gift from Allah SWT. An entire A-Level Physics module was Mechanics and almost everything in that module we had already covered in the AS Maths module so it was revision. That period of physics was so relaxed it gave us time to focus on other subjects (or in my case waste the free time I had). You will learn about the different particles of matter and what they themselves are made up of for example, protons and neutrons are not fundamental but are themselves made of things called quarks. You can look forward to learning about exotic sounding things such as Quarks, Baryons, Leptons, matter and antimatter, nuclear physics such as fission and fusion. Quite interesting until you get to electricity and nuclear radiation.
Chemistry starts off well and interesting. AS the focus is more on understanding the basics of Chemistry which everything else is derived, such as intermolecular forces, moles and calculating how many are required for reaction, yields, figuring out the correct equations for reactions via experiment. It was quite interesting. Second year though I really didn't like Chemistry. The focus shifted more to remembering reactions and mechanisms. The mechanisms are not difficult to remember but the equations were a real pain and quite useless in my opinion. You enter the realm of Organic Chemistry which is a very important branch of chemistry. Much of the industries in the real world rely heavily on it.
This is what the AQA board teaches which is the most popular board. Other boards will differ however it won't be too different from this. You might learn things in a different order with a few minor changes here and there. I know I just gave you a list of things that are taught rather than advice, but really you won't struggle too much if you work hard. And many of the topics are very interesting which always helps, more work might be needed on the dull areas to remember the facts, such as equations in Chemistry and the taxonomy system in Biology. You will find though that with the interesting bits it requires less work to remember (as with anything in life).
Personally, out of all three sciences I found Biology the most difficult to adapt to. It's the biggest jump from GCSE out of all the sciences. With the other two things don't really jump up in terms of difficulty. It's just a continuation of what you did in GCSE. But with Biology it wasn't the case, it was quite tough. The way it is taught is different and the sheer content of what you learn is so much greater than what I was used to. The way you answer exam questions also is a bit more difficult. But don't quit and don't worry. After a few months you evolve (couldn't help it) and get comfortable with the amount you learn and the step up.
I would recommend you take Math though. I don't know what you want to do in the future though. It will help you a lot in Physics. Not to mention if you have the right work ethic Maths is the easiest to do well in. It's one of the few that if you just work hard you can get full marks in your exam papers. I hope my rambling offered something useful.
Let us know how you get on.
As/a-level biology, chemistry, physics
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