Taking a gap year to re-sit your A levels | A student account
There are a vast number of reasons why students choose to take a year out to re-sit one or more of their A level exams. For many students it is driven by the determination to study on their dream course enabling them to pursue their chosen career.
It can often be a daunting task and if you are currently embarking on a re-sit year take a look at our recent blog post Need to resit your A levels? A guide to getting it right second time round for practical advice on where to start.
We caught up with Beth who attended our Easter and May revision courses to gain an insight on how re-sitting her Biology A level enabled her to study her chosen degree.
What and where are you now studying?
I'm now in London studying Children's Nursing and I can't wait to start my placement at Great Ormond Street Hospital in January!
What were the most challenging aspects of deciding to re-sit one of your A levels?
Despite having a good idea I was going to have to resit a couple of my A levels, it was still a very daunting task especially as my college didn't offer much support to help me out. I think one of the biggest tasks when resitting out of the college environment, was feeling like you understand the content a bit, but it can be hard to know how to get the marks in the exam without a teacher...that’s where the revision courses were especially useful!.
I also found it was really easy to feel overwhelmed with the amount of content, I would often spend a while on a topic I enjoyed, then panic at the amount I had left to cover!
How did you manage the volume of revision across the year without teacher guidance?
I gradually increased the amount of work I did each week, before Christmas I didn't do much work if I'm honest, I just watched a few You tube videos here and there (one of the best resources I found by far!). After Christmas the panic started to set in, and probably did around 10/15 hours a week of content up until Feb, then increased to 25 plus hours until Easter. After the Easter revision course I studied a lot more and had more focused revision with a much better idea of exam technique and used lots of past paper questions.
How did the courses help support your re-sits?
The A level revision courses were extremely beneficial to my exams, even just the fact they covered all the content in a matter of days made it feel so much more achievable. The small groups were super helpful as we could all ask as many questions as we wanted and go over content we all struggled with until everyone understood it. The teachers also explained everything in multiple ways so if we didn't understand it straight away, we would by the end of the session. All the staff were so friendly, and made me comfortable really quickly, it really felt like they wanted us to do well, which can be a welcome change after a confidence knock from college!
What advice would you give to students who are in a similar position?
For other students in the same position, I would say that resitting gives you the opportunity to work in a way that suits you best, you can go over things as many times as you want and use such a variety of resources to suit your learning style. I would definitely recommend going on an A Level revision UK course to put a positive spin on resitting, and give a massive boost to your grades! Resits don't have to be a massive set back even though it feels like it! It can really be a chance to show what you're made of and produce great results with full credit to yourself!
We are so proud of Beth’s success and stories like Beth’s show that hard work matched with the correct support can have a very positive impact on student outcomes in the A level examinations.
Beth - 2019
Beth attended our AQA Biology revision courses at Manchester Metropolitan University delivered by Sara Wilkinson.