10) Listen to the advice that you’re told
I cannot stress this enough.
As I said earlier, there is no magic potion or magic spells you can take to do well. And, in fact, I think a lot of you will already have heard the advice I’ve given you countless of times. One of the reasons I did well was because rather than simply spending hours procrastinating reading online lists about how to do well at A Level, I then applied this knowledge. At the end of the day, you know that you need to revise, you know you need you need to do the past papers, you know you need to spend less time on YouTube watching funny videos of dancing cats. There is no secret to success at A Level success. If you put the work in you will get the grades you deserve. Don’t get embarrassed if you get a low mark in a practice paper; ask your teacher to specifically explain what it is that went wrong. Always look to improve and always look to listen.
A Levels aren’t designed to be easy – as my Government teacher always said, what would be the point if they were easy? Take a deep breath, relax, and remind yourself of the pride you’ll feel once the journey’s over and you realise, ‘it wasn’t so bad, after all’.
Words by Juliette Rowsell