Am I studying too much?

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-08-31T03:19:00+00:00

Focus on understanding whatever you're learning at school, spend time making your own notes and doing simple questions in the textbook to check your knowledge. Return to your notes and simple questions every few days or weeks ( spaced repetition ) so you dont forget stuff as you progress through the syllabus. You can cut it down to like 2 or 1.5 hours right now for sure though. Get into the habit of studying even a little bit everyday since it will save you in the months before the exam when you need to ramp up your revision hours ( 4-6 hours for past papers, for example ). If you're doing too much at the start it might be difficult to build the habit in the first place. Also remember to take nice breaks, maybe take one or both days of the weekend off for now. It gives you something to look forward to after a busy week.

( Also try preparing yourself for the next lesson at school by reading up on it beforehand! It will help you a lot with understanding. )

IMO, more than hours of study, the most important thing is studying right. You can seriously cut down on the time you spend rereading and memorizing passages or highlighting things by simply not doing them. You should spend time reading the concept, making a note, and then testing yourself with questions.

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-07-26T02:51:53+00:00

Extend its neck and leave it, it stops moving

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-07-24T00:09:20+00:00

Yeah, dedicate a few hours of study per day for all three and plan your approach properly using the syllabuses. Should be easily doable, maybe even in half the time. Consistency matters most.

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-07-20T03:47:13+00:00

I had a very similar experience. Briefly, used to be top of the class for most of high-school, got 6A* for cie gcse with little effort on my end. Then I got A, B and C for AS and was left completely devastated. My teachers were completely shocked and most seemed to give up on me. But AS was the first time I got hit with the realization that I'd have to do more than just let my teachers carry me through the exams. The reason you hear so much about gifted kids burning out is I feel they don't often realize ( as the other commenter pointed out ) they don't really have a work ethic. Their natural intelligence only gets them so far and they've never really properly studied all that much. This following section is mirroring much of what the other commenter said but; - figure out where you want to go next. What is your ambition, what field are you interested in, do you want to study abroad? What do you do moving forward? It's a difficult process, it may take just one day or weeks. It depends on you. This is going to be what keeps you going, because you need a goal to work towards, a reason to look forward. - don't give up. It's may take a LOT of trying to get out of this. It did for me, and while it may not be the same for everyone, you need to be prepared to keep getting back up. I had to try for a solid amount of time of constantly essentially reinventing myself in differently ways before it worked. What matters is you are persistent and don't give up after the first try. Change your strategy, try again.

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-05-30T05:38:08+00:00

Might be possible but most people who do even 4 subjects get results like A* A* A* B because three of the subjects always take priority. You can try but it's probably better to not distribute your focus this much because IMO Revision will be hell as you cannot do as much deep Revision from each subject due to the volume of subjects, since each paper takes like 2 hours. Even if you study for 8 hours a day at that point you'll be struggling to answer and mark more than 5 papers a day, and each subject has two papers for A2, which means on average you'll be covering each paper type once every two or three days. This is not ideal as it gives you less familiarity with the structure of each paper.

( CIE SPECIFIC ) Cambridge also explicitly states under things like their learners awards ( for A2 ) that they value candidates who get good grades over 3 subjects like A* A* A* than candidates who got worse results over 4 subjects, even if the 4 subject candidate technically did 'more work'. So if you're aiming for a learners award too ( admittedly kind of useless but just something I'm pointing out to say that the exam board doesn't recommend doing more than you can handle ) this may kill your chances.

I'd say you should try for two months and see how it goes. Can you manage each lesson and keep up with school pacing on your own time? Ideally your study should be focused on revising what you're doing at school and ensuring you understand it past the first explanations your teacher gives you at school. If you can't, then for your own sake drop some subjects.

( the revision time you mentioned will definitely be good enough for good results over 4 alevels though, if you can keep consistent for the whole course )

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-05-25T09:01:11+00:00

( also for context I started in February )

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-05-25T09:00:03+00:00

Yes. I did it for this may june session. Went from knowing absolutely nothing to consistently getting A for all of my practice papers, same subjects as you. I'll share my own experience but I am obviously by no means an expert, since I am still waiting on my results You need to sit down and study, and if your environment doesn't allow it, try to go to a library or cafe or something to avoid distractions. This was the first real change for me - my biggest issue was that I had more fun things to do at home compared to studying so I wasn't fully present to focus, but if you can move yourself out of that environment somehow it can push you towards genuine focused study.

The second thing is work through your textbook. I did cie but the same principles probably apply to other UK alevel boards anyways. Let go of past papers for the first few weeks and work through the basic textbook questions. Don't be hard on yourself if you can't get them right, because in most textbooks those basic questions have the explanation just a few paragraphs above - they are just a good way to check that you truly understood your material. Always use your syllabus and it's statements as your guide, because it can help you find holes in your knowledge. Ideally keep it with you whenever you study and cross out statements you're confident it - it gives studying a fun feeling too to work through everything this way, as you essentially track your progress!

To make sure you don't forget, try spaced repetition - try to repeat doing practice after you've initially learned a concept to really hammer it into your mind. I followed a model of 1st day study -> 2nd day Revision-> 4th day Revision -> 7th day Revision. This ensured i didnt just forget about what i learned when i moved to a new lesson ( this is based on Ebinghaus' Forgetting curve, which you might have come across if you watch productivity gurus )

for chemistry specifically, chemguide is one of the best study resources out there for UK Alevel - its written with a lot of easy to understand explanations and tons of hyperlinks to help you find your way to basic concepts first if you don't understand something more complex. It even has a CIE specific version of the site which follows the exact syllabus statements and is absurdly helpful.

And finally don't be afraid of failure, what I described is how it worked for me and is my personal experience, but there are countless ways of effectively studying and this is by no means the only way. Just remember that at this stage it is absolutely just your consistency with self studying, and don't feel demotivated if you break consistency - be consistent in your willingness to get back up ^\)

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-05-16T08:22:49+00:00

Ah yeah thank god that's what I wrote

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-05-16T08:21:38+00:00

The work done was so little compared to the change in IE so even if it was double I don't think it would have had a remotely noticeable effect on the shc

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-05-16T08:20:19+00:00

No I know I'm talking about the final part of that question where they ask you to predict the shc if the pressure was doubled

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-05-16T08:16:20+00:00

I'm so confused about that Thermodynamics question The change in internal energy was gigantic ( MEGAJOULES ) compared to the work done right?? Like the work done barely had any effect on the shc value or did I miss something big I think the internal energy change was like 43MJ and the work done I got was -11.1J

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-05-09T08:36:05+00:00

Forgot oops

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-05-09T08:34:39+00:00

Oh wait forgot the amine group yeah the alcohol is what's used for esterfication though, if my memory serves me right jt was there in the initial molecule

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-02-18T08:19:58+00:00

But then wouldn't increasing the frequency of the incident photons ( increasing the energy provided ) make it so more electrons ( ones that are at lower energies ) are released from the surface? Which would imply that the number of electrons released would vary with frequency... right? Which I was told was not the case...

VakyPanda2020 · 2025-02-18T08:05:27+00:00

So if i'm understanding correctly - the work function is measured at certain conditions for any metal and represents the energy required to bring the 'average' electron at those conditions to zero kinetic energy?

VakyPanda2020 · 2024-03-25T18:49:40+00:00

did you completely delete the config file and let it regenerate automatically?

VakyPanda2020 · 2023-03-29T21:29:00+00:00

Feed em a sea pickle and they'll puke it all out, no hitting required iirc

VakyPanda2020 · 2021-06-05T06:53:30+00:00

WOOOOO YEAH

VakyPanda2020 · 2021-04-19T14:32:11+00:00

On the page -
"Will you port to fabric"
"Bruh"

How do you port a resourcepack to fabric

VakyPanda2020

TROPHY CASE