A-Level Chemistry
Online A-Level Chemistry tutoring
A-Level Chemistry for Years 12 and 13. The subject almost every medical and dental school requires, and the one that most often costs students their offer.
Why this is the subject that decides it
Chemistry is required by nearly every medical and dental school in the UK, usually alongside Biology. It is also the A-Level with the steepest jump from GCSE, and the one students most often drop a grade in. If an offer falls through, Chemistry is the usual reason.
What the exam asks of them
On AQA (7405) it is three papers of two hours. Paper 1 is 105 marks and 35%, covering physical and inorganic chemistry. Paper 2 is 105 marks and 35%, covering physical and organic. Paper 3 is 90 marks and 30%, drawn from the whole specification, and it includes 30 marks of multiple choice.
That Paper 3 structure catches people out. Multiple choice in chemistry is not the easy section: the distractors are built from the specific errors students make, so a shaky method produces a confident wrong answer rather than a blank.
At least a fifth of the marks are mathematical
The specification requires a minimum of 20% of marks to test mathematical skills at GCSE higher level or above. In practice that means moles, concentration, yield, atom economy, titration, rate equations, equilibrium constants and thermodynamics.
Almost none of the marks lost there are lost on chemistry. They go on unit conversion between cm³ and dm³, on significant figures, on rearranging before substituting, and on answers written without working so a slip costs the whole question instead of one mark.
Organic chemistry is a memory problem disguised as a reasoning problem
By the end of Year 13 a student is carrying dozens of reactions, reagents, conditions and mechanisms. Students who learn them as a list forget them in the order they learned them. Students who learn them as pathways, knowing what each functional group can become and what it takes, can reconstruct the one they have forgotten.
Mechanisms are marked on the detail: curly arrows starting in the right place, charges shown, intermediates drawn. These are precise, repeatable marks and they respond quickly to drilling.
Required practicals
There are 12, assessed in writing across the papers rather than in a separate exam, and the endorsement is reported alongside the grade as a pass or Not Classified. Medical and dental schools expect the pass, so it is worth knowing where your child stands on it well before results day.
How we teach it
- Timed questions from the first lesson. Students who only ever work untimed are practising a different skill from the one being examined.
- Work set between lessons, and marked. An hour a week changes very little on its own. The work in between is where the grade moves.
- A full paper under exam conditions every four weeks. Same timing, same silence, no notes. The score is recorded so progress is a number.
- Written progress to parents every month. What was covered, what the scores were, what we are working on next.
- Groups capped at five, or one-to-one if that suits better.
Start with the free diagnostic
Every student begins the same way: one full hour under exam conditions, marked against the real mark scheme, followed by a written summary of where the marks are going and what we would do about it. It costs nothing, and the assessment is yours to keep whether or not you carry on.