What did you get for your A Levels (if you did them)? (Trigger warning - a levels 💐🫂)

[hotmumshit]

BBB - eng lit, sociology and history

Was so sad, I wanted aab

💐💐 for those of us who get mild ptsd whenever results day rolls around

Psychology and Sociology both A, before A* came along. I did two a levels in one year.

I’m in Scotland so it was highers not A levels, I got AAAAA and went straight to uni after s5 to do law. My son also got AAAAA but he went back to school for s6.

First year of A*

AAAAA (Maths, Further Maths, English Literature, Biology, History)

The one A is slightly annoying but I feel like with essay subjects there's always going to be a bit more variation, whereas with Maths the aim wasn't to get an A* but 100/100 (I think I managed it in 10 of 12 papers)

After all As and Bs at GCSE, I got NNN in biology, chemistry and physics at A-Level.

I then did a Y0 (university access) course at college in the sciences and maths, which I passed, immediately followed by a BSc Hons in Biological Chemistry with Pharmaceutical Science. Then a PGCE and later on a Masters in SEND.

After failing my A-levels, I hold an undergraduate degree and two postgrad degrees.

I have also acquired a late diagnosis of ADHD.

This happened to me too! Late 90s so no A star. I smashed the two subjects I got A’s in - got A grades in every paper. Wasn’t too bothered about the B though - a friend got exactly the same results in the same subjects and we decided it was proof we’d had a good time in 6th form and not spent the whole two years studying! My teacher was disappointed, she said she’d seen the breakdown and I’d almost got a C despite being one of her top students. No idea what happened there.

B,C,D for me in the late 90s, I still got into the course I wanted though and I ended up with a first, a distinction at masters and a PhD - I was just a late academic bloomer!

A1 E E
I’ve now got a BA, a BSc and a BMBS, and am a GP.

A Douglas is a third. Douglas Hurd.

CCC, French, German, Russian. And somehow I also managed a distinction in the S level Russian paper. Evidently down to good guesswork….
It was good enough for the uni I wanted, though slightly below what they’d asked. (This was aeons ago.)
TBH I hadn’t worked nearly as hard as I should have.

I got A - Drama
A - Film Studies
A - English Combined
B - History
I was allowed to do all 4 up to A2 level as I was clearly very competent. I then did the German A1&A2 combined in one day and got a B. Basically I was a very nerdy kid who needed lots of input from teachers and no downtime.

I now have a QTS, A Bsc, a BA (Hons) and have about 20 letters after my name. Not that I use them.

CEE. Classical civilisation, English literature and History of Art. In 1988. I retook English literature and History of Art, got the E up to D for English. 😑

I was great at talking about the subjects in class, rubbish at writing about them.

Opening of O Level and A Level results was always traumatising for me 🫥

Highers in Scotland - 3 As and a B

Art, English, Modern studies (like politics) all As
B in Biology as i was thinking of doing Psychology at uni and that wasn't offered at my school

That was in my fifth year. In sixth year I did Sixth Year Studies English (on a par with A level) and got a B and Drama, a B. I dossed about a lot and had a lot of nights out in sixth year, as I already had my offers in...i got accepted to my choices and ended up having an easy year. Scotland's system is better that way I think.

Applied for politics/English and ended up doing Eng Lit at Glasgow. Best uni ever 🩷 did a masters postgraduate and PGCE too.

If you got good grades, how much revision and studying did you do?

For 3 As (pre A*) I worked incredibly hard. Going back and forward over syllabus keeping it all fresh. Had coursework too. Slogged from at least start of year 13. Hours each night. Not sure how many, but I ‘locked in’ as they would say now.

Not much at all, exams were always easy for me

Very little work tbh but I am great at exams and awful at coursework. The only subject I really revised for was Politics, which was my ‘worst’ subject (I still got an A but it was a middling one). Even at Oxford, I did best when I could wing it.

I re-read our main texts. But with English Lit which then meant 9 or 10 texts, Chaucer x 1, Shakespeare x 3, Victorian x 1, early 20c novels x 2, poetry and greats: Austen, Wilfred Owen and Robert Frost, plus French, which in 1974 had four adult books/plays set, preparation was key.

My A levels in 1974 were probably more demanding academically than first year university now.

General studies D
History E
French E
English lit U

🙈

AAB chemistry, RE and biology. I had an ABB offer for medicine at UCL. This was in 2001. 25 yrs ago. O dear.

Astar Astar (it keeps bolding when I use asterisks !) A A - Chemistry, Maths, Further Maths and Physics

I sailed through my GCSEs and A levels and never really learned to study.

I then went on to uni on an integrated masters course (chemistry), found it incredibly hard - both the studying and the independent living, had a big mental health wobble, thoroughly screwed up my third year exams and was 'required to graduate' early with a 2:2 instead of progressing to the masters year.

(With hindsight, the undiagnosed ASD and ADHD may have had something to do with it ...)

EEN - my secondary schooling was blighted by industrial action and my dad’s deteriorating physical and mental health.
Went to a Polytechnic. Got a 2:1. Got an MSc with distinction from a (now) Russell Group uni, followed by a PhD. Will feel inadequate until I retire. I have to try very hard everyday not to pass on my anxieties to my teen DC.

AAB maths with mechanics, economics and physics

A* didn't exist back then and tbh I did very little work for them. An eidetic memory is a huge help when it comes to exams

I got a CDE for my A-levels, but I only sat about a third of the exams in the end because I was horribly ill with glandular fever. I needed BCC for my top choice uni so thought I would have to resit everything. But then I had the best phonecall to say that in light of my medical reasons my top choice uni would honour the offer based on my
mock grades. The relief was indescribable!

ACD in the 1970s - I just scraped into my first choice university which was one of the better ones at the time!
Ended up just missing a 2.1 in the days when that was a major achievement and a first was almost unheard of
It’s never held me back - exams aren’t everything - I’m fairly well known and well thought of in my field and am very proud of my career and personal achievements