Revision Tips from an Experienced Online Tutor – Productivity Hacks for Students
Between lessons you should aim to do work on what we do in the lesson you just had. More than half of the time should
Mastering Physics at A-level is a daunting task! A wide array of concepts, equations and facts must be understood to gain full mastery.
Dr. Andrew Lawson is a Cambridge graduate who has studied Physics to PhD level and is a full member of the Institute of Physics. He has been an full-time A-level Physics tutor for over a decade, and has nothing but five star reviews to show for it!
50+ 5-star reviews from clients
For more than a decade, Cambridge graduate Dr. Andrew Lawson has been tutoring full time. He had thousands of hours of online tutoring under his belt before anyone had even heard of COVID-19, and has helped countless students get the grades they deserve in A-level Physics.
Having reviewed every single past paper, he is an expert in the art of thinking like an examiner to get full marks – even with the sticky topics of magnetism and capacitors! His focus on independent understanding (rather than memorisation) is invaluable in tackling anything your exam might throw at you.
Dr. Lawson has spent 12,000+ hours helping students fully grasp and comprehend complex subject matter, focusing on independent understanding rather than memorisation. Here’s what his students have to say!
I have been having lessons 2/3 times a week for 6 months and can say that I will hopefully be achieving an A/A* in Maths and Physics. I doubt I would have been able to achieve near these grades without the support from Andrew. He is very well organised and has an incredible work ethic; the most genuine teacher I have ever had, always pushing me to be better at the same time as making jokes to make lessons fun.
Dr Lawson is an EXCELLENT teacher. Our daughter is taking A-level physics and he has been an enormous help. Before we settled on a physics tutor, we tried free sessions with several of them and had our daughter pick which one she preferred. There were several great tutors but our daughter said, “these other tutors are good but Andrew really stretches me. He asks challenging questions that force me to think and REALLY understand the concepts and how to apply them to solve problems.”
A-level Physics is taken by a wide variety of students. I’ve taught budding journalists, medics, mathematicians, biologists, computer scientists, even physicists! This means the skill level and area of difficulty can range from the most fundamental lack of understanding, to very specific topic issues, or the inability to do the really challenging questions. Don’t ever compare yourself to your classmates or anyone else. You are you, and your problems will become our problems. Together, we will fix our problems.
Usually, vectors are difficult for almost everyone. Without knowing how to resolve, add and then use these two vital skills you won’t get far. I’ll take the simplest of examples, and make you think about them happening in real life. And there lies the key – real life. Physics is about the real life world around you! It isn’t a crazy set of equations that are meaningless. It’s a crazy set of equations that model the universe as we know it. With my help you will make these connections, and get so many ‘Ah!’ moments you’ll get bored of them. You won’t get bored of understanding it so well and achieving fantastic grades!
The small amount of vector work you may have done at GCSE, or just avoided, needs to be upgraded to A-level standard. Skipping out on this is a huge mistake. Every student who does comes to regret it later. You will do small problems that challenge just the right amount, pushing your understaning a little bit at a time until you understand how and more importantly WHY and WHEN to use the techniques you are learning. Then it’s problems time, involving the different kind of vectors you know, force, speed, displacement and acceleration. The examples will be from real-life, like landing a plane with a wind blowing into you.
This builds on the work you did in the vectors section. Namely that the up and down motion is constant acceleration, as the only force is weight, down. This means constant acceleration, i.e. SUVAT equations. SUVAT equations will be fully explained for every situation you will encounter in the exams. Left and right there are no forces, so the GCSE equation distance = speed x time is all you need. The left and right motion are linked through t, time. Each concept will be added in one a time with small questions to embed it. Then onto the past paper questions that can choose from any of the concepts you been taught.
Yep, it’s not Young’s but Young. Lesson 1 over! Young Modulus is so easy when you realise that it’s just the spring/stiffness constant from Hooke’s law you may remember – but for just steel, instead of that particlar steel spring. A thinner longer steel spring will have the same Young Modulus but a different spring/stiffness constant. We will derive energy per unit volume is the area under the stress/strain graph in a few minutes.
At A-level phase plays a bigger role, especially in comparing travelling and stationary waves. It also plays a big part when you come to single slit, double slits and diffraction grating questions. Understanding path difference leads to understanding interference and then to understanding slits/gratings. You will learn WHY refraction occurs only at an angle. And you will be shown how to do photoelectric effect questions with simple numerical examples along with other quantum topics. It’s actually easier than you thought.
Explained by making you think about a mass wobbling on a spring. Once you have that mental image and anaylse it, the equations come to life. Then with a bit of maths, you will finally know if you need to use SHM or circular motion. And if you do, how to. Circular motion is just basic displacement, velocity and acceleration under very slightly more complex situations. The understanding you will get from circular motion will increase your confidence in other areas, not add another area to worry about.
Gravity first, then electrostatic, then magnetic. Use gravity to understand the principles – force vs field strength, then potential vs potenial energy. A great couple of tricks that help massively. Onto electrostatics with one extra principle. Then magnetism which is a genuine step up in difficulty. You will have everything explained so you understand the big difference between the motor effect and magnetic induction. Why Fleming’s left hand rule works. You will start by understanding what creates a magnetic field (a moving charge) and build from there.
Click below to access our A-Level Physics blogs:
Between lessons you should aim to do work on what we do in the lesson you just had. More than half of the time should
Understanding the A Level fundamental concepts equips students with the knowledge to explore deeper and more specific areas of chemistry and its applications in various
The spec tells you what you are going to get asked questions on.
The revision guide explains how to answer them.
The past
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