Understanding Your Syllabus
Before you can understand your syllabus you need to find it, and before you find it you need to know exactly which syllabus you are studying.
The exactly bit is the important one. As A level students you will need to know which exam board, which syllabus with the syllabus code and which options (if applicable) within the syllabus. Also, students retaking modules need to check which year’s syllabus they will be sitting. Some syllabuses change on almost a yearly basis, so you shouldn't trust the syllabus for a paper without checking carefully that it is the right one for you. It is the same for GCSE and IGCSE students, though without the module issues (unless you happen to be doing one of the modular GCSE!). For IB students the issue is more straightforward, nevertheless you will need to buy the syllabuses and the last time I checked they were not (legally) downloadable for free.
Just a quick note to A level retake students: it is very important to ensure that you know your syllabus(es) – never assume that you can remember enough or that last year’s version will do. Make sure you have the correct syllabus and that you work through it carefully and get to grips with 'problem' areas.
(Incidentally we do have a page which will help you find your syllabus for the most popular A level syllabus: A level syllabuses quick finder )
I would suggest you get your teacher to write down the syllabus you are studying with the accompanying syllabus code, for example: Physics OCR Syllabus A. Once you think you have found your syllabus then print out the front page, take it to your teacher to check it is the correct one. This might seem like overkill but it is much better than working from the wrong syllabus!
It is also important not to become over-obsessed with your syllabus, it is a useful guide and in principle is a list of all the things you should know for your exam. However your teachers may well teach you a few things that are not on the syllabus because they will help in your general understanding of the subject. For example having some idea of the conditions under which the Russian peasantry lived prior to the Russian revolution may well make more sense of the Revolution itself. So even if the syllabus makes no mention of the pre-revolution peasantry there are good reasons to know something about it. In any case education is not exclusively about exams - good schools and colleges have broader aims than just processing kids into exam taking machines (well at least they should!).
Furthermore, the amount you need to know will vary from syllabus to syllabus and subject to subject. For example for A level maths, if you are going for an A* then you should aim at being able to look through the syllabus and “know it all”. Conversely with a subject like history then “knowing it all” is inherently impossible.
Let's look now at a concrete example: A level physics Edexcel – note there is currently only 1 Edexcel A level physics syllabus. Once you’ve double checked with your teacher that you have the correct syllabus you are left with the extremely exciting task of wading through it.
The good news is that you can ignore large chunks of the syllabus. Take a look at the contents pages for this syllabus:
In terms of working syllabus content all you need to focus on is:
Or
With this syllabus you will need to ask which of the two approaches you will be following.
Also bear in mind that there are a couple of other sections that would be well worth looking at:
This list will get even shorter as you will probably be doing 2 or 3 modules at most in one go. So out of the 179 pages you will only need to concern yourself with around 20 pages.
With a little bit of careful thinking you should be able to have a comparatively small collection of pages with which you need to concern yourself.
Let’s focus on a couple of sections from Unit 1.
First there is a preamble:
It’s obviously useful to know how long the paper is, and what percentage it contributes to the overall mark. The best guide to the questions is the paper itself – the sentence “The paper will consist of objective questions, short questions and long questions” is not particularly informative as it doesn’t tell you how the questions are divided up.
The calculator point, though obvious, is important. Essentially the paper will be very difficult without a scientific calculator, and moreover it may be impossible to get full marks without a calculator. Some exam boards provide lists of allowed calculators or a list of calculators you can’t use. Note that you won’t be able to use smart phones or any type of mobile as your calculator. As a rough guide if the thing you want to use as a calculator has internet access or any sort of memory where you could store significant amounts of information, you won’t be able to use it; also calculators that “do algebra” aren’t generally allowed. If in doubt Google “calculators allowed in Edexcel exams” or which ever exam board is relevant.
The bit about the formulae sheet is interesting – essentially it states that you should not need to learn any formulae. However, it is still worth knowing formulae as it will speed up significantly your work rate in the exam.
Now let’s have a look at some of the actual subject content :
The first important point is that this is not a casual check list. It’s not a matter of scanning quickly through it and just ticking things off that look vaguely familiar. You should be asking questions such as:
Do I know how to use these equations?
Do I know what all the terms stand for?
Do I know what they mean by “motion in one dimension”?
If you can answer “yes” to all of these, then you know what you don’t need to work on. That is not to say that they won’t form part of your revision, but that it is not a specific area that you need to make a note of, to ensure that you understand it.
Next let's have a look at a section from a philosophy syllabus:
Here it is less clear what is required. However, we can apply the same questioning method. For starters do we understand the question “What is a person?” If this seems either completely trivial or just plain baffling then you really need to get a handle of what “a person” is in terms of philosophy as (obviously) its use here is different from everyday language. It should be noted that many subjects use everyday words in very specific ways, for example weight in physics is not the same thing as weight in everyday usage.
Could you write an essay about "The notion that not all humans are persons and, perhaps, that some non-humans are persons."? Do you know what they mean by personhood? What are the characteristics associated with personhood? And so on.
Phrases to look out for
“Candidates do not need…” this is not to say that if you have done it, it was a waste of time – it may make more sense of other topics – it is just saying that you won’t explicitly be examined on this. However, including knowledge of this “do not need” topic, if it is in a supporting role, can still gain you marks. On the other hand, an answer should not be centred on a “do not need” topic.
“Should include…” means that at least the following should be included – others items could also be included, but these are the vital ones.
“Calculate and interpret…” it’s not enough just to be able to do the calculation if you don’t know what the answer tells you. You need to be able to pass comment on the calculation.
“Candidates will not be required to calculate…” this is an explicit statement that you don’t have to be able to this. Nevertheless although you don’t have to calculate it, there will be lots of other things you need to be able to do with it. So it is very definitely not saying that you can ignore this whole topic.
"Defined by..." This is a very important phrase and you should always learn any equation, law or whatever, if it is defined in your syllabus – unless (of course) it says it’s not required!!
Also watch out for examples like the following. The seemingly irrelevant “for constant mass” is actually really important, and F = ma is related to Newton’s 2nd law and is not a statement of the second law. You have to pay attention to every word in a syllabus.
