Why do students struggle with A-Level Biology after doing well at GCSE?

If your teen has told you they’re finding A level Biology much harder than they expected, they’re not alone. Every year students who seemingly sailed through their GCSEs are taken by surprise when their experience of A level is so different from GCSE. They used to find science easy, perhaps it was their favourite subject, but now they’re confused and ready to give up. In this article I’ll discuss the reasons your teen could be struggling with A level Biology, and how you can help them succeed.

GCSE Biology is the easiest of the GCSE sciences 

Students struggle so much with A-Level Biology compared to GCSE because their experience of Biology before 6th form is that it’s not too hard. It's very real, the ideas aren’t abstract, and it's often really good fun. 

Statistically, GCSE Biology isn't particularly difficult. If you compare the number of top grades in GCSE Biology to the numbers of top grades in Physics, Chemistry and Maths for example, GCSE Biology is easier. Students that get Bs and Cs in Chemistry and Physics will often get an A in Biology. The opposite is very, very rare.

A level Biology is a different beast; it's much harder and students that have done well at GCSE Biology enter A-Level Biology thinking it's going to be the same. The subject takes a massive jump in complexity, and it takes students by surprise.

What makes A level Biology so hard?

I’ve taught A-Level Biology for a long time, and I’ve spent a while thinking about the answer to this question. A level Biology is difficult for at least 6 different reasons: 

Reason 1: The syllabus is absolutely enormous. 

There’s a huge amount of material to cover and teachers don’t have time to cover it slowly. The size of the syllabus means that ideas are introduced and finished within half an hour, when every Biology teacher I’ve known wishes they could spend days on each section.

Reason 2: It's extremely heavy in new vocabulary. 

Many of the terms used in A level Biology are derived from Latin and Greek and sound to the students like spells from Harry Potter. This creates a huge rote learning load.

Reason 3: Some of the concepts are genuinely difficult.

If the foundations are properly taught and sufficient time is given for the students to completely understand the initial modules then I believe that actually there isn't that much which is genuinely difficult to get your head around. Trouble is, as we saw in reason one, there just isn’t time to master anything before the next topic comes rumbling along. 

Much of the content is very detailed and there are often many steps in a process that need to be understood and memorised. If the students have time, and the material is cut up for them into manageable chunks, then it’s not actually that difficult to understand. The problem is that the time just isn't available and confusion piles on confusion like the debris in front of a relentless tidal wave.

Reason 4: The examiners rarely ask straightforward recall questions.

Almost all of the questions in the final exam are application questions where the student has to really understand the concept, as well as remember the details of all of the molecules, processes and conditions. They then have to recognise that the question is asking them about this process, or this molecule, or this condition. Finally they have to precisely answer the question as it is asked, rather than answering a closely related question which they might have come across before. Nasty. Once again, time is the enemy here. Even the most efficient schools struggle to find the time for enough detailed past paper practice.

Reason 5: A level Biology is a battle with yourself. 

Students come into A level Biology with their experiences from GCSE and their ideas of how much study is required. The level of complexity, abstraction, and reworking that they expect the classroom work to require is nowhere near the mark.

Students don't realise that they have to work outside of lessons, every day, to make sense out of material that's covered quickly in the lesson. They don't know how to learn the enormous mountain of detail, and by Christmas time students are hiding from the mountain of work that’s starting to catch up with them.

Reason 6: Students can't deal with their own stress in the subject. 

They've never experienced anything like this before. They don't have skills, knowledge, or the well-developed support networks to be able to control their minds. Without this self-awareness, they struggle to find the motivation to get on top of the work and avoid the dreaded spiral. 

A level Biology doom spiral

How can you help your teen with A level Biology?

There are a huge number of resources available online, so it can be difficult to know where to start. My suggestion is to begin with the VESPA material. It's really well thought out, cheap enough to be accessible, and it addresses all aspects of study skills and mindset that students need in order to stand a chance against the beast of Biology. 

The VESPA approach condenses decades of experience and research into 5 aspects of the 6th form experience:

Vision

The resources will help your teen explore, express and utilise the motivation they have for doing Biology. 

Effort

The resources help your teen understand what a reasonable expectation is of the number of hours they need to work. All too often students use others in their friend group as a measure and think that because everyone else is doing almost nothing that their efforts are perfectly reasonable. The effort chapter offers a positive way out of this that won't descend into slammed doors!

Systems

This helps your teen get organised enough to stand a chance of getting the work done in reasonable time, and getting off the negative feedback loop.

Practices

It shows your teen how to actually understand, learn, and keep the masses of information in their heads. It shows them what study skills, practices, and habits do work. It also shows them which of the practices that they've brought from GCSE are less useful.

Attitude

Really helpful and accessible resources to help beat the negative inner voice and catastrophic thinking which is so often a big part of the problem. 

Alternatively, look for a private tutor who specialises in working with students to develop their study skills and mindset right from the beginning. I’ve helped thousands of students beat Biology in over 25 years of teaching. To create a strategy for A level Biology success, book a free 1:1 meeting today.