How To Improve By Two Grades In Gcse And A-level Chemistry

Most students who come to me already “know the content”. They can talk through bonding, enthalpy or organic mechanisms in a lesson. Then the paper arrives and the grade does not match the effort.

That gap is rarely intelligence. It is exam technique. In 2026, 14 of my GCSE students improved by at least two grades, and eight A-Level and IB students beat their predicted grade, by training the paper as hard as the textbook.

This is the method I use in one-to-one and small-group lessons on Zoom.

**1. Stop revising chapters. Start revising questions.**

A chapter on rates of reaction is not what the examiner marks. The examiner marks a six-mark calculation, a graph, and a “explain why the student is wrong” item.

After every topic, the student should be able to answer three things:

- What does a typical one-mark recall look like?

- What does a three- or four-mark explain look like?

- Where do students lose the last mark?

If they can only do the first, they are stuck at a 5 or a C. The extra grades live in the last two.

**2. Learn the command words, not just the chemistry.**

“State”, “describe”, “explain”, “evaluate” and “suggest” are different jobs.

- State: name it. No story.

- Describe: say what you see, in order.

- Explain: give the scientific reason. Use “because”.

- Evaluate: give both sides, then a judgement.

- Suggest: apply the idea to a new situation. This is where A-Level and IB students freeze.

I make students highlight the command word before they write. Half of the “I ran out of time” problem is writing an essay for a two-mark “state”.

**3. Mark schemes are a language. Treat them that way.**

Good students read notes. High-grade students read mark schemes.

On AQA, OCR, Edexcel and IB, marks are often locked to specific phrases: “delocalised electrons”, “same molecular formula, different structural formula”, “temperature is a measure of average kinetic energy”. Near-miss wording gets nothing.

In lessons we mark a question together, then the student rewrites the answer in mark-scheme English. That rewrite is more useful than another page of notes.

**4. Calculations: show the route, not just the number.**

Chemistry calculations are lost on method, not on arithmetic.

A reliable layout is:

1. Write the equation or relationship.

2. Convert units (cm³ to dm³, tonnes to grams, °C to K).

3. Substitute.

4. Give the answer to the required significant figures, with the unit.

Even if the final number is wrong, method marks are still available. Students who scribble a triangle and a number throw those marks away.

This same layout works in GCSE Physics calculations and in the quantitative parts of GCSE Maths. The habit transfers.

**5. Organic chemistry needs a toolkit, not a memory dump.**

A-Level and IB students often try to memorise every reaction as a separate story. That collapses in May.

Build a toolkit instead:

- reagents and conditions

- type of reaction

- what bonds break and form

- how you would test for the product

Once those four sit on one card per reaction, mechanisms become a pattern, not a poem. For IB, the same toolkit feeds the IA: a clear research question, controlled variables, and data that actually answers the question.

**6. A weekly routine that fits school.**

A one-hour lesson only works if the week around it is organised. With my students the week looks like this:

- Lesson on Zoom: one gap, one worked example, one timed exam question.

- Same day: the marked question goes into Google Classroom.

- Midweek: a short homework set — not ten worksheets, five targeted questions.

- Before the next lesson: I check the work. The next hour starts from the error, not from page one of the chapter.

One-to-one is for a student whose gaps are specific. A small group works when everyone is on the same exam board and needs shared paper practice.

**7. Mocks are data, not a verdict.**

A mock grade is useful only if you split it:

- content not learned

- content learned but not applied

- time

- careless units and significant figures

Those are four different problems. One extra hour of “revision” does not fix all four. After mocks I build a half-term plan from that split, then we measure it on the next paper.

**8. Summer intensives exist for a reason.**

If a student is two grades below target in March, spreading the same thin hour across ten more weeks is not enough. A short, intensive block — two-hour sessions, one paper section at a time, work checked daily — is how you recover ground before the public exam. I run these online in the same Zoom and Google Classroom system I have used since 2020.

**What parents should ask any chemistry tutor**

Before you book, ask:

- Which exam board will you teach to?

- Will my child do a timed question every lesson?

- How is homework set and marked between lessons?

- What changed for your students last results season?

If the answers are vague, keep looking.

I am a qualified science teacher (QTS) with a PGCE from King’s College London, an RSC Teacher Training Scholarship, and an MSc with Distinction from Queen Mary University of London. I tutor GCSE Physics, Chemistry and Maths, and A-Level and IB Chemistry, one-to-one and in small groups online.

If you want a clear plan for this academic year, send the exam board, current grade and target. I will tell you what the first half-term should look like.