How to Revise for A Level Chemistry (A Simple Plan for the Final 3 Months)

A little later than last year, but still plenty of time to get your revision organised for your A Level chemistry exams this summer!

Revision planning can be a chore, and it can be hard to know what to focus on and where to start. It can also be tempting to dive straight into lots of past papers before you’ve given yourself time to properly practise recall and understanding.

With around three months to go, you’ll burn out quickly if you only work on full exam papers. Instead, it’s much more effective to mix up your A Level chemistry revision activities and gradually increase the amount of exam practice as the exams get closer.

To help with this, I’ve put together a simple March–May revision planner for 2026 A Level chemistry exams that guides you through what to focus on each month.

Keep using retrieval practice activities

Retrieval practice works best if you are doing it little and often, so hopefully you’ve been using resources like my retrieval practice quizzes to keep on top of your knowledge.

However, you should keep going with this right up until your final exam. Low-stakes self-testing is one of the most effective ways to strengthen memory.

Quizzes, simple practice questions, mind maps and “brain dumps” are all good ways to keep bringing key facts to mind.

The thing is, colours of transition metal complexes and organic reaction conditions are intrinsically quite dull things to learn, so you’re unlikely to remember them without regular knowledge “top-ups”.

Practice questions are not the same as past papers!

Practising questions by topic is an important skill.

When you’ve spent time revising a topic, it’s helpful to apply that knowledge to exam-style questions. Working through a set of past exam questions on a single topic allows you to see the most common question styles and how marks are awarded.

However, this is quite different from doing a full past paper.

When you practise questions by topic, your brain is already “primed” for that subject area. Full exam papers are much harder because you need to switch between topics and decide which ideas to apply.

That’s why it’s best to leave most full exam papers until later in your revision programme, once you’ve strengthened your understanding and practised applying individual topics.

If you want to work on exam technique without wasting your supply of past papers, you’ll find a set of brand new practice assessments with full video walkthroughs as part of my Year 13 Exam Prep Hub.

Make time for feedback

Exam practice is only useful if you actually learn from it.

When reviewing answers, don’t just check the final mark — look carefully at the wording used in mark schemes. Words like allow, ignore and reject give clues about what examiners consider important.

Examiner reports are also very useful. These summarise the most common mistakes students make and highlight areas where marks are frequently lost.

Taking time to analyse mistakes properly will make a much bigger difference than simply completing more questions.

If you want expert feedback and advice, take a look at my mock exam service, available for Year 12 and Year 13 students.

If you want a more structured revision programme

Some students prefer to organise their own revision using planners and past papers. Others find it helpful to have the resources, assessments and exam practice already structured for them.

The Year 13 Exam Prep Hub is designed around the same March–May progression as the planner.

It includes topic masterclasses, exam-style assessments with walkthroughs, full mock exam papers, predicted papers released later in the spring and live online exam preparation classes shortly before each chemistry paper.

Find out more details about the Exam Prep Hub here.

Easter Revision Courses

Easter is also a good opportunity to step back from day-to-day school work and focus on consolidation and exam technique.

My intensive A Level chemistry Easter revision courses run in small groups and focus on the topics students most commonly find challenging, as well as strategies for approaching exam questions effectively.

Start Early, Work Consistently

Three months might sound like a long time, but it passes quickly once revision and exam season begin.

The most important thing is to start early and work consistently. Small amounts of focused revision, done regularly, will always be more effective than trying to cram everything at the last minute.

If you haven’t already done so, you can download the revision planner below and start mapping out the next few months.