What should I revise for AQA A Level chemistry Paper 1 (2026)?

This is an update of a post I produce every year to help students prepare for their A Level chemistry exams. It can be overwhelming following all the advice on what’s on exam papers, where to focus revision etc so my main piece of advice is to do what you can, be thorough in covering the specification and do lots and lots and lots of practice exam questions!

You can purchase predicted papers and practice papers for AQA A Level chemistry using the link below.

If you want a complete revision package that’s designed to focus on exam technique and essential topics (especially if you are aiming for A-A* grade), my A Level chemistry Exam Prep Hub includes not only all the predicted papers for the last three years (with video walkthroughs) but also a large selection of practice assessments – all with video walkthroughs and unseen questions to give you a more realistic ‘exam feel’.

“Last minute” A Level chemistry revision – without the panic

Each year I also run live online ‘night before’ style revision classes for A Level chemistry – except, they’re not the night before! I think it’s a bit crazy to try and cram for an exam less than 16 hours before it starts, so all my pre-exam classes run on the Saturday morning before the paper – making sure students are fresh and have time to recap any topics they might have missed. The three exam preparation classes are included with the Exam Prep Hub.

Topics included in A Level chemistry AQA Paper 1

Paper 1 focuses on physical and inorganic chemistry; You can get a comprehensive list of topics on the AQA website, but the topics that can be covered are:

• Atomic structure
• Amount of substance (mole calculations)
• Bonding
• Energetics (ΔH calculations, Hess’ Law)
• Equilibrium (Kc and Kp)
• Redox (including electrochemical cells)
• Thermodynamics (ΔS, ΔG)
• Acids and bases (including Ka calculations)
• Periodicity, groups 2 and 7 and period 3 elements
• Transition metals and their reactions

What are the most important topics for AQA chemistry A level Paper 1?

There are certain topics and types of question that are (almost) GUARANTEED to come up every year and are worth lots of marks in the paper. These are:

• Born Haber cycles
• Atomic structure, mass spec time of flight calculations
• Reactions of transition metals and complexes
• pH calculations
• Some sort of Kc or Kp calculation
• Amount of substance (mole calculations – especially titrations!)

Predictions for AQA chemistry A Level Paper 1 2026?

Looking through trends from the last five years of past papers, I have a few extra predictions that you should focus on for the 2026 paper:

• Homogeneous catalysis and autocatalysis
• Reactions of iron (II) and iron (III)
• Reactions and trends in group 2
• pH calculations involving alkalis (Kw)
• Neutralisation and enthalpy changes
• Ionisation energy trends

The video below summarises my predictions for AQA A Level chemistry paper 1 for 2026 – remember these are just educated guesses, so make sure you revise thoroughly and check out the predicted papers and revision classes if you’d like some more support!