What should I revise for OCR 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 OCR 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 OCR A Paper 1
Paper 1 focuses on the periodic table, elements and physical chemistry and will assess content from modules 1, 2, 3 and 5. You can get an overview of the content of each paper on the OCR A website, and the specification can be downloaded here. The topics included are:
- Practical skills*
- Atoms, compounds, molecules and equations
- Amount of substance
- Acid-base and redox reactions
- Electrons, bonding and structure
- Periodic table, including periodic trends, group 2 and group 7
- Qualitative analysis
- Enthalpy changes (including entropy and free energy)
- Rates (including rate equation)
- Redox and electrode potentials
- Transition metals
*The practical skills will be related to the other topics listed – for example, you can expect questions involving redox titrations or analysis of inorganic ions, but not tests for organic compounds or organic practical techniques.
What are the most important topics for OCR A chemistry A level Paper 1?
As you can see, it’s a pretty big list of topics to cover – it’s basically EVERYTHING that isn’t organic chemistry! There will be a 15 mark multiple choice question that can cover any topic at all, then 85 marks from short and long answer questions. There are some common themes that are very likely to come up every year, however:
- Bonding and structure
- Periodic trends
- Calculations, particularly acid-base titrations and redox titrations
- Inorganic analysis – testing for ions
- Transition metal reactions – especially ligand substitution and precipitation
- Equilibrium calculations – Kc and Kp
Predictions for OCR A chemistry A Level Paper 1 2026?
Looking through the trends and patterns in papers from the last five years, I have a few extra predictions that you should focus on for this year’s paper:
- Reactions of halogens
- Kinetics – continuous monitoring experiments
- Kp calculations
- Enthalpy of solution
- Kw calculations and buffers
- Fuel cells
- Redox titrations
- Reactions of copper (II) ions
The video below summarises my predictions for OCR 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!
