For millions of children heading back to school or college this week or next, the new school year will be simply a question of picking up where they left off, whether they’re moving from Year 8 to Year 9, heading into the second year of GCSEs or trading their AS Levels in for A2s. For one group of students, however, this week will herald a big change: the transition from GCSEs to A Levels.

Having previously had to juggle eight or nine subjects, you’re now going to be concentrating on just four or so. But boy will you be concentrating on them. The level of detail you be going into with your A Levels is going to make GCSEs seem almost adorably simple.

Now, while after two years of studying A Levels you’ll feel like an all-conquering intellectual powerhouse who has mastered some truly tricky disciplines, it may well be that in your first few weeks–or even term–back at school you’ll instead feel like a lost little child. This is because A Levels represent a huge change to GCSEs, and as such you’ll never have experienced anything quite like it in the classroom before.

But fret not. For while we can’t make any promises that it’ll be easy making the transition to A Levels, we can warn you of the major differences that cause people headaches in their first months of Year 12. And if you know these hurdles are coming, you can start developing the good study habits that’ll have you acing your A Levels from day one.

The material just keeps on coming

Probably the first big difference about A Levels that you’ll notice is that your teachers through more subject material at you. Much, much more, in fact. Within a few weeks of study you’ll have realised that what seemed quite simple subjects at GCSE are in fact much more intense and complicated. If you study languages, you’ll learn more grammar in a month than you had ever done in the previous years of studying them combined; if you study sciences those tricky equations you mastered for your GCSE’s will seem like child’s play.

More work at home than just homework

So how do A Level students deal with all this extra material they’re expected to learn? Well, the answer is simple, and it reveals the most fundamental difference between GCSES and A Levels. And it’s this: A Level students need to do more than just the homework that their teachers set them at home if they really want to get good results. This means making going through key texts at your own initiative; making notes without having been instructed to do so; doing exercises in text books off your own bat.

Less keeping tabs on you from teachers

You might initially question this claim. After all, won’t your teachers be closely monitoring your progress, like they did at GCSE? Well, don’t bank on it, especially if you’re studying your A Levels at a college rather than in school. As a sixteen-year-old you’re considered to be much more grown up than the GCSE version of yourself, and as such it’s down to you and you alone to make sure you put in the work required.

So, in essence, A Levels represent a much weightier challenge than GCSE, the best way to survive them is to be prepared to put in the work you need to do to feel on top of everything rather than just what your teacher tells you to do, and the only person who’ll really be making sure you do this is yourself!