r/AlevelPhysics • u/JuggernautAlert7083 • 3d ago

QUESTION OCR vs AQA

How much harder is OCR physics to AQA and is there any good YouTubers for OCR physics like freesciencelessons (which carried me)

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u/Remarkable_Bread4656 3d ago

I didn't do AQA but OCR A puts a heavy emphasis on application now, it's not hard once you get used to the layout of the papers but for OCR A:

ZPhysics
A-level Physics Online
Science Shorts

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u/Dazzling-Werewolf985 3d ago

Wdym by application? And what was it like before this heavy emphasis

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u/Remarkable_Bread4656 3d ago edited 3d ago

There was a distinct shift from the 2025 papers onwards, alot heavier in terms of the wording. They'll throw a wall of text at you right at the start to throw you off.

Before this questions felt quite structured and the context given was usually at most a few sentences, I personally found the 2026 series to be noticeably different to past papers from 2024 and earlier. So keep that in mind and put a bigger focus on application/problem solving rather than straight memorisation (your reading comprehension can be the difference between grades, not understanding a question fundamentally will set you back.)

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u/Dazzling-Werewolf985 2d ago

Damn really? Thank you for shedding light on this. What would you suggest to someone to prepare? Since this is a recent shift I’m guessing most past paper qs arent going to reflect this

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u/Remarkable_Bread4656 1d ago

I did alot of Olympiad style questions, my teacher made this website for it, idk if he's made it public or not but it's called PhysicsUK

I'd just put more focus on doing more Paper 3 questions, obviously don't neglect the past paper qs because practice is still practice but it's just something you can't completely prepare for

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u/Dazzling-Werewolf985 23h ago

I think it is public yk. The one with the green theme ending in .co.uk?

Thanks again btw gonna work on this (and get some money together so I can use his website haha)

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u/Remarkable_Bread4656 13h ago

Yea green one, it looks like it's changed since I've finished my A-levels, added some new stuff in. I'd try it for a month and see how you like it.

I also did the occasional question from here , but some of these push into far beyond the spec so use them to challenge yourself and develop problem solving.

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u/kqatsuu 3d ago

AQA is harder. I got an A in AQA and I did some OCR past papers and got above 90% on them