Your child may know the chemistry content but struggle when an exam question asks them to use it in an unfamiliar way. They sit with the notes, they revise, and the paper still catches them out. The useful question is where the answer starts to break down. An A Level Chemistry tutor can help identify that point, and this page gives you one thing to try at home this week.
The short answer
- A question can look new even when it tests a topic your child already knows.
- Moments from one real lesson show what a tutor checks when answers keep going wrong.
- A short check at home can show whether the problem is knowledge or the question itself.
- Two chemistry tutors are introduced near the end, with answers to common parent questions.
Why does a familiar topic feel impossible in the exam?
At home, the topic name sits at the top of the page. Your child knows they are practising acids or bonding before they read a single question. In the exam, that label is gone. The question shows a setup they have not seen and leaves them to work out which topic it is testing.
These moments come from one real online chemistry lesson. We have left out anything that could identify the student. In that lesson, one question asked the student to compare phenol and ethanoic acid. The pairing looked unfamiliar. The way through was not new content. It was old content: what the student already knew about benzene, connected to a question that had never asked for it before.
The useful distinction is between knowing the content and recognising which familiar idea the question is testing. The second part can be practised.
What would a tutor actually check with your child first?
The first step is not more content or a full retest. It is checking how your child sets up an answer they believe they already know.
In the same lesson, the tutor stopped before any numbers went in. Together they checked the assumptions behind a weak-acid calculation and talked through why each approximation was allowed. Working out why a step is allowed is different from copying it. That explanation helps a tutor see whether the method is understood.
That check is difficult to run from the outside. A tutor can start with your child’s own work and examine where the method stopped making sense.
Do you know where the answers start going wrong?
In the form, choose A Level and Chemistry, then use the free text box to describe where answers go wrong.
Send over the detailsYour child revises more and still makes the same mistakes
When the same error survives weeks of revision, the problem is unlikely to be effort. Something specific is being chosen wrongly each time, and revision alone does not show your child which choice it is.
The lesson above had a clean example. The same relationship in chemistry can have two written forms that do different jobs. One is the full version you write out when a question says explain or state. The other is a simplified version built for calculating. In the lesson, tutor and student separated the two, because mixing them up is the kind of small mistake that repeats until someone points straight at it.
The two-forms check
- Read the question and decide its job. Does it ask your child to explain or state something, or does it ask for a number?
- If it asks them to explain, the full written version is the one to use.
- If it asks for a number, the simplified calculating version does the work.
- Only then start writing. Choosing the form first is the whole point of the check.
The choice takes a few seconds, and it happens before any working is written.
Try the two-forms check this week. Ask your child to pick one question from a recent practice paper and say, before answering, whether it asks them to state something or to use it. Ask and listen only. One question is enough.
The mock was below target. Is there time to put it right?
A below-target mock feels like a verdict. Treated calmly, it is information. Question by question, the paper shows which marks went missing and what kind of miss each one was: knowledge, method or reading.
A tutor would start with the mock paper rather than a fresh course plan. The right plan depends on your child’s exam date and the exact gaps the mock exposed.
Do you need a plan for the weeks left?
Use the form’s free text box to tell us about the last result and when the next exams are. Sending the form does not book anything.
Share what the mock showedTwo tutors we would suggest for A Level Chemistry
Meet Jessica and Charlotte
These are two of the tutors Greenhill Academics may suggest after reading your enquiry.
Jessica is completing Medicine at the University of Cambridge, after a degree in Psychology. She tutors Biology and Chemistry at GCSE and A Level.
Charlotte completed a First Class degree in Biological Sciences at Balliol College, Oxford. She has tutored since 2020, and her profile lists Chemistry among the subjects she teaches.
A look inside a lesson
A short clip from one of our online whiteboard lessons.
Losing marks on past papers? What should you read next?
A Level Chemistry: The Most Common Exam Mistakes
Read this if the same kinds of mistakes keep appearing in your child’s practice papers.
A-Level Chemistry Past Papers: The Right Way to Use Them
Read this for a way to use past papers that goes beyond marking them and moving on.
Answers to the questions parents ask us most
My child knows the content but loses marks in the exam. Can tutoring change that?
A tutor can start from your child’s own marked answers and look for the exact step where marks go. Lessons then work on that step rather than repeating the whole course. No honest tutor can promise a grade, and we do not.
The Year 12 mock was below target. What would a tutor look at first?
The mock paper itself. Question by question, it shows whether missing marks come from knowledge, from method or from how the question was read. That tells the tutor where lessons should start.
Is it a knowledge gap or the way the question is worded?
It can be either, and from the outside the two look the same. A tutor can tell them apart by asking your child to explain a question in their own words before answering it. A clear explanation followed by a wrong answer may point away from a knowledge gap.
How do online lesson times work between Doha and the UK?
Lessons run live online. Doha is two hours ahead of the UK in summer and three hours ahead in winter. When you enquire, we check each tutor’s availability individually and reply by email.
What happens after we send the enquiry form?
Sending the form does not book a lesson. It tells us who the tutoring is for, the level, the subject and anything specific you want to add. You should receive an email from us shortly.
What keeps going wrong in the exam?
It asks who the tutoring is for, the level, the subject and anything you want to add. You should receive an email from us shortly.
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