• Question: did you get A* IN aLL SCINCES AND MATHS?

    Asked by adahmj26496 to Andrew on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Yes, I got A* across the board for sciences and maths at GCSE level, and As for Chemistry, Physics and Maths at A-level (back then there were no A* for A-levels!).

      It’s always good to do well in exams, but if you are enthusiastic for your science and are inspired to learn more about it, that goes an awfully long way that bare qualifications won’t. Top grades won’t make you a good scientist – they certainly help you follow the science path, but without passion and imagination and an inventive streak, your science career will be limited to book studies.

Comments

  • Photo: Ben

    Ben commented on :

    Wow, well done Andrew! I have to say that my school career was less impressive. I got B in double award science GCSE. Although Physics was my strongest science my Biology grades brought me down. I got a B in GCSE Maths too.

    Despite this I went on to do Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Biology at A-Level. Here again I wasn’t an all-A student. I got an A in Physics because I focused on this as I really enjoyed it (nothing to do with the fact I did it at a girls school honestly!). I Got C’s in Maths and Chemistry, there were elements (pardon the pun!) in both Chemistry and Maths that I really enjoyed and did well at, and some areas, such as organic chemistry, that I was less interested in and did less well in.

    Grades are needed to get you to where you want to go but are not required to make a good scientist as Andrew says.

  • Photo: Beth

    Beth commented on :

    Physics, chemistry, maths and biology for A level sounds really really hard!! I did pretty well in my gcses, but I only picked subjects I was good at – if you’d asked me to do drama or music or French I would have failed miserably!

    I asked most of the people who work in my lab, and the average GCSE grade for science was a B, and for maths, a C. So you don’t have to be an A student to work in science, you just have to like it enough to work hard at it!!