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Good books for students studying for GCE A/L examination...

As we all know A/Ls is a very tough exam and you will not be able to finish it successfully by just studying.It needs practice,timing and all.So the best way to do it is do exercises and improve knowledge,i did A/Ls in physical science stream and in sinhala medium,so based on my experience i will recommend anyone to use following books.There may be books better than following list,but books below were used by me.

Chemistry
almost every book by hemachandra basnayaka
Akabanika rasayanaya by Aruna Bandara (there are two books for inorganic chemistry,these books will help you in for the doubts you will have in doing mcqs)
Akabanika rasayana pilibanda gunathmaka ha pramanathmaka wishleshanaya by Ranga gunarathna(this also will help you in mcqs)
Organic chemistry by jayathilaka(this book is very good and it will help you to understand concepts in organic chemistry better)

Physics
Prof D.D.N balo dayas' books
yanthra vidyawa by lakshaman dissanayaka(questionsin this book  are tough,but will help you in A/Ls)
Dr.P.geekiyanages books
Mohan lal grerus books(these are really good books,but i couldn't find any of these books for money,they are very old and available only in libraries)
Shadow physics by tharusha dissanayaka

Combined Maths
books by K.M.D.S jayathilaka (they are expensive but very good)
Ajith vimanga vijesinghas books(very easy to understand and really good,not so expensive)
shudda ganithaya by L.bostok and R.chandler(this books is published by ministery of educational publications dept,and its a huge book of nearly 1000 pages but its only 600rs,so its very cheap and i still love that book)
London A/L books (heinnman modular mathematics books-expensive but you will be able to buy those books for a very low price at colombo international book fair bargain stalls)


Now you can watch my videos via my YouTube channel

Similar posts..

How to get 90+ for chemistry paper?
Guess answers to MCQs like a pro!!!

Update (2018-07-27)

Since so many students are reading this post I thought of giving you a sneak peek of uni life. To read it click HERE

Update (2019-08-12)

Many students are really confused with doppler calculations. It was not even a bit confusing to me because of a little strategy my teacher taught me. You can find out more about it in the link below. Hope it will help you guys.
Doppler Calculations made easy

As per your request I also wrote an article about how I did A/Ls. You can find it in the link down below.
How I did A/Ls
How I did A/Ls- Part 2
Time management for A/L students
You can read all of my articles about GCE A/Ls by clicking HERE.
If you have any more requests about topics I should write don't hesitate to contact me. 😊

Comments

  1. Can I know whether by Shadow Physics book you mean some sort of bahuwarana vivaranaya and if so from which year is it available and whether it's available as a series of books like Dr.Rosa's Physics mcq/past paper analysis books?
    I also would like to know how did you manage to find explanations to difficult older physics mcq's like that of 1980's?
    Thank you in advance

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    Replies
    1. Hello. Thank you for reading my blog.Yeah shadow physics is a mcq review book with some techniques to answer the questions easily. As per my knowledge it's a single book, not a series. Unfortunately I gave away all my books as soon as I did A/Ls, so I don't remember from which year.
      Actually the Physics sir who taught me (Dr. Charith Jayathilake from University of Kelaniya, Department of Physics) made us work on every single paper from 1979 to 2013. We had to make reviews by our own for every question and then he reviewed them himself. Thanks to him we went through those papers like 5 times before A/Ls. There are no books for 1980s papers I think.

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  2. Thanks a lot for the reply .I will find the book.BTW can I know whether doing only past papers in last 30 years in physics and 18 years in chemistry enough to get a good z score or do I have to do questions from many more books and tutorials as well?
    Finally ,I really liked your blog. Specially your blog post about guessing answers to mcq's was helpful.Thanks again and wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

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  3. According to my sir doing past papers over and over again is more than enough. But I read and did exercises on Mohan Lal Greru Sirs books and geekiyanage books. (But the more you do, the better you will get). For chemistry you definitely need to do as much as you can. Practice is essential. Especially for MCQs and organic and inorganic essays.

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  4. Thanks a lot Ruvi.One more thing is it true that doing environmental and industrial chemistry essay question will not be a good choice?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are welcome. Yeah it's true because it's more essay type. There are no certain answers (unlike a calculation) so you will end up writing as much as you can (which will waste your time) So its better to do some other essays which have certain answers and save time and effort.

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  5. Thanks for all the answers. May be I will get back to you after exams then .Good luck

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  6. I actually want to know one more thing. For subjects like physics no one can be strong in everything. Some things that we are taught have never been used in exam history for example taking moments and finding centre of gravity and Lami's theorem etc. And some small parts of theory like this my teacher has never even taught. So how can i approach the issue? No one can refer to that many tutorials or books and remember them all.
    And how many years of past papers you recommend doing .Ultimately if we did a lot of material our focus will get diluted.right?
    What about the sections that I am weak at?For example surface tension. They will give maximum one mcq from that section and even if I completely give up on it ,it won't be that much of a loss.right?
    I am bad at heat.So should I focus on doing the radiation question and focus less on heat?
    And out of electricity and electronics should I pre choose a question before the exam itself?
    Thanks in advance

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    Replies
    1. Physics is not about memorizing. Its about understanding concepts and using them. Once you understand them and repeatedly use them you will not need to memorize anything and it will come to you naturally once you see a question. I think it's better if you can do pastpapers starting from 1980.. but i dont know if you are doing a.ls this year or in 2020. If you are a student doing a.ls this year use your time wisely.For someone who will do a.ls in 2020 my advice is to start from 1980s. If you are a 2019 a.ls student start from 2017 and go backwards. Once you feel like you are good at physics try doing the 2018 paper and look how much you have scored. I was also bad at heat so i always answered the matter and radiation part. And its better to choose questions before the exam coz it will save your time. I always did that for both chemistry and physics. So i dont waste time to read and choose questions.. in a.ls every second matters.. Good Luck !!!

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  7. Thanks a lot Ruvi .How many years of past papers you did for each subject?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For chemistry and physics I did from 1980. But for maths its just 2013 12 and 11 papers.

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  8. Hey akki your blog Is really useful specially the articles about Als...i was suprised to hear that u went to dr.Charith Jayathilaka for phy6 who is also the tutor of me...but it is difficult to understand phy6 from him...wasn't that a problem for you??....and akki it will also be very helpful if u can also write about how you worked as a al student...im sure alot of students will find it very helpful.....THANK YOU!

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    Replies
    1. Hey, thanks for reading my blog. Actually I learned physics from school. I went to Charith sir because of his work load. That really helped me.(His re-revision, dessert etc) Sure I will write about how I did A.Ls.(I will probably do it tonight or tomorrow morning). :)

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  9. akki can u mention ur A/L scl and the tution clsz that u went

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    Replies
    1. My school is Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo. For physics I went to Dr.Charith Jayathilake. And for chemistry I went to Mrs Sakura Dodampegamage. I learned the subjects from the school. So the tuitions were extra knowledge to me.

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    2. thnku for ur comments

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  10. Are the chemistry and physics books in Tamil or English language? Because I know Sinhala a little bit of.

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    Replies
    1. They were in Sinhala as I did A/Ls in Sinhala medium.

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