AS-Levels: 'I think we did see ourselves as guinea pigs'

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A diet too heavy for students

Confusion and patchwork adoption of A-level reform

The price of pleasing all

Benefits for mature students

The teacher: This wasted opportunity

The pupil: 'It's been very hard work - but it will be worth it'

The teacher: 'A sacrifice of personal breadth'

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Chris Outen, 16, is at Bedford Modern, a boys' independent school. He got eight starred As and two As at GCSE and is now taking AS-levels in biology, chemistry, physics and English literature

"I have been unsure about whether I want to do biological sciences or the arts so I am in favour of a system of broadening A-levels which allows you to study both. The workload has been excessive. I have mostly spent Saturdays working on my sciences and Sundays preparing English essays.

"I go to a theatre group on Saturday morning, then an organ lesson and I sing in the church choir on Sunday. I managed to keep it all going except during the exams. I love English literature, but I've been doing it by myself because no one else chose it as a combination with the sciences.

"I have had two lessons a week and then used almost all my study periods on it. I've come out as one of the top ones so it has worked very well. The concepts in physics have not been much more demanding than those in GCSE but the level of precision in how you answer has gone up. It encourages factual recall rather than application of knowledge; I think that is unhealthy if you want to carry on with a subject.

"A huge amount has been made of AS-levels and I think we did see ourselves as guinea pigs. I think we felt there was a chance element in how it would all turn out. I am inclined to panic and I got very little sleep before some of the exams. I was prepared for exams that were tougher. It was challenging turning my head round to answer questions that were easier than I expected; physics was of a different level and approach to that which we were prepared for. I had 12 exams over three weeks and they were clustered with long breaks between. It was as though the exam boards weren't expecting people to do my combination.

"I am considering going to Oxford and went to an open day where there was only one other person interested in biology; it seems to have been because people were so busy with AS-level they couldn't go. We were told the college didn't know how significant the AS results would be to admissions. They may rely more on a teacher's reference and GCSEs; I'd prefer that."