How to regain my touch in Physics? Also help me choose between two schools.

Troubled

So I took 4 A-Levels last year (Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Biology), and I got 4A*. I am from a low-income family and my family have to struggle to pay my through college. And the worst thing happened to me during my AS examinations; my father passed away. He was the breadwinner of the family and I knew I wasn't able to afford college so I didn't bother to apply.

I decided to take a gap year. For the whole time I took up multiple jobs to keep up with household expenses and to earn some savings for college. I told myself I have to go to college no matter how hard.

Finally, after months of working and some help from close relatives and friends, I accumulated enough money to pay for one year of college. So I applied via UCAS for 2012 entry. To my joy I got into all my choices. I am still trying to decide between Imperial College London (BSc Physics with Theoretical Physics) and University College London (BSc Theoretical Physics). I have also applied to various sponsoring bodies for scholarships and landed a full scholarship to pursue my course at UCL.

School is going to start this fall and time is running out. Now I am having concerns about my Physics knowledge. I have not used Physics for almost a whole year and I have lost touch with my Physics skills. I certainly do not wish to blow my chances of getting a first. And afaik UCL and Imperial are insanely competitive schools and I don't want to lose the rat race.

I have another concern that is my mathematical skills. Typically Physics students at UCL and Imperial College take Further Maths during A-levels. I didn't since my school doesn't teach it. I am afraid without a background in Further Mathematics I will be disadvantaged in my university years.

How can I regain my touch in these few months? How should I start? My memory on many topics are really hazy, except for basic Newtonian mechanics. Any suggestions? Book recommendations are welcome too since I live near a public library.

Also, now I'm appealing to the scholarship board to consider sponsoring me to Imperial College London. If my appeal is unsuccessful should I waste the scholarship and still go to Imperial? In terms of reputation Imperial should be better but UCL isn't that bad either.

WormBanshee

First, congratulations on the scholarship and your acceptances.

Well, you can start by doing some sort of 'refresher,' just to see if you really have forgotten a lot, or if you just need to see it again quickly. For that, I would recommend going to khanacademy [dot] org. A lot of my classes that I took, I would look at the videos on here first, and ended up doing way better in the class having seen it before.

If there isn't much of a difference in the colleges, I would personally use that scholarship at UCL. But, if the other one is your dream school, and there isn't much of a difference, and the money won't cause problems later, it might be good to follow your dream.