A-Level woes.

I crammed and pulled all-nighters in the last 2 days for all my uni exams and I passed with a good 2.1, although I wouldnt recommend this for Alevels as they are much more important and a lot more is resting on them.
Just try and get some sleep. Drink some camomile tea if your feeling edgy.
 
I've got a 3 hour compositional techniques paper for A2 music tomorrow morning and i'm dreading it. I failed the AS one last year. The worst thing is that there is no way to revise. I need to get at least a B in Music to get to Uni so I kinda know how you feel.

Don't be staying up all night you'll just feel really bad in the exam and probably forget a lot of things and get lazy. Get a good nights sleep, you'll be amazed how much you churn out in the exam you never realised you knew so well.

Good luck!
 
It all flows out once you get started. Once you see a question on it you'll remember stuff that you didn't even revise - works for me, anyway :)
 
This thread has just made me remember just how horrible Alevels were. Definately the hardest exams you will have to take. Not because the material is difficult, but because of the immense pressure.
Just be happy knowing that it gets better in uni when its over!
 
This sounds pretty cheesy/cliché but - don't think negatively about the situation. Everyone tends to overreact or react badly to pressure. I found that with some IB courses, I was stuck the day before an exam - English Literature was my worst one - but I got a good night's sleep and focused on what I know, and convinced myself that I could write a very good paper by just putting my mind to it and being completely relaxed.

My first exam (I did 16 exams for my IB over the space of about 2 weeks!) was English Literature - unseen commentary - and was the one I was most nervous about. Just relax, take a deep breath, turn over that piece of paper and do the best you can - that's what I did and I left the room thinking that I had just written a very good commentary. This "confidence" or relaxing then carried through the rest of my exams, which helped immensely.

Results come out in just over a week - so I could be proved completely wrong yet :p
 
Phytocrome
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Do you mean cytochrome?
EDIT - Aha, you do mean what you mean :p [/silly]

Around 56% on your paper will get you an A at A level biology. A huge amount of dunderheads take it, bringing down the grade bounderies. I'm not saying its easy at all (I worked pretty hard for it). I thought I dropped a huge amount of marks but came out of an exam with the highest mark possible UMS wise. Not that I'm trying to brag, just showing the scaling is in your favour :)

And everyone saying a good night sleep is much better than cramming into the night are slightly misleading. Biology requires a huge amount of words (More than french at A2 are learned I was told!) and cramming is pretty vital. Put it this was, in my first year of uni, I worked 16 hour revision shifts without breaks for almost a month with a litre of red bull every day. I crammed up till 4am the day before my 9am exam as well. Fortuantly, what i was revising last minute DID actually come up.

I think cramming is a good thing, even late into the night. But don't OVERKILL it, sleep is important.

Edit - That sounds a bit egotistical or patronising, but it wasn't intended that way :(
 
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50/50 said:
Just be happy knowing that it gets better in uni when its over!
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that depends where you go to. LSE, Imperial, Oxford, Cambridge - be ready for war, even middle range ones you still have to work your ass off at least in the final year with much harder work than a-levels.
 
You'll probably do okay just get your rest do the exam then it's over and if you don't get into the uni you want it's not the end of the world.
 
Do what i did - go over all your work and make brief notes of the most important parts. Then read over and over until its all memorised. Obviously proper revision beforehand helps...
 
My german was fun. 3 hours (combined listening reading writing) and i finished in an hour.

So i listened to nonstop oldies on radio 2 on my walkman i had for the listening. Ah how fun.

One more exam left, cosmology on thursday
 
Since the exam is in the morning I'd get the sleep, in the afternoon I'd cram it all in until about 4/5am then go to bed. Thats just me though.

Good luck and sleep tight :)
 
good luck, cosmology at A2 seems a bit random - just learn facts and recite :/ I hated that exam (plus some of the random q in synoptic)

ps i personally never do any work after noon before the exam, i just chill out, get stuff ready, then have a nice early night :)
 
Yeah the synoptic was friggin weird. It was like, you have a 3m tape measure, how do you measure the length of a pavement?

What the hell is that about? Thats NOT A-level physics surely!
 
i had one really wierd question last year about thermodyamics and one about bikes, was random. Thing about it for me was, I wasn't too worried about physics - i knew i was gonna get what I needed!

anyone know when last econ exams are this year for A2?
 
Defo get the sleep its the best answer. You end up not reading stuff right and making stupid mistakes(mixing up income and expenditure accounts with receipts and payments.......using the debtor collection period formula like the creditor payment period) general stupid stuff. Oh and doing EVERY question in the book when your only meant to do selected ones :p

Get a good nights sleep,study a bit in the morning.....do what you can do. :)
 
Quote:Defo get the sleep its the best answer. You end up not reading stuff right and making stupid mistakes(mixing up income and expenditure accounts with receipts and payments.......using the debtor collection period formula like the creditor payment period) general stupid stuff. Oh and doing EVERY question in the book when your only meant to do selected ones

Get a good nights sleep,study a bit in the morning.....do what you can do. Unquote

I dont think theres an Economics exam tomorrow... its Biol tomorrow. Good luck to John HAcche whos doing it too. :p
 
well im just back from doing my unifying and central concepts exams, luckly i had a quick scan over my stuff this morning and the stuff i scanned came up so im happy :D, wasnt the easiest papers in the world but not the worst. How do u feel u did?
 
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