My exams are finally over!!
That last few weeks have been so hectic, with me cramming for my English literature, English language and maths GSCEs. I have a habit of leaving it to the absolute last minute to learn content for exams, as I do believe that that’s really all you need for GSCEs. I’m very thankful that I decided to spread mine out over the last few years, so that I only had to do 3 this year. I have friends who have about 30 papers to do, and I only had to do 5!
I had two English literature papers, one of which went very well, and the other went really badly. The first was testing me on Macbeth and A Christmas Carol, and I felt that my Macbeth answer in particular was very well written. The second exam was on Lord of the Flies and poetry (both unseen and from an anthology I had studied). The Lord of the Flies question threw me off a little and my answer definitely wasn’t the best it could have been, and poetry was absolutely atrocious. I don’t even want to think about it.
For English language, I had just the one (3 hour 😭) paper which went very well, I thought. I have to write short essays about two unseen passages, which in this case were about the importance of outdoor exercise. I then had to write a speech to my peers about why we should exercise outdoors more, and then a story (nothing to do with the passages) called ‘A Difficult Decision’. This fit perfectly with a story I had prepared and semi-memorised prior to the exam, in the hope that I could adapt it to the title prompt. I will link the story here. I originally wrote it in a past paper under the given title ‘Doing the Right Thing’. I put a slightly dark spin on it 😬 In the real exam, I made it more obvious that there was a decision to be made between looking after the baby and eating it. That will make sense if you check out the story! 😂
For maths, I again had two papers, one of which went very well, and one of which didn’t. I remember thinking as I was going through it that okay, it wasn’t the best paper I’d ever done, but it’s not terrible either, and then the worst thing happened. I looked at the clock and I had one minute left. I looked down at my paper casually checking through for the last minute, and then noticed that I had made some completely stupid assumption that made no sense and based all my calculations off that assumption in a big 5-marker question. So I had to sit there for the longest minute of my life, knowing that I had lost those 5 marks (which is a lot) and knowing that I simply didn’t have the time to do anything about it. I was crying inside. It was absolutely horrible. It seems, though, from looking at discussion threads about the exam online, that a few other people made that same mistake, and many of them had struggled with all the same questions I had. I’m hoping that the grade boundaries might be low this year because of that. To do the maths A Level at sixth form, I need to get at least a grade 8 in maths, which I’m really worried I won’t get. The degrees I want to do – PPL, PPE or any course at an American university – basically depend on me having a maths A Level, so I would have to completely rethink those goals if I don’t get the 8. I would be so, so disappointed.
On the bright side, it is all over now and I have the whole summer to look forward to. It’s going to be a jam-packed one, as well! I want to spend a lot of the time studying in preparation for sixth form, but I have a few exciting holidays planned as well. At the end of June, I am going to stay with my sister in Oxford for a bit, and then we are going to a political conference for a few days in London! I am incredibly excited, as there will be lots of interesting debates led by journalists I have followed for a long time now, and the opportunity to speak to them all in person afterwards (at the pub, I hear 😅). I’m going with Tilly, her boyfriend Jasper and her friend Natalya. It’s going to be so fun!!
The excitement doesn’t end there. At the beginning of July, Tilly, Natalya, Natalya’s sister and I are going on holiday in Eastern Europe!! We are going to spend four nights in Budapest and four in Bratislava. I am incredibly excited. It looks so beautiful there and the weather should be lovely too. Eeeeee.
The final big thing happening this summer is that I’m going to a 2-week-long Latin camp! I’m quite nervous as I don’t really know what it involves, and I sat my GCSE over a year ago, so I’m going to have quite a bit of catching-up to do so I’m not behind the others. I’m sure it will be fun though; we get to go on day trips like seeing Hadrian’s Wall, and have classicists that I know and love such as Edith Hall come to talk to us. That’s about as much as I know! I’m not sure how the actual Latin part will work – are we learning more Latin, or reading Latin, or writing Latin, or is it more about Roman history than the language, or a combination of them all? I have no idea.
So as you can see, it’s going to be a busy summer for me. However, part of my rigorous preparing-for-sixth-form schedule will include plenty of blog writing, so watch this space! 😅