‘Wish we could turn back time, to the good old days...When our momma sang us to sleep but now we’re stressed out’ - Twenty One Pilots
UCAS, A Levels, PPEs...the list goes on. If you do not recognise some of those acronyms, they are simply all jargon associated with the stress of an everyday A Level student’s life.
Around this time of year it’s crunch time for GCSE, AS and A Level students as they scramble to fit into their brains all their brightly coloured revision notes and catchy acronyms for the moment they’ve been preparing for for the past two years of their lives...The exam. One to two years worth of information all condensed into exam questions that are sure to provoke humorous memes and tweets on Twitter, for example, Bear Grylls magnificent cliff slide chosen as a source of analysis for one of last year’s AQA english papers.
I distinctly remember going down to Sutton Library every spare moment I could in order to conquer nine hours of hardcore revision. I’d be there before the doors opened until they closed. My room was covered in mindmaps and past papers whilst pen after pen kept running out of ink as my hand ached from endless hours of writing about osmosis and why Hyde wasn’t that bad of guy…*Tip* translate Jekyll from French and boom! Some extra context for that English Literature exam, thank me later.
I’m currently tutoring a Year 11 in preparation for their english language exam and I can definitely say ‘oh how have times have changed since back in my day…’. The level they are now expected to write at is A Level standard. Even some of the questions have me baffled. I also do not understand how 1 hour 45 mins is enough to write a combination of a 4, 8, 8, 20 and 40 marker.
So listen here current Year 12’s, you were very lucky with the exams you did last year. As for those older siblings out there, don’t say the age old phrase ‘Just you wait till you do A Levels, University etc.’ because don’t forget, you were them once.
As for those of you preparing to sit your exams, don’t worry. Just remember you’re showing off all the knowledge you’ve accumulated over the past two years. Don’t worry if you think you haven’t done enough revision because let’s be honest here, any revision is better than no revision, right? Finally, at the end of exams you have a whole summer stress free...Well, until results day.
Good luck everyone!
By Roann Gutierrez, St Philomena’s Catholic High School for Girls
