August last year, I wrote about my AS results day, and the frantic feeling I
had on that dreaded day, however, I failed to write about how I felt just
before the exams I had taken the two months previously.
This year, however, I am writing this the day before my
first A2 exam, and to put it bluntly, I am feeling less than prepared.
Despite the fact that I will start answering a past paper,
and after about 5 minutes on the question I'll suddenly stop, put my pen down,
and squint at the paper and think "I've done this before...", in my
head I need a lot more time before I'm going to be ready for this exam.
Actually, I am never going be ready for any exams.
I realised this a few weeks ago, after learning some of my,
what feels like, 4000 definitions. Despite completely ticking off your list of
things to learn, there's always that nagging feeling inside you that there's
something that you've missed out. Your mind then skips to that one question you
did on that mock paper once, that you simply couldn't do.
Panic sets in and you spend the next hour staring blankly at
your textbook desperately trying to see inside the page to scour for that
secret fact that will get that you extra mark, when in fact, it's not there. It
then dawns on you that you've just wasted an hour of your day and learnt
nothing, an hour which could have been used more productively doing useful
things like sleeping or making brownies.
At which point, you make those brownies, eat them all in one
go, explain why you and the kitchen is covered in cocoa powder to your mum and
then proceed to sleep for four hours, or perhaps that's just me...
The number of stupid marks I have lost when doing past
papers these past month would add up to a good solid A at A-Level now. Although
it is daft and I know that I am not the only one experiencing these last minute
silly errors, now is the time to make those mistakes and hopefully next time
you'll remember that 2x2 is in fact 4 and not 2. Nice one me.
So, just before your exams, don't panic, get enough sleep
and if that's not working for you, eat brownies until you feel better.
