Panicking about SG prelims

My prelims start a week tommorow and my final one is on the 16th. I've been revising a bit but nothing seems to be going. I'm really scared that I'm going to fail my prelims -- I think I started revising far too late. Is it possible to get good SG prelim results in the space of time I've got left to revise?

Reply 1

Kerrias

Hi, yes it is possible to do well still. If you don't panic for one. If you do, you will just over-worry yourself. Prelims are important but certainly not the be all and end all and you still have a few months to improve before the real exams. If you start revising now and are committed to it, say 2 hours or so a day until they're finished then I'd say you still have more than enough time to consolidate everything. Revise in a way that suits you and I cannot tell you how important past papers are; they will help you millions, so do as many as you can. I think many people, myself included, managed to achieve the grades they wanted in prelims by crash revising. It will just take alot of time, hard work and stress over the next few weeks but it is certainly possible. Best of luck! :smile:

Reply 2

Inlineadam

Yes, absolutely.

I felt the same as you did, as if nothing was being taken in. However, when you actually come to sitting the prelim you will be amazed by how much you can actually remember. So try not to worry too much.

And remember prelims are not the real thing. Some people will try to emphasise the importance of them, but for me, they are not very important. I took the mindset that they were just a progress test - which meant all my efforts would be focussed on the final exams.

And doing bad in prelims can be a good thing:
Take last year for example, I got 43% in my Higher English prelim ( fail ). Kept getting told by the teachers and everyone else that I'd be struggling to get a decent grade after that. However, prelims really do not reflect your true ability in the final exam . ( I went on to get an A ).

Remember this is just my opinion on it - no opinion is the right one!

Reply 3

anyone_can_fly

Really, don't worry - teachers massively overestimate the amount of revision you need to do to try and get you to do some. Is there a way you can ask your teachers for previous years' prelims? Then you can try to do them timed like the actual exams, and see how you're doing.

I'd echo the point about prelims not really reflecting the final exams. In higher maths I got 51% in my prelim and then an A in the final exam. They're more a warning sign, a way to show you whether you need to put a lot more work in or not.

And yes, it is still possible. I confess that I only revised for 5/8 of my SGs (4/8 if you don't count revision on the day) and still came out with 8 1s. Not that that's necessarily the best strategy! :redface: