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Most impressive last minute exam success stories!

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Ages ago in year 10 (I'm doing A-levels now), I had a history exam and left it till the day before to revise. I got home and literally fell asleep till about 5 or 6 woke up and just revised until 11. I fell asleep watching History videos on youtube haha. Did the exam and what do ya know I got 92/100 for that exam. Managed to achieve an A overall for History at GCSE :smile:

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 21

Eljamaispa

The only 2 exams I revised for last minute in my first year of uni were the ones I got firsts in. In all the others where I'd taken considerably longer preparing I got 2:2s and 2:1s. Go figure.

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Reply 22

AmyAintDead

GCSE Extra Maths last year. Payed about 0 real attention in the class, started revising a week before, just wrote out all the formulae but didn't even look at a past paper. Walked out with a Distinction.

Hoping to become a master in Physics this week -- after 6 months of scheduled revision, nothing is happening so I think I need intense revision mode.
*Plays eye of the tiger*

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Reply 23

Latebloomer93

Original post by Eljamaispa

yeah ive heard this a lot. "I worked sooo much for X and got a 2:2 but spent 1 day on Y and got a first". Think about it....its because of your fear! We spent so much longer on ones we are afraid of doing badly in, o nes we find hard and ones we have decided that we struggle with. So your subconcious is trained to think that youre gonna struggle with it anyway and you do less well than if you were feeling positive and confident.

Reply 24

King Hotpie

Original post by Latebloomer93

What I'm hearing here is, revision is the enemy! *throws out books and goes on xbox* :biggrin:

Reply 25

squeakysquirrel

In my geography degree, I took an option for geology. I realised very quickly that i really didn't understand it and spent a whole year struggling to make head or tail of it.

The exam looked as if it was going to be a disaster, so I revised one aspect of it and literally memorised a chapter in the text book. The topic came up in the exam - I regurgitated the chapter I had crammed and got a first. ( In fact it was my best mark overall in my degree.)

Still amazed at that and still dont understand geology.

Reply 26

xoxAngel_Kxox

It's not really an "amazing" story, but in AS History I discovered the day before that we'd been taught the wrong thing for 50% of the paper.. we'd done something on America but it should have been world relations (or something similar, this was several years ago now). So this was about 2pm on the Sunday, the exam was 9am on the Monday so I had a heck of a lot of cramming to do with something I didn't even understand! It's not all that impressive, because I only got a C overall (2 marks off a B though) but I think that's pretty good considering I hadn't really learned it at all.

Reply 27

Latebloomer93

Original post by King Hotpie

What I'm hearing here is, revision is the enemy! *throws out books and goes on xbox* :biggrin:

*facepalm* not quite what I meant but

erm

sure, knock yourself out!

Reply 28

L'Evil Fish

We'll see what happens this year but last year...

Spoiler

This year, I have French exams tomorrow! Haven't done anything...

History AS exam on Tuesday, haven't even done a past paper...

Welsh on Wednesday :rofl:

Reply 29

Little Isis

Lol OP, are you looking for tips?

Reply 30

cartoonwars

GCSE RS- On the exam paper you get a choice of questions depending on the religions and topics you've studied and you are obviously advised to do the religion you chose because that is what you've focused on, right?
Well I got to the exam and panicked a little because I didn't know any of the answers for the questions I was meant to do (on Hinduism) and had no idea what to do.
I was brought up in a Christian family and so from a young age I've been made to go to church almost every Sunday and so I last minute decided to change questions and answer the ones based off of Christianity, without knowing the specification and what they were looking for, but solely off of my own knowledge of the religion, and memorised quotes too.
I instantly regretted it when I finished the exam, telling myself I had just made a massive mistake, even though I knew I would have done worse doing the Hinduism questions.

I got an A.

Needless to say I was chuffed, although my teacher, after she found out I hadn't done the questions she had taught me, not so much.

And that is probably my best success story when it comes to last minute prep because I basically only had a few minutes to collect my own prior knowledge and that was barely prep as it was!

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Reply 31

Alleykat606

Had to be my spanish (mock) gcse oral: improvised completely on the spot and got 96% :cool:

Reply 32

deanwilson

My short-course RE GCSE. I'm an athiest, so never paid much attention to the subject.

I revised for days and days the first time round and got a D in the first exam, so I resat it alongside paper 2 later on in the year. I thought, ah well, I got a D last time so I won't bother. I hardly revised at all. This paper was at 1 or 1:30, so I just looked over notes literally earlier that day-

And I got 100%. Looked at the results later, A* and I got a certificate from CCEA for it. Could.not.believe.it. Miracles do come true!!

Reply 33

Latebloomer93

Original post by Little Isis

Lol OP, are you looking for tips?

nope I'm not lol

I'm doing just fine but i think it's nice for people who are cramming/stressed to get some reassurance that all is not lost!

Reply 34

AquisM

Not revision per se, but I had my AIDA ICT coursework due at the end of the the next day, so I literally did not sleep to finish my report, continued to type during classes and even skipped my last class (with the teacher's permission :P) to finish my portfolio, which I hadn't touched since 4 months before. Ended up with a Merit (highest is Distinction and then Merit).

Oh, a revision example had to be IGCSE Eng Lit. Memorised quotes half-jokingly before sleeping and then actually begged my classmates for their notes before the exam. Fortunately, I covered both of the themes asked in the exam and got an A.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 35

Care-Free

Started revising for tomorrows exam at 9pm last night, left the library at 4am, woke up at 8 and am now revising again even though i know i know enough to pass pretty well. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. Have made a pact with my housemates that we will start revision early next year or suffer disgusting alcohol related punishments!

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 36

Ch1pp0

My Chemistry A-level A2 module clashed with some important maths module (STEP for anyone who's interested) and so I decided I would revise maths for the night before and then take in my Chem textbook so that I could revise in the few hours of break time in between.

In the end we started late and so I only had an hour and a half to revise Chem (from scratch!) But then our invigilator took us off to get school lunches (as apparently he was required to do) this meant when I got back to the exam room, which was really just a small office with two desks, my friend and I had 30-40 mins to revise Chem.

Naturally we chatted inanely about this and that and didn't do much for a while. Then I started flipping through the Chem book like crazy, trying to memorize as much as I could as fast as I could...

The exam started and I had no idea how to answer the first few questions. I went through and filled in all the answers I could do but that was only a fraction of the paper. Then I was staring at a question that I knew, I knew the answer too but nothing was happening. Then, all of a sudden, I could see the page of the book in my head and I knew where the answer was on the page and I think I "read" it for want of a better word. Then a similar thing happened on other questions with flashbacks of the 20 min revision session helping me to answer stuff. Then that stopped and I started drawing robots... for lolz.

Anyway, I had had high marks previously so I didn't need that much, but I knew I had done badly, very badly. I got a low D.

Lucky though I got 480/600 UMS and so I got an A - just. My chem teachers weren't nearly as proud as I was.

tl;dr: My brain is ****ed up but saved me somehow.

Reply 37

Prettygeek

Did no revision at all for GCSE English and GCSE RS- got A*s for all three :biggrin:

For all my other subjects I revised like currraaazy, I wonder sometimes if I would be able to adopt a 'cramming' style- but I'd rather not take the risk!

Reply 38

FatFerreroRocher

Did one all nighter before my AS psychology exams in Jan and June and got full marks in both, and the same in both biology exams and got an a, but I failed A2 so I wouldn't recommend it!

Reply 39

wrexhamfc

I revised for half an hour before my French GCSE exam and about an hour for my English exam which was on the same day - got two A*s - booyah! In fact, more or less all of my revision for GCSE was done on the day before.

I also did all my revision for C2 in Maths the night before the exam and got 95%. I don't even know.