The Student Room Group
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>

First ever exam

As probably most of you know, the exams have started. I hope everybody does well. Tomorrow will be mine and a lot of other national 5 students' first exam: English. I would like to ask some of the more seasoned students here, what do you do in the remaining few hours before you enter the exam hall? Do you try to relax and calm yourself? Do you try to cram as much knowledge into your head as is humanly possible? What are your coping strategies during the exam? Again, good luck with your exams and may the 5th of August be joyful.
Original post by LorcanD_J
As probably most of you know, the exams have started. I hope everybody does well. Tomorrow will be mine and a lot of other national 5 students' first exam: English. I would like to ask some of the more seasoned students here, what do you do in the remaining few hours before you enter the exam hall? Do you try to relax and calm yourself? Do you try to cram as much knowledge into your head as is humanly possible? What are your coping strategies during the exam? Again, good luck with your exams and may the 5th of August be joyful.

You get a good nights sleep, relax before the exam. Cramming 10 minutes before the exam is useless. Remember to go the toilet before you go in, nothing worse than being bursting for a piss with 40 minutes left in the exam (my SG geography exam.. never made that mistake again)
I wouldn't say I was seasoned, but I can remember how it feels - I sat my SGs last year. :smile:
Before you enter, I'd just try to relax. Do make sure you arrive in enough time, if you're in doubt then you can always arrive early and go and sit somewhere in your school :smile: There's not much point trying to learn anything at that point, just go over things in your head, just repeating the information over and over can help...
My strategy in the exam is to try and go through the whole paper doing the 'easy' questions, while subconsciously thinking of the 'harder' questions as I encounter them, so by the time I have to go back to them I have a method worked out which I can use. It sounds a bit confusing, but in my mind, it's better than spending 15 minutes staring at one question not knowing how to do it while you could be picking up easy marks elsewhere in the paper.
Especially for english, keep looking at the clock to make sure you're not spending too much time on one thing, to ensure you do actually complete the whole essay/paper.
Good luck for tomorrow! :smile:
So worried that a question won't come up for the poem I've studied. :frown: I know it pretty well so should be able to adapt it but I dunno, it's hard to write about something not really relevant to the text. Just sticking with the same sort of quotes for every essay as well, not sure if that's a bad thing to do. Plus I still haven't properly looked over my play for the Scottish Text section and wouldn't be able to answer the 8 mark question at the end if I went in now. Going to be a lot of studying today!
Reply 4
Avatar for LorcanD_J
LorcanD_J
OP
Original post by chopinfan
So worried that a question won't come up for the poem I've studied. :frown: I know it pretty well so should be able to adapt it but I dunno, it's hard to write about something not really relevant to the text. Just sticking with the same sort of quotes for every essay as well, not sure if that's a bad thing to do. Plus I still haven't properly looked over my play for the Scottish Text section and wouldn't be able to answer the 8 mark question at the end if I went in now. Going to be a lot of studying today!

That 8 marker should be fairly easy if I've read the mark scheme properly. I'm sure you'll manage it.
Reply 5
Avatar for Ecasx
Ecasx
3
What texts are you studying? I'm doing Macbeth (drama) and The Pedestrian (prose) for the essay, and the Norman MacCaig poems for textual analysis. I plan to write on Macbeth because I know it very well, and I'm fairly sure there will be a suitable question for it (hopefully).
Reply 6
Avatar for tman612
tman612
Original post by LorcanD_J
As probably most of you know, the exams have started. I hope everybody does well. Tomorrow will be mine and a lot of other national 5 students' first exam: English. I would like to ask some of the more seasoned students here, what do you do in the remaining few hours before you enter the exam hall? Do you try to relax and calm yourself? Do you try to cram as much knowledge into your head as is humanly possible? What are your coping strategies during the exam? Again, good luck with your exams and may the 5th of August be joyful.
I have a tiny bit of experience as not only did I sit National 5 Modern Studies today, I sat Credit Maths a year early last year so got the whole feeling for doing an actual exam then. In the hours before the exam I'll typically try and relax. Cramming doesn't really help and there's no real point in trying to learn anything new minutes before you go into the exam hall - but it's definitely a good idea to keep looking over notes or going over facts in your head. Quizzing your friends usually helps also (although this isn't a very easy thing to do with English.) Just say the quotes you need to know over and over in your head - for the prelim I learned a mnemonic and kept saying it over and over again in my head in the classes I had before the exam and it really helped as I can still remember it today.
Reply 7
Avatar for LorcanD_J
LorcanD_J
OP
Original post by Ecasx
What texts are you studying? I'm doing Macbeth (drama) and The Pedestrian (prose) for the essay, and the Norman MacCaig poems for textual analysis. I plan to write on Macbeth because I know it very well, and I'm fairly sure there will be a suitable question for it (hopefully).


We've got a choice between Romeo and Juliet (film) and Lord of the Flies (prose) for the critical essay. I'm fairly confident with both but from my experience the film questions are harder to interpret so I'll stick to prose. As for the poetry we're doing Carol Ann Duffy who's poetry I'm also fairly confident with. There is a class in my year who are doing Norman MacCaig and they are saying that all the poems link to "Aunt Julia" so that sounds like a good poet to have studied. I too hope the essay questions are applicable to my book. Good luck with tomorrow.
Reply 8
Avatar for Ecasx
Ecasx
3
Original post by LorcanD_J
We've got a choice between Romeo and Juliet (film) and Lord of the Flies (prose) for the critical essay. I'm fairly confident with both but from my experience the film questions are harder to interpret so I'll stick to prose. As for the poetry we're doing Carol Ann Duffy who's poetry I'm also fairly confident with. There is a class in my year who are doing Norman MacCaig and they are saying that all the poems link to "Aunt Julia" so that sounds like a good poet to have studied. I too hope the essay questions are applicable to my book. Good luck with tomorrow.


Link to Aunt Julia my ass.
Original post by LorcanD_J
As probably most of you know, the exams have started. I hope everybody does well. Tomorrow will be mine and a lot of other national 5 students' first exam: English. I would like to ask some of the more seasoned students here, what do you do in the remaining few hours before you enter the exam hall? Do you try to relax and calm yourself? Do you try to cram as much knowledge into your head as is humanly possible? What are your coping strategies during the exam? Again, good luck with your exams and may the 5th of August be joyful.

Good Luck for tomorow!! Its my first exam as well. I'm gonna get up early tomorrow and revise for a couple hours then use the walk to school to relax. What set texts have you done?
I did Lord of the Flies last year for Prose, as Romeo and Juliet was too abstract for me as it was a film. My advice do the prose essay as the priority and don't try and fit an essay plan to a question you get tomorrow. To get a high mark you just have to make it specific to the wording of the question.
Original post by pheonixfeather
I'm gonna get up early tomorrow and revise for a couple hours then use the walk to school to relax. What set texts have you done?


I would advise that you dont do that. You may see something new, realise you dont get it, then youll stress and forget everything. I know too many people who did this and messed up their exam.
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 12
Avatar for LorcanD_J
LorcanD_J
OP
The day is upon us. I'm feeling confident but not too confident as English is my weakest subject. My exam starts at 12:40 instead of 1:00 because the school day ends before the end of the exam. I'm in the hope that the sea won't make the exam too hard because it's the first year of a new qualification.
Original post by LorcanD_J
The day is upon us. I'm feeling confident but not too confident as English is my weakest subject. My exam starts at 12:40 instead of 1:00 because the school day ends before the end of the exam. I'm in the hope that the sea won't make the exam too hard because it's the first year of a new qualification.

Good luck! That happens in a few of my subjects but we just go over the end of school bell. Feel free to come on here afterwards and tell us all how it went. :smile:
aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!! TWOOOO HOOUUURRRSSS!!!!!!!!! :eek:
Original post by LorcanD_J
As probably most of you know, the exams have started. I hope everybody does well. Tomorrow will be mine and a lot of other national 5 students' first exam: English. I would like to ask some of the more seasoned students here, what do you do in the remaining few hours before you enter the exam hall? Do you try to relax and calm yourself? Do you try to cram as much knowledge into your head as is humanly possible? What are your coping strategies during the exam? Again, good luck with your exams and may the 5th of August be joyful.


Get plenty of sleep the night before, get into school about 45 minutes before the exam, sign in, talk to your pals and then go in and sit it. The pressure and nerves soon lift as you start writing. Good luck!

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you