The underlying scare of failure

Hi,

Firstly I will say that teachers are NOT stupid. Some are just less helpful than others but you should never say that.

Maths is amazing. I don’t do economics so not sure about that but maths is heaven. Good that you enjoy it too.

I cannot stress enough that you cannot be relying on watching videos and cramming the day before and expect to pass with a decent grade. It may be working at the moment but you will seriously let yourself down if this tactic fails. Instead, make flashcards and test yourself on them regularly. That’s all you have to do to alleviate the pressure of science exams as long as you know you have the knowledge and content in your mind. Science is not something to play with, some of the content is tricky to grasp fully and then to apply it to questions is even more difficult even for those of us who know the content very well. Please do exercise more care for these subjects.

I attended NCS’s open evening and it seems like a great school to me. LAE on the other hand doesn’t seem as good. Brampton is stressful but will get you where you need to be.

It’s great to see you doing 5 hours of work (well 3) but seriously give yourself a break. Take this from a student who gets all 8’s and has done this. You work so hard during school time (I presume) that you just need a break in the holidays. That’s what they’re there for: to allow you to reenergise and be prepared for school again. Exploit this time you have. But of course naturally you’d want to be ahead and give yourself a boost, which is perfectly understandable but only do as much as you’re comfortable with. Don’t make it feel like a revision day. Make it feel like a I’ve got too much time on my hands I’d rather do some revision sort of day. Trust me, I completely understand how overwhelming revision and exams can be, hardworking people are always harsh on themselves. But you need to realise that you need to look after yourself. Without this, you can never hope to succeed. You need to treat yourself with kindness and only then will your brain and body be healthy to support you and cooperate and ace those exams. I also find scented candles to help. If you have a desk, you can get a candle (vanilla is amazing but those quirky Yankee flavours will be just fine). Hopefully, that aroma is calming and soothes you, I’d recommend listening to some lyric-less music too, just create a nice relaxed environment where you feel like you want to sit down and get started. Make sure wherever you study is clean and organised. Super organised. Only ever have the things you need for your revision ready at hand (and the candle of course!).

English is a rather nasty subject for those of us who are more suited to maths. There really aren’t that many questions at all! (5 in each language paper and aren’t there 2 in each literature paper?) The questions are really long though- I’ll give you that!

Honestly, I’ve struggled with English, or well perhaps not struggled but I’ve felt overwhelmed by it a lot even when I was in the right track. Always so paranoid, I’d do several poetry questions and keep doing them until I got a very good mark. My teacher (bless her) is so nice though and can sense how stressed I am that she said I can see you’re stressed and if you want I’ll sit down with you and go through every question in the paper until you feel secure with it. (My history teacher said the same for the mocks I’ve just completed and I’ll take her up on it!!).

Yeah, no. It’s causing me pain to see that you’ve been relying on videos on YouTube to get you through English. You cannot afford to do this at all. English grade boundaries are extraordinarily high because with English you can PRACTISE and become better and that’s what people do. What *you* should do as well.

2/3 of a page doesn’t seem to constitute 19/30 unless it was pure genius and A-level standard so I’m unsure about that. My teacher specifically has said for a 30 marker automatically for anyone who has written less than a page that they’ll get a grade 4. You have an hour. 1 whole hour. 10 minutes planning. 50 minutes grinding. 50 minutes is a tonne of time. On the exam paper, in 50 minutes you could write 7-8 sides depending on your handwriting if you’ve practised a lot.

You definitely do need to analyse. A lot. A lot. English is that subject where they want you to grill everything, pick the quote apart and say every possible meaning of it. That’s what they like to see. (It has to be credible of course, not waffle).

Congrats to your brother but it doesn’t help you to compare yourself to a sibling. You’re both at different stages, you work differently, you think differently, you cope with stress and bad grades differently, you can drastically improve completely differently. Heck, if I didn’t have faith in you, I wouldn’t be here writing this response to a 30 marker English question minutes before midnight for you now would I?

You cannot afford to “give up” in any subjects. If anything there’s a few months left, work extremely hard and it will pay off.

Indeed your advice is partially correct, do keep working but not if you’re burnt out or you feel helpless. Build revision systems that will make revision easier (watch some YouTube videos on good revision strategies- I recommend Ali Abdaal).

Good. You’re conscientious. Don’t cheat. Ever. It will never help you, mocks are your best friend. They will reveal to you what subjects you need to put more work in to, which subjects you’re struggling in and will help you get those end results that you deserve. I admire you for not cheating.

If you have anything else you want to say or ask then please feel free to drop me a message.

Hope you read this far and that this is helpful!!

Thank you for the reply and I did a q5 today wrote as much as I could which was about 1.5 pages (~310 words) and I did everything my myself so I going to ask my brother to mark it and see what he says and also I appreciate the time you took to write everything you wrote. I have one question cause my other questions have obvious answers, did u have a set structure when answering the English lit and lang questions?

Hi, yes I do have a set structure but not for all of them.

Language Paper 1

Q2 (language analysis): 2 paragraphs with two quotes analyses in depth.

Q3 (structure analysis): 3 paragraphs on beginning, middle and end

Q4 (student statement): 3 paragraphs (agree/disagree, partially agree/disagree, further agree/disagree)

Q5: not really a set way but try make it cyclical!

I’ll update rest later!

Lang P2

Q2 (summary): 2 paragraphs with perceptive comparisons

Q3 (language analysis): 3 paragraphs each with detailed analysis

Q4 (comparing writers perspectives): 3/4 paragraphs each with a perceptive comparison that compares the writer’s viewpoints.

Q5 (non-fiction writing): honestly plan your response to the question specifically and ensure that you litter it with features and devices of a non-fiction text depending on which one it is.

Literature:

Poetry anthology (whichever you do): I write a conceptualised introduction, then write a lengthy paragraph comparing structure and form, and write 2 paragraphs comparing language and analysing it (attempt to analyse 2/3 quotes from each poem but embed more). Ensure to use subject terminology (caesura, enjambment etc)

Unsure what texts you’ve studied but generally write a plan (5-10 mins) that includes the extract and other parts of the whole text that you’ll mention. Include context and key quotes you want to analyse.


Hope this helps! Any questions, do let me know!!

i showed my teacher a bunch of my answered questions and he said that i find a lot of quotes/features but need to delve into them more and he said in general I'm working towards the higher levels of each questions (so about 6/7) and at least that's a good sign that I'm progressing even if it is 1 more mark. Also thank you for sharing your structure with me, I really appreciate it

i showed my teacher a bunch of my answered questions and he said that i find a lot of quotes/features but need to delve into them more and he said in general I'm working towards the higher levels of each questions (so about 6/7) and at least that's a good sign that I'm progressing even if it is 1 more mark. Also thank you for sharing your structure with me, I really appreciate it