EmilySarah00’s 2017/18 struggle to University (A*AA)

I'm glad we're all in it together!

You both just have to remember Oxford isn't the be all and end all as there are many other great universities out there!

I'm a little bit late to this thread, but I am all caught up! I am really loving your thread! good luck!

Loving your thread! Could you add me to the tag please? Keep up the hard work!

Not feeling the best tonight now though to be honest but I'm hoping it's just down to the stress of today and I'll be right as rain tomorrow.

02/11/17 Update - The Day of the MAT :

So the day had come, the one I've been dreading for months and prepared for for weeks on end. It was MAT day. I woke up at 7AM after a fairly good nights rest and tried to force some Shreddies down myself before heading off to college at 8:15 for a 9AM exam start.

I know I'm not allowed to talk specifics as of yet but I'll just give a brief rundown of how the paper went. So at the start we spent ages working out the timings that everyone had. There was GCSE maths resit as well as 4 different entry exams going on in this one room and timings were different for the 4 of us (the MAT was the longest paper however, leaving me alone for the final 30 minutes )

I started feeling really petrified and tense but got going a bit after a few multiple choice questions, I calmed down a bit as I was actually finding them ok for once! When I got to the final 4 multiple choice questions I really started to struggle so I decided to take a break and turn over to Question 6, which is usually my favourite of the long questions (biggest mistake ever)

The question I turned back to completely bamboozled me, made so many errors and was scribbling things out all over the place. Didn't even finish the whole question before giving up. I then had to breathe for a minute before going back to the multiple choice and making educated (or not so) guessed on the 4 multiple choice questions I missed

By this point I only had just over an hour to go so I was flipping backwards and forwards between the 4 questions panicking and not knowing what to attempt. I didn't fully finish a single one of them and one of them I only attempted the first part (getting it wrong may I add.) Admittedly this was such a bad way to go about things because I kept breaking my train of thought due to worrying that I was taking too long.

In the final 20 minutes I made a breakthrough on a part of question 5 but didn't have much time so managed to make an error on a simple calculation that completely threw me off. I had some working right before the error so I might get some credit there (I can hope!) At this point I was alone in the exam room and it was putting me on edge. Then I had a few minutes to spare and I knew I had no more time to do any significant maths so I just chucked down some answers for some parts of the longer questions that I considered but didn't write anything down. One of these however I had to stop mid sentence because time was up.

So overall I reckon I did better than usual in the multiple choice and absolutely dire across the rest of the paper. probably leaving me with a score of 50 at best. At least a lot of TSR found it tricky too! Although I hope anyone who did the MAT or any other entrance exam who is reading this found it alright!

After that fiasco I just wanted to go home, but I was taken to Costa to cheer me up (admittedly it did a little.) And then had double further maths this afternoon, not that I'd had enough maths already or anything?! We started both D2 and M2 content today, and I was way way too exhausted for it. I then just took the time to not really do much tonight. I did watch the newest episode of Riverdale though and I'm loving it!

Not feeling the best tonight now though to be honest but I'm hoping it's just down to the stress of today and I'll be right as rain tomorrow.
-Emily x

Tag Squad :

There's always someone who feels worse.

P.S. Very well written.

I have to agree with @04MR17 here.

Well done for completing the MAT test! I am sure you did great

02/11/17 Update - The Day of the MAT :

So the day had come, the one I've been dreading for months and prepared for for weeks on end. It was MAT day. I woke up at 7AM after a fairly good nights rest and tried to force some Shreddies down myself before heading off to college at 8:15 for a 9AM exam start.

I know I'm not allowed to talk specifics as of yet but I'll just give a brief rundown of how the paper went. So at the start we spent ages working out the timings that everyone had. There was GCSE maths resit as well as 4 different entry exams going on in this one room and timings were different for the 4 of us (the MAT was the longest paper however, leaving me alone for the final 30 minutes )

I started feeling really petrified and tense but got going a bit after a few multiple choice questions, I calmed down a bit as I was actually finding them ok for once! When I got to the final 4 multiple choice questions I really started to struggle so I decided to take a break and turn over to Question 6, which is usually my favourite of the long questions (biggest mistake ever)

The question I turned back to completely bamboozled me, made so many errors and was scribbling things out all over the place. Didn't even finish the whole question before giving up. I then had to breathe for a minute before going back to the multiple choice and making educated (or not so) guessed on the 4 multiple choice questions I missed

By this point I only had just over an hour to go so I was flipping backwards and forwards between the 4 questions panicking and not knowing what to attempt. I didn't fully finish a single one of them and one of them I only attempted the first part (getting it wrong may I add.) Admittedly this was such a bad way to go about things because I kept breaking my train of thought due to worrying that I was taking too long.

In the final 20 minutes I made a breakthrough on a part of question 5 but didn't have much time so managed to make an error on a simple calculation that completely threw me off. I had some working right before the error so I might get some credit there (I can hope!) At this point I was alone in the exam room and it was putting me on edge. Then I had a few minutes to spare and I knew I had no more time to do any significant maths so I just chucked down some answers for some parts of the longer questions that I considered but didn't write anything down. One of these however I had to stop mid sentence because time was up.

So overall I reckon I did better than usual in the multiple choice and absolutely dire across the rest of the paper. probably leaving me with a score of 50 at best. At least a lot of TSR found it tricky too! Although I hope anyone who did the MAT or any other entrance exam who is reading this found it alright!

After that fiasco I just wanted to go home, but I was taken to Costa to cheer me up (admittedly it did a little.) And then had double further maths this afternoon, not that I'd had enough maths already or anything?! We started both D2 and M2 content today, and I was way way too exhausted for it. I then just took the time to not really do much tonight. I did watch the newest episode of Riverdale though and I'm loving it!

Not feeling the best tonight now though to be honest but I'm hoping it's just down to the stress of today and I'll be right as rain tomorrow.
-Emily x

Tag Squad :

If loads of people found it hard it was probably a bad paper, and so even though you think you did quite badly you may have done really well because the average score will be lower overall. I guess it's all over now and there's no point stressing over it, because that won't help. I hope you do feel better tomorrow!

You've just reminded me that I've got to watch the newest Riverdale episode, so no sleep for me I guess

02/11/17 Update - The Day of the MAT :

So the day had come, the one I've been dreading for months and prepared for for weeks on end. It was MAT day. I woke up at 7AM after a fairly good nights rest and tried to force some Shreddies down myself before heading off to college at 8:15 for a 9AM exam start.

I know I'm not allowed to talk specifics as of yet but I'll just give a brief rundown of how the paper went. So at the start we spent ages working out the timings that everyone had. There was GCSE maths resit as well as 4 different entry exams going on in this one room and timings were different for the 4 of us (the MAT was the longest paper however, leaving me alone for the final 30 minutes )

I started feeling really petrified and tense but got going a bit after a few multiple choice questions, I calmed down a bit as I was actually finding them ok for once! When I got to the final 4 multiple choice questions I really started to struggle so I decided to take a break and turn over to Question 6, which is usually my favourite of the long questions (biggest mistake ever)

The question I turned back to completely bamboozled me, made so many errors and was scribbling things out all over the place. Didn't even finish the whole question before giving up. I then had to breathe for a minute before going back to the multiple choice and making educated (or not so) guessed on the 4 multiple choice questions I missed

By this point I only had just over an hour to go so I was flipping backwards and forwards between the 4 questions panicking and not knowing what to attempt. I didn't fully finish a single one of them and one of them I only attempted the first part (getting it wrong may I add.) Admittedly this was such a bad way to go about things because I kept breaking my train of thought due to worrying that I was taking too long.

In the final 20 minutes I made a breakthrough on a part of question 5 but didn't have much time so managed to make an error on a simple calculation that completely threw me off. I had some working right before the error so I might get some credit there (I can hope!) At this point I was alone in the exam room and it was putting me on edge. Then I had a few minutes to spare and I knew I had no more time to do any significant maths so I just chucked down some answers for some parts of the longer questions that I considered but didn't write anything down. One of these however I had to stop mid sentence because time was up.

So overall I reckon I did better than usual in the multiple choice and absolutely dire across the rest of the paper. probably leaving me with a score of 50 at best. At least a lot of TSR found it tricky too! Although I hope anyone who did the MAT or any other entrance exam who is reading this found it alright!

After that fiasco I just wanted to go home, but I was taken to Costa to cheer me up (admittedly it did a little.) And then had double further maths this afternoon, not that I'd had enough maths already or anything?! We started both D2 and M2 content today, and I was way way too exhausted for it. I then just took the time to not really do much tonight. I did watch the newest episode of Riverdale though and I'm loving it!

Not feeling the best tonight now though to be honest but I'm hoping it's just down to the stress of today and I'll be right as rain tomorrow.
-Emily x

Tag Squad :

i did the MAT today and dw i guessed most of the multiple choice and only fully answered question 3. the rest i p much left all blank bc i didn't know wtf was going on
i won't be competition hahahaah

i spent the last 30 mins flicking through the test like -____- y am i so dumb
and the last 5 learning my multiple choice so i'll p much know what i got hahahahah

good luck i'm sure the threshold will be lower this year so don't worry too much!

If you didn't notice me in the exam hall I was wearing rainbow clothing and silently but aggressively waving pompoms saying "GIVE ME AN E GIVE ME AN M GIVE ME AN I GIVE ME AN L GIVE ME A Y WHAT DOES THAT SPELL...." under my breath thank me later

but congrats! I'm sure you aced it!

02/11/17 Update - The Day of the MAT :

So the day had come, the one I've been dreading for months and prepared for for weeks on end. It was MAT day. I woke up at 7AM after a fairly good nights rest and tried to force some Shreddies down myself before heading off to college at 8:15 for a 9AM exam start.

I know I'm not allowed to talk specifics as of yet but I'll just give a brief rundown of how the paper went. So at the start we spent ages working out the timings that everyone had. There was GCSE maths resit as well as 4 different entry exams going on in this one room and timings were different for the 4 of us (the MAT was the longest paper however, leaving me alone for the final 30 minutes )

I started feeling really petrified and tense but got going a bit after a few multiple choice questions, I calmed down a bit as I was actually finding them ok for once! When I got to the final 4 multiple choice questions I really started to struggle so I decided to take a break and turn over to Question 6, which is usually my favourite of the long questions (biggest mistake ever)

The question I turned back to completely bamboozled me, made so many errors and was scribbling things out all over the place. Didn't even finish the whole question before giving up. I then had to breathe for a minute before going back to the multiple choice and making educated (or not so) guessed on the 4 multiple choice questions I missed

By this point I only had just over an hour to go so I was flipping backwards and forwards between the 4 questions panicking and not knowing what to attempt. I didn't fully finish a single one of them and one of them I only attempted the first part (getting it wrong may I add.) Admittedly this was such a bad way to go about things because I kept breaking my train of thought due to worrying that I was taking too long.

In the final 20 minutes I made a breakthrough on a part of question 5 but didn't have much time so managed to make an error on a simple calculation that completely threw me off. I had some working right before the error so I might get some credit there (I can hope!) At this point I was alone in the exam room and it was putting me on edge. Then I had a few minutes to spare and I knew I had no more time to do any significant maths so I just chucked down some answers for some parts of the longer questions that I considered but didn't write anything down. One of these however I had to stop mid sentence because time was up.

So overall I reckon I did better than usual in the multiple choice and absolutely dire across the rest of the paper. probably leaving me with a score of 50 at best. At least a lot of TSR found it tricky too! Although I hope anyone who did the MAT or any other entrance exam who is reading this found it alright!

After that fiasco I just wanted to go home, but I was taken to Costa to cheer me up (admittedly it did a little.) And then had double further maths this afternoon, not that I'd had enough maths already or anything?! We started both D2 and M2 content today, and I was way way too exhausted for it. I then just took the time to not really do much tonight. I did watch the newest episode of Riverdale though and I'm loving it!

Not feeling the best tonight now though to be honest but I'm hoping it's just down to the stress of today and I'll be right as rain tomorrow.
-Emily x

Tag Squad :

OMG RIVERDALE IS MY LIFE (and I’m a heterosexual 16 year old boy don’t judge pls), Cheryl is by far my favourite character

Edit: I forgot to congratulate you on finally doing the MAT, I’m sure you did good (sorry was too excited because Riverdale)

My goals for this weekend are:

• To have finished the Design section of my Computer Science coursework which is due in on Thursday, this will however take me possibly a whole day.
• Complete a homework sheet consisting of 4 Mechanics 1 past paper questions on Forces.
• Organise all my notes from this week into my ring-bound folders.

Just about to have oreo ice cream myself.


Make sure you break up the big compsci stuff with some of your other goal. Don't try to blitz it all at once.

03/11/17 Update - The "at least it's over" day :

Honestly not much to say today, I woke up at 8AM after only 6 hours sleep because I'm a fool, ready to get the bus at 9:20. I then had Mechanics first in which we did lots of exam questions on forces. I really struggled to keep up in this lesson as I was doing two lessons worth of work in one (because I missed a lesson yesterday whilst taking the MAT!) So I was kept on my toes for the whole hour, writing 4 sides of A4 notes in the time.

Then I had Computer Science in which I was supposed to do work, honestly I'm meant to be a good student but the amount of slacking off I do in Computer Science lessons at the minute is ridiculous (as we have a cover teacher who just really likes a chat.) I ended up explaining to him one of the questions from the MAT yesterday (question 5) and he went up to try and solve it on the board to no avail so I went up to the board to try and explain the solution. This took a solid 15 minutes and my friend decided to video some of my explanation and put it on her Snapchat story, so now there's literally a video out there of me teaching the teacher!

Those were the only 2 lessons I had today but I ended up staying in all afternoon and just chatting to friends. Once I got home I again intended to do work but I was super tired so I instead went prom dress shopping online for a solid hour, finally bought a prom dress (I'm in love with it ) and booked a hotel for the night. Productive I know!

Finally I got ready to go out for a "yay the MAT is over" meal with my best friend, It was her idea as she decided I needed something to look forward to after all the work I put in. It was a really lovely evening and it's safe to say Frankie and Benny's never lets me down. That being said they were playing Christmas music every other song, like come on, it's still too soon!

Now enjoy a picture of my dessert rather than a photo of my maths notes for once, because this brownie was flippin' delicious (and it looked pretty!)



My goals for this weekend are:

• To have finished the Design section of my Computer Science coursework which is due in on Thursday, this will however take me possibly a whole day.
• Complete a homework sheet consisting of 4 Mechanics 1 past paper questions on Forces.
• Organise all my notes from this week into my ring-bound folders.

I'll stop myself rambling now,
-Emily x

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