The Student Room Group

The 'Welp, I tried' A-Level blog

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Original post by Tolgarda
Good luck. We're literally abusing context with 1984, and analysing Hamlet's soliloquy's in the play named after the b*stard (Shakespeare's plays are still figuratively dead lmao). Our lessons are quite funny though, despite the depressing plummet from grace at GCSE. I'm also helping with a year 11 class now, which is interesting. During that class, I encountered the f*cking son of my history teacher at GCSE! YO! My reaction was all over the place haha! My history teacher for GCSE was a legend that managed to accurately predict the exact interpretations for paper three!


Yes omg the context is so intense and indepth! Remember the good ol' days where we could just slap a bit of gender roles on at the end and call it a day? *dreamy sigh*
Same tbh I sound so arrogant but I'm really struggling with coming to terms with the fact I'm not going to be brilliant at a level in the same way I was at gcse eng lit:redface:
Ooh, that sounds like a good opportunity! Meeting your history teacher's son must have been wild wow I wouldn't have known how to react either:biggrin:
Original post by troubletracking
Yes omg the context is so intense and indepth! Remember the good ol' days where we could just slap a bit of gender roles on at the end and call it a day? *dreamy sigh*
Same tbh I sound so arrogant but I'm really struggling with coming to terms with the fact I'm not going to be brilliant at a level in the same way I was at gcse eng lit:redface:
Ooh, that sounds like a good opportunity! Meeting your history teacher's son must have been wild wow I wouldn't have known how to react either:biggrin:

****ing hell, I'm on the verge of tears just thinking about how pathetically easy GCSE-level context was. Now it feels like I have to write an entire book on it. AO3 is too pronounced in my opinion. I already came to grips quickly with the reality that I'm probably not going to do as well at A-level, ever, lmao.
Original post by Tolgarda
****ing hell, I'm on the verge of tears just thinking about how pathetically easy GCSE-level context was. Now it feels like I have to write an entire book on it. AO3 is too pronounced in my opinion. I already came to grips quickly with the reality that I'm probably not going to do as well at A-level, ever, lmao.


True, I much prefer writing about AO2 rather than AO3
Nah, I reckon we'll be alright in the end. They can't expect us to be dishing out A* essays 6 weeks into the course already:biggrin:
Your absence can't even compare to the length of this post!
Yay for the vocab test!!
I can't relate with the history stuff but I can tell you that it is most definitely true that you have to do A LOT of reading :yes:
At least your attendance is still over 90% :tongue:
Friday, 19th October 2018
Today's timetable: French (P1), English Literature (P2), History (P6)
Post length: too long calm yourself meghan sheesh get a hobby

Gonna be honest, haven't done any work since I've got home today, but I'm gonna write a post because I haven't posted on a Friday in literally ages and it's been a few days since my last one, so we really out here doing this ladies. Imagine having a study blog and actually talking about studying. What a concept.

Okay, so first period means a 6am alarm, which subsequently means I don't get out of bed until about half an hour later because I'm an incapable mess. Today was especially bad as I didn't get up until 6:45 and my bus leaves at 7:10 so it was a good old fashioned mad rush around this morning. I'm actually really struggling with the whole 6am thing, because if I have a 5/6th period, then I'm not home until 6pm and it's literally a 12 hour day when I've only had three hours of lessons. And then when I get home I'm literally so unmotivated to do anything and I've really only got around 4-5 hours to make sure I'm in bed at midnight by the absolute latest, and even then it's still not enough. Ugh lmao I really need to get my life together this is a cry for help

Anyway, so first period was freakin French, where we were supposed to do the listening we didn't do on Monday, but our teacher took one look at our sleep deprived, miserable, ready-to-jump-out-the-window first period faces and was like 'you know what, let's just do it on Monday as normal' and a collective sigh of relief sounded through our classroom. Instead, we did a bit of grammar work and got back approximately forty thousand sheets back. I got 18/20 on the Big Bad Passé Composé test, 14/15 on the weekly vocab, and 19/20 on a peice of reading homework, which I wasn't expecting. I really took my time with the reading homework and Wrod Referenced every word I didn't undertsand so I could write it in my vocab book, so I'm quite pleased with that. We got some homework on the imperfect tense, which I'm a bit comme ci comme ça on because I get that you use it when you used to do something and when the past tense uses -ing, but there's still instances where I'm like ??? so I may need to consult my age old friend, Google (thinking about switching to Ecosia though, but it doesn't support the Momentum chrome extenstion:frown:). We've also got an Official Grammar Test™ that actually means something, and because we haven't done enough content to do a full reading paper or summat, this is what's gonna go on this 'monitoring' grade tracking thingy:redface:

Next I had English, and I'm gonna be honest, the past few lessons I've been bored and disinterested and feeling like crap because in my head I'm like 'Meghan you're supposed to be good at this and if you're not then you might as well just pack your bags now' and I'm sat at the front as she's whizzing through these powerpoint slides on Marxism and Naturalism and something-else-ism reconsidering my life choices and wondering if maybe I should've done chemistry after all. But today we actually started reading the play (!!!) and I had my highlighter out and we were talking about the symbolism of various things and I had a really nice lesson and I'm feeling a lot better about English now. It's weird because at GCSE I could literally go off on one about how Sheila was preganant with the Inspector's baby, and as long as I threw in a quote and wacked a refernce to socialism in there then all was well in waffleville, but at A-level the whole 'ThErE's No wRoNg aNsWeR iN EnGLiSH' doesn't really apply when suddenly everything you say has to be backed up with actual contextual evidence and all i feel I can talk about is religion or feminism and anything else can't be justified.

Break was at a time I don't know because timetables are unnecessarility weird on Fridays, but at 11:10 I have my French speaking session with a French speaking assistant, who's really lovely and sympa. I came in and she was like "lemme go run for a coffee, I'll be right back" so I sat there and stressed about these awful French questions, and then she came back and was like "whew, sorry bout that" and I was like *awkward laugh* "long day?" and then she proceeded to tell me about how her girlfriend woke her up at 2am because she was choking on smoke cos her neighbour's garden was on fire and all this other drama about his washing going up in flames and getting three hours of sleep and I was like "...oh. Not good then", which is how I'd also describe how this week's speaking session went.
The questions this week were on citizenship, and I'm pretty sure I can't even give a definiton of that in english. Like, we've done family before and we've done friendship before, and they're all fine because we've all done them at GCSE and we know the basic 'je m'entends bien' vocabulary. But lmao imagine having to sit there and talk to an actual French speaker about voting in France and what makes someone a citizen and freaking secularism (cue me frantically googling what that even is on the bus journey) so yeah, what a blast that was.

For lunch we went out to this pancake/cookie dough/waffle place, which was nice but just having a load of waffles and chocolate sauce for lunch stressed me out and I missed the lettuce in my sandwich. Had another free by the time we got back, so I did a lot of the French sheet, got an email from Lidl rejecting me (my mum feels so bad she answered the retail questionaire for me aww) and sorted out my folder. The usual.

History was last where we went over the differneces between Suffragettes and Suffragists and had a class vote over whether we'd be Suffragists or Suffragettes, which proved my teacher's point that the overwhelming majority of 20th century feminists were Suffragists, which actuallly surprised me ngl. The two girls at the table behind us said they'd be Suffragettes and me and the girl I sit next to would've been Suffragists and we had a debate because they were like 'if the Suffragists were succesful the Suffragettes wouldn't even have been formed' and I was like 'yeah, well some of us are just wet blankets who don't have the guts to go round throwing fireballs into post boxes' so comment down below folks whether you'd be a wuss with a signpost or a badass with fireball

That's it really, beecause I'm finding revision really hard when I get home so late and I'm tired and my ears are still ringing from listening to tinny rap coming from someone's speaker at the back of the bus but hopefully this weekend I'll get my homework done and copy up a few notes. Ugh got such a massive urge to watch Bake Off again omg but I physically may collapse if I don't get nine hours sleep tonight so I probably won't. Someone really needs to make a 'Meghan blog post bingo' complete with 'mentions bake off' and 'says lmao at least four times' and 'hasn't got enough sleep':lol:

Pour souls who have committed to being tagged:
(if you're also slightly masochistic, lemme know if you wanna be tagged- or removed, for that matter)

Spoiler

Ayye, we made it to the end of the first half-term! Congratulations!
well done on those french results:rave:
one more week to go, you've got this:dumbells:
i think i'd be a wuss with a signpost:lol:
You can do the girl stay focused. Remember the big picture.
Original post by Tolgarda
Ayye, we made it to the end of the first half-term! Congratulations!

Wow, I wish, I've still got another week:argh:
Original post by entertainmyfaith
well done on those french results:rave:
one more week to go, you've got this:dumbells:
i think i'd be a wuss with a signpost:lol:

Thanku Manu!! You and me both ahah
Original post by adelehector
You can do the girl stay focused. Remember the big picture.

Aw thanks gal!:smile:
Original post by troubletracking
Wow, I wish, I've still got another week:argh:

Oooohh, brutal!

Stay strong soldier!
Original post by Tolgarda
Oooohh, brutal!

Stay strong soldier!


Oof, I'll try:redface: Hope you're having a great half term thus far!
Original post by troubletracking
Oof, I'll try:redface: Hope you're having a great half term thus far!

I'm trying to perform a juggling act between procrastination and relaxation! God damn. Thanks anyway! I hope things are going alright for you!
Original post by Tolgarda
I'm trying to perform a juggling act between procrastination and relaxation! God damn. Thanks anyway! I hope things are going alright for you!


Ah, the best combination:redface: Hopefully you're doing more relaxation than work though- it is a holiday after all! Yeah, not too bad thanks, only three more days to go!!
Original post by troubletracking
Ah, the best combination:redface: Hopefully you're doing more relaxation than work though- it is a holiday after all! Yeah, not too bad thanks, only three more days to go!!

That was exactly what I was like last week haha. I've got so many essays. This sh*t's too long man! Damn! We have lives too!
Original post by Tolgarda
That was exactly what I was like last week haha. I've got so many essays. This sh*t's too long man! Damn! We have lives too!


Ughh I'm dreading the amount of homework I'm inevitably going to be lumbered with thank god I don't have a booming social life
Original post by troubletracking
Ughh I'm dreading the amount of homework I'm inevitably going to be lumbered with thank god I don't have a booming social life

Lol same here. Still, it is quite annoying (if I say so myself). I thought I enjoyed English until I met Mr Advanced. Still, could be worse...
Original post by Tolgarda
Lol same here. Still, it is quite annoying (if I say so myself). I thought I enjoyed English until I met Mr Advanced. Still, could be worse...


Same tbh, find myself reminding myself why I took English in the first place because I'm slowly losing the will to live. Ye, could be worse, i could've actually applied for eng lit, bio and chem like i was gonna this time last year:biggrin:
Tuesday, 23rd October 2018
Today's Timetable: English (P1), Tutorial, History (P3), French (P5)
Post length: moderately long

While about 90% of the country is already lolling about doing nothing and eating waffles, we're not on half term till next week, so it was another 6am start that really wasn't a 6am start because I missed my 7:10 bus and had to get the train instead. Got the train yesterday as well, so call me Michael Portillo:wink:

First period today was English, where I saw my friend whom I hadn't seen since Thursday because she was on a trip to BURR-mingham, and then I resumed my natural state of slightly miffed during the English lesson. Did I mention English is stressing me out? Because English is stressing me out. We're supposed to be writing some comparison essay to serve as our half termly assessment on Friday, but it could also be Wednesday, so no one really knows what's going on. I just can't get over how much quicker things move at A-level. Like, we've watched an adaption once and we haven't even read the goddamn book as a class and somehow we've to rustle up an essay with quotes from a book we haven't read. Okay, fairs, maybe I should've read it prior (I have read Act 1), but our teacher did say that for this one we didn't have to read it, and I was just kinda expecting we'd read it as a class. You know like in GCSE where y'all would have a whale of a time with the yellow highlighter and the teacher would stop every five seconds to point out an odd bit of symbolism somewhere and one of the boys would get cast as a maid or something and you'd all think it was the funniest thing to ever happen? Good times man.

Anyway, after that was tutorial, which turned out to be not as pointless as it could've been because it was a rundown on PAWS week, seeing as there'd been some mad rumours flying about recently (unfortunately this is as good as gossip gets atm as no one knows each other well enough to know the tea about Jessica's brother's uncle's goldfish's ex that got pregnant and fled the country to live in Majorca as a pilgrim). Basically, PAWS week (or Project And Working Shadowing week) is this week in July where all A1s have to either do a project (literally a week-long enrichment) or get a work experience placement, depending on what you want to do in the future or whatever. You submit your CV and a reference and all that good stuff onto the online server thingy, and the PAWS office hook you up with what you want to do, but it's not always guaranteed. I'm hoping I can get somewhere in a secondary school providing on that you have a preference in what subject you shadow (it'd be the ultimate plot twist if I got stuck in the maths department lmao), although we were told a lot of people travel as far as Greater Manchester for their placement, so hopefully I ain't gonna be wandering around Manchester Picadilly for a week like a lost child if I do get a placement.

After break, we had history, where we finished topic five, the suffrage movement. We whizzed through this one pretty fast because we all kinda had a basic idea of it all to begin with, and it's not overly complicated like the Ireland topic was. I do enjoy history a lot more than I was about a month ago, because it's just so much more interesting to learn about things that literally only happened 100 years ago, even though the society was completely different. Modern history's just a lot more relevant that medieval history, in my opinion, and it's pretty fascinating to see how things have changed and laugh at the stuffy old politicians (sorry Lloyd George, is there really any need for that Lloyd in there?)

Had lunch, then a free which we spent in the library, and I went over the Quizlet vocabulary for the vocab test before doing some more history notes (probably should've been doing English but I've since realised English is the subject I always put off doing oops). Had French fifth period where we had the weekly vocab test, which I got 15/15, and life was all well and good until we went over when to use the perfect tense and the imperfect tense within the same sentence and I thought my head was going to explode with all these complete and incomplete actions. Still don't really get it, so I'm either going to have to figure it out on my own (most likely at 1am in tears) or consult my teacher about it. Which one is it gonna be folks?

Got home late again, but also didn't have any homework due the next day, so it wasn't a major crisis. Did a pitiful amount of work today, as always.

French:

Got my mum to test me on present tense irregulars, irregular past participles, and verbs that take etre for the big bad grammar test on Thursday. The programme we use to show reports of our grades and things has been updated with our minimum expected grades this year, and i'mpredicted A*/A for everything, so no pressure then huh:redface:

Didn't do much for the rest of the evening, apart from getting my mum to help me with an Iceland application, half-heartedly trying to organise my folder and trying to work up the motivation to tidy my room, which isn't going too well as I'm using TSR as a distraction. So, yeah, probably gonna try and sort it out tbh, because it's not normally this bad on a Tuesday:s-smilie:

G'night homies:

Pour souls who have committed to being tagged:
(if you're also slightly masochistic, lemme know if you wanna be tagged- or removed, for that matter)

Spoiler

(edited 5 years ago)
english lit is moving slowly for me but it's the subject i'm probs enjoying the least rn:lol:
good luck for the grammar test!
Original post by entertainmyfaith
english lit is moving slowly for me but it's the subject i'm probs enjoying the least rn:lol:
good luck for the grammar test!


It’s definitely a step up from gcse!
Ah thank you:hugs:

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