Unremarkable ventures II

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UCAS - Firmed cambridge (A*A*A + 1, 1 in STEP II, III) and insured warwick mathstat. (AAA + 2 in any STEP)

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Further maths - Did an FS1 mock. Though I lost 6 marks due to a misread, I got a mark that satisfied my teacher enough to be entered for FS1, so that's done now. So STEP III will be my last exam on the 21st June, and I'll never have to do another bloody D1 paper, very happy. (my other option is FP1)

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Physics - Got an A* in my mock which is a nice confidence boost. Still a couple of gaps though, (particularly with electric fields, could easily be oofed by a weird circuits question too) and I still need to keep this up, so I will be spending a lot of time on it in the future.

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STEP - done a few papers. (II 2007, [which I had done before but I lost my solutions] 2010, 2011 and III 2010) Concerned that I'm working through these too fast (even though tthis has been over the space of a month, so I'll probably be going at a bit of a slower pace. I'm pretty happy with my performance in these, but I really do want to be able to access at least the easy mechanics questions, but I'm not in that position right now. Being familiar with easier vectors questions might be handy too if the rest of the pure isn't great.

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History - Still indifferent.

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EPQ - Promised I'd have this largely done over the half-term, so I will be doing that. Might upload it once it's done and marked etc. since there are quite literally no examples of maths EPQs online.

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I did a STEP III paper (2007) at the beginning of the holiday. It was virtually, but probably not quite, 3 hours straight. Did do 6 questions. 3 I'm confident with (~20), 2 were ok (11/12?) and one was abysmal having ran out of steam. (single digits) Considering that a 1 was low 60s, that is pretty good.

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EPQ - I can't remember what my word count was before, but now I'm just shy of 3000. (the exam board recommendation is 5000, though this is not a hard requirement. I will probably go over. While I've marked some sections as completed I might think of some more to add to them.) Now that I've got into the meat of it, I'm really enjoying it. Also blagged most of the production log. I also have the presentation to make too, though I think I can cobble that together in a day or two. People give the EPQ a bad rep but once you get into it, it's pretty fun. Problem is I have no examples to work off, I can find a few chemistry/biology EPQs, but no physics/maths EPQs, so I'm really unsure if I'm doing this right. I said I'd have it more or less done by Thursday and I think I'm on track for that. (probably just conclusions left by then)

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History coursework - From 800 words to 1400. (+150 odd for the introduction that I have on my school account) Need it to be 2000 by last period tomorrow. Been putting it off. Absolutely hate it, my judgement on it so far would be abysmal.

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Physics Paper 1 [May 20] - Not a good paper. There was a 6 marker I just didn't know the answer to. (it was a spec point and a paragraph in the textbook but I didn't catch it) I messed up the second non-MCQ on the paper (usually intended to be accessible to E-grade candidates I thought) which wasn't a good start. Oddly although I found the paper hard I had an awful feeling people would've found it easy - but luckily I was completely incorrect and a good number of people found it very hard, so very relieved. Hoping for low boundaries.

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Irish History [May 21] - This was never going to go well. I had planned to read up on the content for ages but didn't do it. Then it was the morning before the exam - and I couldn't get myself to do it because of physics. The sources were fairly good - the first essay less good, the second essay I'm just hoping to get a non-zero mark. Hoping to get a C in this paper so I'm on track for a B overall. (A* in coursework) Not a disaster if the other essay got 0 but that'll probably mean I got a D. History teacher saw me before Physics Paper 2 and I let him down softly. He thought I was just being modest when I said "it was alright" - but even alright is slightly optimistic. He will definitely be surprised at my mark.

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Physics Paper 2 [May 24] - Lovely paper. Only had to fudge one question on why a heavier sphere would be more suitable as a pendulum bob. Hadn't really encountered a bob that wasn't a light particle before, (forces involved etc.) so wasn't sure what to put. Possibly ********ted my way to a mark, but probably 0. (maybe if there's a mark for even talking about air resistance/drag? lmao) Rest of the paper was pretty good - marks lost due to silly errors as always. Relatively confident and optimistic. Hoping I'm still on target for an A* provided paper 2 goes okay. If not, I think the A is fairly secure. Hoping that the boundaries don't creep up too much. Most people seemed to leave confident then realise they made silly errors, (a few people said some quite worrying things after I left the exam hall) like I did, so hopefully reasonably boundaries still.