Failed AS Unit 1 for all subjects

As the title indicates I've been a lazy, unproductive slug for the past couple of months and I barely even revised for any of my units, thus I've essentially failed and I know it.

Now that I've set the context of my current predicament, is there any way of me recovering for my poor academic streak? Per say, I intend on doing retakes on the subjects I intend on carrying through to A2 (I only do 4 AS levels). However, I'm still quite apathetic towards my situation - although I'm prepared and willing to correct the errors of my ways, by beating the battle of procrastination - as I'm scared of the prospect of failure, and will use this to motivate me into steering towards the paths of success.

I know I deserve the full consequence for being a lazy swine. Yet I want to overcome this. But after saying all of the above, I'm afraid the extra retakes on top of the unit 2 modules will be too much to bear?

Please, if anybody has been in a similar as me, enlighten me with how you got through this.

Apologies for being melodramatic but I'm scared of the prospect of being a failure.

As the title indicates I've been a lazy, unproductive slug for the past couple of months and I barely even revised for any of my units, thus I've essentially failed and I know it.

Now that I've set the context of my current predicament, is there any way of me recovering for my poor academic streak? Per say, I intend on doing retakes on the subjects I intend on carrying through to A2 (I only do 4 AS levels). However, I'm still quite apathetic towards my situation - although I'm prepared and willing to correct the errors of my ways, by beating the battle of procrastination - as I'm scared of the prospect of failure, and will use this to motivate me into steering towards the paths of success.

I know I deserve the full consequence for being a lazy swine. Yet I want to overcome this. But after saying all of the above, I'm afraid the extra retakes on top of the unit 2 modules will be too much to bear?

Please, if anybody has been in a similar as me, enlighten me with how you got through this.

Apologies for being melodramatic but I'm scared of the prospect of being a failure.

I know a few people at my college didn't do as well as they hoped in their January modules so they retook them all in June. This worked for some and not for others. Some only minorly imporved their grades.

I suppose it depends on the kind of person you are and whether you will continue with the attitude you have because 'you can always resit the next time.' It seems like you do want to correct your mistakes so why not do some retakes in June this year (the really necessary ones) and leave the rest until January and June of A2

Firstly, 4 ASs is the normal amount to do, so no need to worry there.

Secondly, your situation isn't all that uncommon either- it's better that you come to this realisation now than on results day in June! Lots of people do less than they're capable of in the first term of AS, either because they underestimated the difficulty, or (like you say), just slacked off a bit. It's good that you've recognised that- put it behind you, and focus on June.

Also, universities don't really care about retakes of AS January exams (several of my friends retook Jan exams, and now have offers for Cambridge).

Thanks for the swift response.

When I say a poor streak, I mean a streak of U's & E's, so I'm not sure how you mean to define the 'necessary ones' but ahhhhhhhhhh.

Also in terms of prediction for universities next year, how do retakes work out? Say for instance, you get a U in a unit 3 module, you retake it and achieve an A. How does it work? I'm quite complexed tbh.

You don't actually know you've done that bad, you might pleasantly surprise yourself In that case I suggest possibly resitting them all in June so that you can apply for university.

I'm not really sure with universities. I resat one of my modules this January which I got a C in last year but I got an A in the other exam so it levelled off at a B. I got a prediction for an A for philosophy in the end and have 4 offers. Do you mean predictions from your school? If so, that changes so much between schools. Some will predict you a lot higher than what you achieved at AS while others won't. Or do you mean matching up your predictions with your grades achieved at AS? If that's what you mean, it looks quite unrealistic to be predicted As and Bs when you achieved Es at AS so you will want to resit soon. Your school predicts your UCAS grades after you have your AS results so as long as you've altered your grades by September you should be fine.

That's encouraging to hear. I underestimated the difficulty as well as being a lazy peon.

Now, in my current scenario: I'm looking at the prospect of having 7 exams in June which is by far quite a lot; would I be able to space them out - say, retake 2 of them in January next year - or does it solely depend on your College?

Resit policies do vary depending on your college, so yeah, you'd have to check with them. But honestly, I'd just do seven exams in June. By January in your A2 year, there'll be new , harder content to worry about, plus uni applications can get stressful at that time (if you apply in y13). Some colleges don't do January exams at all, so people there have that amount of exams in the summer as standard. Like I said, it's most certainly doable (and I'd say preferable to having AS revision clogging up preparation for your arguably more important A2 exams)

Thanks for clearing things up a bit. I'm not in the right frame of mind to write lengthy replies (I have a migraine, finding it difficult to concentrate on anything). Another example to dispel further confusion: I do one of my unit 2s achieve an A in it, yet I still need to resit unit 1 in January - what would a college typically predict you, or is it too much of a variation between them to give an accurate estimate?

I guess I'll be facing the 7 exams in the upcoming months then.

Thanks for taking the time time answer all my questions; it means a lot.

How should I go about the preparation in terms of revising for all of these exams?

Don't worry about it

That really depends on the college. If your teachers think you are capable of achieving an A and you show them throughout the year that this module was just a blip then they'll be much more likely to predict you a high grade. But it really does depend on the college. At mine you can only be predicted either the grade you got at AS overall or one grade higher. If you got an E in January and an A in June it'd average out around a C so it's not a huge push to be predicted a B/A.

You're welcome, it's no problem

For preparation, I'd look up the exam timetables for June (they're on exam board websites now), and see how your exams are spaced out. If there are any exams that are nastily close together (for example, in June I have a biology exam one afternoon, followed by maths the next morning ), then be sure to nail the content for those exams well in advance, so you're just churning out past papers by the time exams roll round. If you have any exams that are nicely spaced, i.e. at least a week apart, then you can afford to spend a bit less time* on them earlier on, but focus on that exam and nothing else in the week leading up to it. Different things work for different people though.

*when I say 'a bit less time', it's still good to work solidly throughout the term! So when it comes to revision time, you're actually revising and not reteaching.

Okay, that was a tad rambly. Good luck with everything!

As the title indicates I've been a lazy, unproductive slug for the past couple of months and I barely even revised for any of my units, thus I've essentially failed and I know it.

Now that I've set the context of my current predicament, is there any way of me recovering for my poor academic streak? Per say, I intend on doing retakes on the subjects I intend on carrying through to A2 (I only do 4 AS levels). However, I'm still quite apathetic towards my situation - although I'm prepared and willing to correct the errors of my ways, by beating the battle of procrastination - as I'm scared of the prospect of failure, and will use this to motivate me into steering towards the paths of success.

I know I deserve the full consequence for being a lazy swine. Yet I want to overcome this. But after saying all of the above, I'm afraid the extra retakes on top of the unit 2 modules will be too much to bear?

Please, if anybody has been in a similar as me, enlighten me with how you got through this.

Apologies for being melodramatic but I'm scared of the prospect of being a failure.

By all means take everyone else's advice. But this post is basically my life! I failed so badly at AS. In Jan I got shocking results so retook them in June + Unit 2 exams. I did a little better with some modules but ended up doing badly with the unit 2 exams. So...I've just done resits again last week which I felt went better than AS.

The reason for this was that basically, I understood the topics so much better and I paid far more attention to past papers, revision websites and just generally took advice from so many people. I'd lost hope at the end of AS but trust me, there's still hope. Just work really really hard. My social life has taken a major backseat, but it'll all be worth it in the end.

Good luck and don't kick yourself just yet!

For your retakes in June last year, honestly, how much preparation did you do in terms of revision for your unit 1 & 2 exams?

As I've said to another user in this thread, thanks for taking the time in answering my enquiries, it means a lot

So all in all, it boils down to your prediction - that's what I'm the most worried about.

Last question, I promise: Say you're predicted a B and take retakes and somehow manage to waggle it up to an overall A/A*. What would happen then - would you be able to renew your grades on your application, or would you have to await until the next year to reapply to a better uni? etcetcetc