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Most impressive last minute exam success stories!

come on guys we all know you probably leave things to the last minute, at least a few times lol so share with TSR your best "cramming miracles"!
GCSE, AS, A2, Uni all welcome. Say how long before your exam you started prep, how much you knew at the time of starting prep and your result. Might be some motivation to people here :biggrin:

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Reply 1
anyone?
Reply 2
GCSE French Speaking controlled assessment- someone had switched my time because theirs didn't suit them but forgot to tell me so I thought I had a good 5 hours or so to learn everything and that was leaving it last minute but then the school rang me on the day saying I had missed my time so I had half an hour to learn everything in the car on the way up and only dropped 1 mark, but then again, I think when you are writing your answers/ responses to the task you learn a bit of it anyway. :-)


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Reply 3
How about you? If you are asking you must have some stories?


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Last year (2nd year Uni) - Randomly chose 3 past exam questions out of ~20 to focus on in an Endocrinology module - 2 of them came up in the exam (you have to answer 2/4 questions).

This was at between 06:00 and 09:00 with the exam at 09:30.

Success! (Achieved 65% in that module - 70% average)
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 5
Original post by oh_life
How about you? If you are asking you must have some stories?


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two days revision cramming, no work all year, university exam....passed! literally almost 40 hours in that weekend before the exam was so painfuil
Reply 6
Original post by Latebloomer93
two days revision cramming, no work all year, university exam....passed! literally almost 40 hours in that weekend before the exam was so painfuil


University exam? That's impressive! I take my hat off to you for cramming that much revision in to a weekend!? You're crazy haha oh and well done! :adore:
Reply 7
yeah me too..and if i learn like a good girl like 2 weeks before exam i end up forgetting everything. its like my brain is programmed to study whenever i happen to be a nervous wreck.
Reply 8
Original post by xMr_BrightSide
Started January exam revision for 4 A2 exams... in January, about 2 weeks before they started. Got 4 A's :biggrin:

Haven't started for June exams yet, hopefully history will repeat itself

You haven't started yet!!?? B-but it's May!
I wish you and everyone else on this thread success!
Sorry mate, but last minute revision only works with some individuals (the really clever ones).

Not everyone can pull off grades by last minute revision.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 10
Original post by Latebloomer93
two days revision cramming, no work all year, university exam....passed! literally almost 40 hours in that weekend before the exam was so painfuil


I find that hard to believe. That means you only had 8 hours of not studying in that weekend. How did you fit in sleeping, eating and having a break in those 8 hours?
For the F212 OCR AS biology exam, I had done no revision until the day before. I started revising around evening time stayed up all night and slept around 6 am till like 10am, then revised till my 1pm. Came out with a solid A. I still dont know how the **** it happened since I expected it to be the worst result I got yet it turned out to be one of the better ones. It was the most stupid **** going and I'll never do it again.

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In Year 10 I didn't really take my exams that seriously so for the first part of my GCSE R.E exam I did a couple hours of revision the weekend before and read over the revision guide a bit as well as a mock paper a couple of weeks before which I got a C in...
So it was a total surprise when I got the results from my actual exam I got 97% A*
I was seriously over the moon!
Original post by qasidb
I find that hard to believe. That means you only had 8 hours of not studying in that weekend. How did you fit in sleeping, eating and having a break in those 8 hours?


You dont believe it because you haven't seen or experienced something that like before but that doesnt make it a lie. It happened.And it was paaaaaainful!!!

I said almost 40 and I remember sleeeping around 3/4 hours per day with very little time away from my desk. Doesnt even matter because I dont recommend it to anyone
Original post by qasidb
I find that hard to believe. That means you only had 8 hours of not studying in that weekend. How did you fit in sleeping, eating and having a break in those 8 hours?


Don't underestimate university students when they take their exams - we have our 6 final year exams over 8 days (4 down, 2 to go at the moment), and 4 of those exams were on consecutive days - my friend got 3 hours sleep each night to maximise last minute revision.... I don't know how clever that is (I guess we'll see come results day) but they managed to do it.

I've learned from last year - finished my dissertation early and started full-time revision 2 months before exams :colondollar:

I can only hope it pays off! :crossedf:
Reply 15
Original post by James A
Sorry mate, but last minute revision only works with some individuals (the really clever ones).

Not everyone can pull off grades by last minute revision.


this is so true!! can i ask for your opinion please? so i have 6 A2 exams starting 7th june including 2 jan retakes! and i revised as in made my revision notes for biol5 and chem 5 exams and have only started geog revision and havent even looked at retake stuff yet. I havent done any past papers for any of my subjects yet and need to get AAA currently on ABB. do you think im leaving it to late to start past papers and is it possible to get AAA? or have i considerably decreased my chances of doing well by leaving it to late to complete a ridiculous number of past papers?

Thank you!
Original post by emah123
this is so true!! can i ask for your opinion please? so i have 6 A2 exams starting 7th june including 2 jan retakes! and i revised as in made my revision notes for biol5 and chem 5 exams and have only started geog revision and havent even looked at retake stuff yet. I havent done any past papers for any of my subjects yet and need to get AAA currently on ABB. do you think im leaving it to late to start past papers and is it possible to get AAA? or have i considerably decreased my chances of doing well by leaving it to late to complete a ridiculous number of past papers?

Thank you!


Thanks for agreeing with my opinion :cute:

You haven't looked at the retake stuff? Well, you need to start as soon as possible.... How long have you got for those two retakes?

The thing is that you need to cover all the content in any subject before starting past papers......... :s-smilie:

You really need to get a move on with the work, because there's no point doing past papers if you haven't learnt/understood the material to a good level.
I revised Higher Biology like a boss the day before the exam, and somehow managed a Band 1 A ;D
Reply 18
Original post by James A
Thanks for agreeing with my opinion :cute:

You haven't looked at the retake stuff? Well, you need to start as soon as possible.... How long have you got for those two retakes?

The thing is that you need to cover all the content in any subject before starting past papers......... :s-smilie:

You really need to get a move on with the work, because there's no point doing past papers if you haven't learnt/understood the material to a good level.


my retake exams are on the 11 and 21st june! do you think its possible for me to get my AAA? im really very worried and its not even that im not working, i started revising at the start of april but it just took such a long time to do my notes for biol and chem 5!!!
Original post by emah123
my retake exams are on the 11 and 21st june! do you think its possible for me to get my AAA? im really very worried and its not even that im not working, i started revising at the start of april but it just took such a long time to do my notes for biol and chem 5!!!


I'm not sure, I don't know you personally to answer that.... :frown:

The only thing I can say is that you need to make sure you fully understand the topics before going on to past papers.....

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