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Tales of Procrastination

Hello people of the internet

Several weeks ago, when I opened my email account, I saw an email from The Student Room with the subject line saying: "Grow your grades is back". I was intrigued. I need to grow my grades! So I read what Grow your Grades is all about and decided that I wanted to start a blog too. Here we are almost two months later and I am just now starting this blog. This is the story of my life, I used to be and mostly still am a huge procrastinator.

Welcome to my blog. My name is Katharina. I am 17 years old and I am currently doing my A-levels at an international school in the Netherlands. I messed up my AS-levels last year and will be re-sitting them this year

. I took math, biology and chemistry. If you are interested in my grades here they are.

Spoiler

I also took a German A-level in October. I am getting the results for German in 2 weeks; I don't think I have ever been this nervous. I should at least get an A, considering German is my first language. This grade will determine which universities I will consider applying to and what grades I will aim for this coming May.

I am dreaming of going to Oxford University or LMU (a German university in Munich) to study law. If you looked at my grades you know that at least Oxford will be impossible to get into. I realize that but a girl can dream (and try to grow her grades by 40%).

That is enough about me for now. If you want to know more you can read my next post, which I will hopefully post in the next few days. Before I go I just want to put my goals and intentions for this blog into writing. I am starting this blog because I hope it will motivate me to get things done and keep me accountable. I also hope that someone reading this might learn from my mistakes or maybe pick up a helpful tip here and there.

Reply 1

nyxnko_

Original post by kathasora

Hello people of the internet

. I took math, biology and chemistry. If you are interested in my grades here they are.

Spoiler

good luck!! Will definitely be watching this!!

Reply 2

kathasora

Original post by nyxnko_

good luck!! Will definitely be watching this!!

Thanks

, I will need it!

Reply 3

kathasora

About me

Post #2 07.01.18

If you read my first post then you know I did not do too well on my AS-levels and that I have unrealistically ambitious goals, but there is more to me.

I have moved around a decent amount in my life. I lived in different parts of Germany for the first 11 years of my life. Two days after Christmas in 2011 my family and I moved to Idaho, USA. I could barely introduce myself in English and had to start school 3 weeks after we arrived in the US. This was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me. I quickly learned English and made some amazing friends. This made leaving two and a half years later extremely hard. We moved back to Germany into our old house but the school I went to before moving to the US told me to go to a lower level school (in the German education system there are 3 levels of education depending on your natural ability to learn, I was in the highest one). They argued this by saying that the American education system is no where near as challenging as the German system and that I just would not be able to keep up. I am still a little bitter about this to be honest. Not because someone told me I was not good enough, but because they had never even met me or made an effort to asses my level. In some ways I am thankful for the ignorance of the officials at that school because if they would not have turned me down I would have never applied for the school I am going to now.

As I mentioned in my last post I go to an International School in the Netherlands. If you payed attention you may have noticed that I live in Germany but I go to school in the Netherlands, and no its not a boarding school. I cycle 10 km from where I live in Germany to my school in the Netherlands every morning. It´s not as bad as it sounds, I promise.

Ok, that was a lot of talk about school. I hope no one fell asleep. When I am not at school or cycling places I am probably at the library studying, at dance class or working out. Of course I do other things, including watching excessive amounts of TV, but these things that take up most of my time at the moment. I listen to a lot of music in my free time as well and love to travel. Sadly, the constant pressure of studying, even during my holidays, has kept me from doing much traveling this year.

That is part of the reason I am going on a gap year after I graduate. I have been saving up for this, seemingly, forever and can finally somewhat afford a year of travel. I will probably do a lot of couch surfing and volunteer work in exchange for a place to stay, but I can not wait to see the world and to finally have a holiday during which I don't feel the pressure to study.

I also have a dog, her name is Thetis (most people seem to think it´s Tetris :unimpressed:

) I tried to post a picture of her here but it is not working for some reason (it´s a .png file and it´s smaller than 500KB). Maybe I´ll include her in my next post.

Anyways, enough about me for now. I hope you are still interested enough to read my next post and that you all have a productive day.

Reply 4

kathasora

Random Check-In

Post #3 08.01.18

So I decided that I want to have some kind of structure on this blog. I think I am going to post something bigger, like how I study or mistakes I made last school year and how I learned from them, every weekend and then I will have small check-ins like this, every now and then, during the week.

Today I went to the library, as I do every Monday, and I did virtually nothing. (It´s great to study with a friend but sometimes it´s hard to focus) I really need to start focusing more if I want to do better this year. I got into really good study habits before the holidays but I am having a hard time getting back into that rhythm. Of course it is only the first day back but I was hoping to be a little more productive. Since wishing and hoping is not going to do too much I am going to study some more after writing this post. (Yes, I am using this to procrastinate :erm:

)

I also found out that I am getting my German exam results this week instead of next week. I am kind of excited and just want to know how I did but I am also terrified. What if I didn't get an A? (I would also be ok with a B, but then I can definitely cross Oxford off my list of university options!) This was my last chance. After failing my AS levels I was sad, but I knew I would be able to try again this year (And I was still the second best student in my class, but that won't really matter to any good university). That is not an option anymore.

As part of my New Years resolutions (even though I don't really do New Years resolutions, I decided to set some goals for myself this year and am calling them New Years resolutions, because why not) I decided to set 3 main goals for myself everyday and I thought I would share the ones I set for today, with you!

Plan out the week

Find a new revision technique to try

Get up early and get everything done (by everything I mean the things I put on my to-do list for today)

I finished number one and I did get up at 6 and went for a run but I have yet to finish number 3 and do number 2 and it is already 19:38.

I hope everyone out there had a good day and accomplished everything they set out to do. Talk to you soon.

Reply 5

nyxnko_

cycling 10k in the morning?!? :eek3:

I don't think I could ever do that.. wow..
good luck with your German a level!! I hope u get what u want :biggrin:

your new years' resolutions are good.. although I don't think I can get up early every morning :tongue:

sometimes I just want to lie in but good luck!!

Reply 6

kathasora

Original post by nyxnko_

cycling 10k in the morning?!? :eek3:

I don't think I could ever do that.. wow..
good luck with your German a level!! I hope u get what u want :biggrin:

your new years' resolutions are good.. although I don't think I can get up early every morning :tongue:

sometimes I just want to lie in but good luck!!

Thanks! And the New Years resolution is to set three goals each day, this probably will not always include getting up early (I love sleep too much). I do have to say when I get up at around 6 I feel a lot more awake all day.

Reply 7

kathasora

Results Day

Post #4 10.01.18

I woke up at 6 this morning with the intention of working out but I was too nervous to do anything. I stayed in bed waiting, when the clock hit 6:59 I opened Safari on my phone and started hitting refresh. There they were, my exam results. If you are interested to know what I got you can open the spoiler below.

Spoiler

I am ecstatic but I am also a little disappointed that those 2% to an A* are missing. I did not expect to do this well, since I have not taken German class since I did my IGCSEs.

Well I guess I do not get to give up on Oxford just yet. I decided that if I get an A or higher in German I will re-take my AS-level in Math in an attempt to get A*AAa. I am happy that I could actually reach my goals but I am also afraid of failing a little bit.

To anyone that also got results today I hope you got what you wanted/needed to get.

Reply 8

nyxnko_

Original post by kathasora

yes I relate.. getting up early always makes me feel more ready to do things. whenever I get up late, I just feel so groggy and out of it

Original post by kathasora

Results Day

Post #4 10.01.18

Spoiler

:woo CONGRATS!!! good luck with your maths retake as well!!

Reply 9

kathasora

Original post by nyxnko_

yes I relate.. getting up early always makes me feel more ready to do things. whenever I get up late, I just feel so groggy and out of it

:woo CONGRATS!!! good luck with your maths retake as well!!

Yeah exactly!

Thank you! :h:

Reply 10

kathasora

How I study for Biology

Post #5 13.01.18

Biology is my best subject. It was one of my highest grades at IGCSE and I am top of my class at the moment (there are only two students in my class tho, I know it sounds a lot less impressive now). My school doesn't do mock exams so I can´t say anything about that, but my average grade is an A. Biology has always made sense to me and comes pretty easy to me but I would say if I studied differently I probably would not be doing as well.

So what do I do?

Step 1: I try to work ahead
Over the summer before my A-levels I started on the first chapter of the content. I was planning on finishing the first three chapters but life happened and I really just wanted to enjoy my holidays so I only finished about the first half of the first chapter. This was enough to always be little ahead of the content my teacher was covering and the homework he gave to us. You can also just do a little extra work at the beginning of the year to get ahead.
How does this help: Lessons are a lot easier to follow and if life ever gets in the way of me doing my homework I don't have to worry since I have already done it. (My biology teacher is incredibly strict about homework...)

Step 2: I summarize each chapter
Part of me working ahead is reading and summarizing, what I read, as I go along. I always start by summarizing the summary of the chapter. Yes you heard me right, I read the summary of the chapter and try to condense the information as much as possible. At this point I usually do not really understand what I am summarizing because the information is mostly new to me. This helps me get an idea of what I am going to learn in the chapter and the summary of the summary is a good way to quickly review the information before a test. In my biology book the chapters are split up into sub-chapters. I write down important definitions of the sub-chapter I am about to summarize and the just start writing down the most important points of what I read. This summary is pretty extensive and detailed. Last year my summaries were a lot more compact but I was missing a lot of small details that I was expected to know which is part of the reason I did not do too well on my AS-level exam.
How does this help: summarizing helps me remember the information and it makes revision a lot faster. I have an example of one of my summaries below.

Step 3: I answer questions and reread the chapter
Answering the questions in my book or from a past paper is an absolute key to making sure I understand everything. One important thing is not to just answer the questions but to correct them and understand what you might have done wrong. I also sometimes write important questions on flashcards with the answer and an explanation on the back. After I answer some questions I will reread the chapter and write down a few points that I did not catch while reading it the first time or something that I think is very important to remember.
How does this help: Answering questions helps you review the information and it lets you know which part of the topic you might still need to work on. Rereading the chapter is also a good way of reviewing the information and ensures that you did not miss any of the key points in the chapter. You can find an example of how I do this at the end of this post.

Step 4: I explain the information to someone
A few days before I have a test I explain all of the content to my mom or a friend.
How does this help: Explaining the content to someone requires a good understanding and once again lets you see which parts of the content you may have to work on. Also, the person you are explaining the content to may ask a question that lets you consider another aspect of what you are explaining.

Step 5: I record myself reading my notes
As I have mentioned in a previous post, I cycle 10km to and from school so I have about an hour of commute time every day. I wanted to find a way to use this time effectively. I learn really well by listening to someone explaining the content so I decided to record myself reading my summary, class notes and my notes from rereading the chapter. It´s a little weird and I always cringe so hard listening to myself but it really helps me remember all of the content.
How does this help: It helps me memorize all of the details that I am required to know and it let´s me use my time more efficiently. Also reading my notes out loud while recording myself is another way to revise.

Step 6: I use the tests we take in class as a chance to improve myself
I personally have not gotten a 100% on a biology test this year. I usually miss 1 to 4 points, meaning there is room for improvement. My teacher always goes over the mark scheme of the test with us. I write down the questions on which I missed a point and then add which points I got and which I missed.
How does this help: Doing this helps me see what I am expected to answer for specific questions and lets me review things I didn't know during the test. Here is an example of what that looks like.

Just a note, I have two notebooks for each subject. I use one to answer questions and for notes when rereading the book, and I use the other for my summaries. This helps me stay a little more organized.

I hope you found this helpful or at least interesting.

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Reply 11

kathasora

Check in

Post #6 21.01.18

Hello to any one out there reading, I know haven't posted in a week. The past week was pretty rough emotionally, so I could not get myself to really do anything. I was also a little demotivated to post on here because, even though I am not really writing this blog for a huge reaction, I think there is literally only one person reading which is kinda demotivating. Thanks @nyxnko_ for reading and replying to my blog btw.

Anyways I am going to try to start posting more regularly again. That's all from me for today. I hope everyone is doing well and has had a productive week.