Much to-do about my A-levels

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Reply 20

keep_drowning

That banner is so awesome!

Best of luck!

Reply 21

barror1

Study Forum Helper, Universities Forum Helper

This looks so good! I was a Cambridge applicant last year for English, so if you have any questions about it let me know :yes:

Also, please can I have a tag? I would love to see how this turns out! :hugs:

Reply 22

troubletracking

Original post by clouddbubbles

yessss keep me tagged

will do!

Original post by DominicW123

I may not have any novels to read for my subjects but I'm certainly drowning in exercises and practices questions that I should've done!

Every year i tell myself this will be the year i'll finally sort myself out and get myself organised and not procrastinate anymore but, alas, every year is a failure :redface:

Original post by Sinnoh

Can't believe you didn't include the legendary Macbeth quote "I have given suck" in your banner

Glad to see my arbitrary dividing-udates-into-acts has caught on but can't deny it works extra well here :biggrin:

how could i forget the classics?!??! Feel like my rights as a lit applicant have been revoked :redface:

that's what gave me the original idea of setting it up like a play, huge kudos there! :smile:

(Original post by nyxnko_)

This looks amazing! :gah:

Good luck this year! :rave:

Thank you!! :woo:

And again! :biggrin:

you too my lovely :hugs:

Original post by I AM GROOT 1

I reckon so :yep:

An hour well spent imo :rofl:

No worries :h:

if you say so :laugh:

Original post by Tolgarda

Hey, I agree. Long time, no see! Wow, I'm a poet and I didn't know it! :biggrin:

Anyway, it's going alright. My predicted grades are A*AC (thanks chemistry, thanks a f*cking lot lmao). With the highest grade in English language and the A in English literature because a score of 53/60 marks is still only a B grade for some reason (or so the mock boundaries say).

I'm just about to start writing the second part of my literature NEA just a day before my sixth form opens. As you can probably tell from that line, I'm not very prepared for A2. Anyway, if I get it done, I get it done.

aw nice predicted grades! Shame about the chem, could you maybe do some negotiating/ bribing (..threatening?) with your teacher to try and bump it up a little?
if it's any consolation, i'm in the same boat :redface:

have an essay due on friday and i'm fifty pages into a 500 page novel holy shakespeare :colondollar:

Original post by keep_drowning

That banner is so awesome!

Best of luck!

Thank you!!
And you too :smile:

Original post by barror1

This looks so good! I was a Cambridge applicant last year for English, so if you have any questions about it let me know :yes:

Also, please can I have a tag? I would love to see how this turns out! :hugs:

Thank you so much! :biggrin:

Do you mind me asking about the number of books you referenced on your personal statement? Really not sure if i've read enough in the area i'm interested in or read widely enough as a whole :s-smilie:

this whole oxbridge thing is stressing me out :bricks:

ofc!! (..can i request the same in your blog :yep:

) again, thank you! best of luck to you :hugs:

Reply 23

Tolgash

Original post by troubletracking

have an essay due on friday and i'm fifty pages into a 500 page novel holy shakespeare :colondollar:

Haha, thanks. I guess if I've learnt anything from this experience thus far, it's that I'm no chemist haha! Don't ever put me near a laboratory, please! :biggrin:

I think I should have practised my negotiation skills rather than revise for my little resit (yes, due to the class f*cking up, we got a second chance). To be fair, should I get a B at the minimum for my resit, I'll be eligible an A-grade prediction, thus setting me up for a potential Oxbridge application. I'm thinking of English or education studies if my resit goes well.

Also, how are your school's English lit. boundaries for mock examinations? Mine was a nice little 58/60 for an A* and 55/60 for an A. Like, c'mon. I seriously thought that I had cracked it when I was just one mark off 90% lmao.

Also, good luck with the NEA. I'm currently writing a comparative essay that compares and contrasts Andrea Levy's Small Island and Grace Nichols' The Fat Black Woman's Poems anthology.

Reply 24

barror1

Study Forum Helper, Universities Forum Helper

Original post by troubletracking

Thank you so much! :biggrin:

this whole oxbridge thing is stressing me out :bricks:

ofc!! (..can i request the same in your blog :yep:

) again, thank you! best of luck to you :hugs:

With my PS reading, I actually forgot to mention a couple of my books (1984 and one other)! I do have to say that reading Ulysses definitely seemed to give me an edge since it is a notoriously difficult text, but I learned the hard way (twice) that if you are reading a difficult text, you better have some damn good evaluation to go with it!
I also did constant reference to my studies! For example, I did Othello during A-level lit and went to London in my own time to see Othello at The Globe. It was fun and super useful for me!
I also did 2 Chaucer texts for my coursework, which they really seemed to like. I guess stick to the more difficult books and study them in depth!

Reply 25

troubletracking

Tuesday, 3rd September 2019
Days until first exam: 258

Act 1: term the first -- parteth one
Act 1, Scene 1: the beginning of the endeth of the endeth of the beginning hast begun
(the beginning of the end of the end of the beginning has begun)

Okay, so day one of year 13 and I am stressed. I don't think I can do this man, I'm off back to year 8.

The day started off well enough: my dad gave me a lift cos he didn't have work which was a godsend, and my first lesson was English where my friends and I all screamed excitedly at one another for a good fifteen minutes. We didn't really do anything in that lesson apart from listening to our teacher talk at us about what we'd be doing this year, and then we were all allowed to discuss the coursework with each other. The first draft of our A Streetcar Named Desire coursework is due next Monday so we had the whole summer to get it done, and I'm still trying to shave off 200 words to get it under 1000. It's come a long way from 2400, but it's still not how I'd like it yet.

Then I had French, which is new, because I've been moved into a different French class and I'm absolutely vexing. Like, I don't get why?? It's nothing to do with mocks or anything because classes aren't setted in college and I felt really awkward and alone in a class full of people I didn't know with a new teacher and a new timetable. I'm in a new tutorial as well and I just... don't get why?? We just did a bit of mixed tense revision which I found really damn hard so clearly someone hasn't been keeping up with the grammar over the holidays :colondollar:

My third and last period of the day (only upside to having French at a different time) was history, where we're just starting to learn the content for our coursework, which is on the War of the Roses but I don't really know what bit yet, cos at the moment we're just doing a load of kings with similar names and similar lives and it's all so confusing :s-smilie:

I'm really trying to focus in history a bit more because I really slacked off in the last few months after mocks, so I have a LOAD of Russia notes to catch up on. This entire year has been a real struggle for me in history really, ever since our old teacher left in December, because our new one's a great guy but his methods do not work for me at all. I get as much out of sitting in silence highlighting textbooks excerpts as I do out of running up and down my street blindfolded (to reiterate: absolutely nothing), so, yano, I'm actually trying to concentrate for once instead of thinking 'this isn't going in I won't bother', staring into space and distracting everyone.

I then actually stayed for the rest of the day, so I sat in the park with my friends for lunch, and fourth period was spent with my friends in the English study room. I put the finishing touches on my coursework essay, so now all I've got to do is put in the page numbers next to the quotes and try and shorten it a little before handing it in on Monday. For fifth period, all my friends went to their lessons (which would've been French had I not been slung into another class -- definitely not bitter at all), and I went to the library to work on my impending history essay (which I should've definitely done in the summer but oh well). College finishes at 4pm, but I didn't get home until about 6:30pm cos I took the train into the city (that sounds so weird without giving you actual place names but bear with) to get my sister a sketchbook and lead (upon request) and I also bought a reusable coffee cup for all the caffeine ima be needing this year. Save the planet and all that.

When I got home I felt so overwhelmed about all the things I had to do and all the things I should've done over the summer: my second personal statement draft is due this Friday and I have nothing, my EPQ is in tatters, I'm fifty pages into a 500 page novel for English, I need to somehow find time to rewrite all my Russia notes, my IRP is in desperate need of attention, I haven't read enough freaking books for an Oxbridge applicant and I have a history essay due this Friday. I managed to work on my essay a bit more so I should be read to plan and write it tomorrow (all being well), and I also inputted the 40 French words I need to learn by Friday but it just doesn't feel like I've done enough. Already I feel so behind:bricks:

Not a cheery start to the year, but I mean I haven't lost motivation yet so I suppose that counts for something :redface:

Tagz (lemme know if you wish to be added or removed :smile:

Spoiler

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 26

troubletracking

Original post by Tolgarda

Haha, thanks. I guess if I've learnt anything from this experience thus far, it's that I'm no chemist haha! Don't ever put me near a laboratory, please! :biggrin:

I mean.. at least you don't wanna be a doctor or sumn :redface:

Fingers crossed for you man, and I know Oxbridge's English course is both lit and lang but are you leaning more towards the literature side or are you more a fan of language?
Ours was only out of 30, so it was 21/30 for a B, I wanna say 24/30 for an A and 27/30 for an A*. I really screwed mine up big time :redface:

Oh cool, do you get to choose your coursework texts? We as a class were just set All the Light We Cannot See and Yeats ahah, which i'm not complaining about tbh cos they're pretty good

Original post by barror1

1984!! It's probably against at least three unwritten laws to apply for English lit without having read that thing, but I'll get to it I promise!! :o:

rofl:
You read Ulysses?!?! :eek2:

Holy smokes, I'm planning on reading Dubliners because I'm really interested in Modernism but Ulysses intimidates me beyond measure, I could never :laugh:

Yeah, I've realised that!! When I put a book on my PS they won't just have expected me to have read it, they'll also kind of want me to study it in a way, like i'll need my own opinions on it and stuff, which i do think i need to work on. Maybe i'll make a log of all the books i've read or something like that so i don't forget.
Aw nice! I did see Twelfth Night on a school trip so maybe i'll bang that in :laugh:

Chaucer, holy moly, are you a masochist?? :rofl:

One of my coursework books was literally published in 2014 (they're picked for us though) so maybe that's that out the window lmao :redface:

Reply 27

absolutelysprout

you really put a countdown till the exams oh no meg you're gonna make me panic :lol:

i'd hate to be moved classes for my subject, especially if i've been given no reason! have you asked your teacher why you're in this new class?
you've a busy week ahead of you but i know you'll get through it okay :yep:

you got this! :rave:

Reply 28

troubletracking

Original post by entertainmyfaith

you really put a countdown till the exams oh no meg you're gonna make me panic :lol:

you got this! :rave:

it's for aqa history paper 1 manu!! don't panic :rofl:

and stressing myself into revision is the only way i get stuff done :laugh:

yeah, i think i'm gonna :redface:

doubt it's for something serious or anything but i'm sure i'll make friends in the new class too
thank you!!! :hugs:

Reply 29

Tolgash

Original post by troubletracking

I mean.. at least you don't wanna be a doctor or sumn :redface:

Oh cool, do you get to choose your coursework texts? We as a class were just set All the Light We Cannot See and Yeats ahah, which i'm not complaining about tbh cos they're pretty good

Yeah well, my family has a few medical practitioners, so we'll see if I'm not too much of a disgrace.

I think Oxford's English course is just literature really, despite the misleading name. I checked it and there seems to be no element of A Level language really required (which is more or less linguistics). I'm leaning more towards literature because I am not certain if linguistics at degree level is for me. Just because I am a quasi-grammarian in my spare time, does not mean I am fit to look at other languages under the microscope lol.

My literature assessment was out of 60 (as you can probably tell haha). I scored 26/30 on the Rossetti and Ibsen comparative and 27/30 on the dystopian comparative.

Our NEA texts are prescribed as well. I believe all of OCR's are, actually, although our teacher had questions that they wrote approved by them though. :smile:

Reply 30

absolutelysprout

Original post by troubletracking

it's for aqa history paper 1 manu!! don't panic :rofl:

and stressing myself into revision is the only way i get stuff done :laugh:

yeah, i think i'm gonna :redface:

doubt it's for something serious or anything but i'm sure i'll make friends in the new class too
thank you!!! :hugs:

means other exams can't be that far away, or worse even closer :cry2:

Reply 31

flaurie

Volunteer Team

Ahhhhhh you sound like there’s so much to do already :hide:

Reply 32

nyxnko_

it sounds really hectic :console:

i feel like such a hypocrite saying this but you need to get reading :redface:

as for french, ask why they've moved you, cos it sounds a bit like they did it for an admin reason or smth stupid like that, so i think it should be okay to ask to move back :dontknow:

do you need to write or rewrite your Russia notes? :confused:

cos if it's just a rewrite, i think you might want to put that on the back burner and focus on writing your essay/epq/ps instead
you've got this, meghan! :rave:

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 33

Admera

Original post by troubletracking

OOh are we doing any of the same books/ modules?? Best of luck; we're gonna smash this :biggrin:

Possibly! My college also do a streetcar named desire for coursework but some teachers chose to do whose afraid of Virginia wolf! So I'm yet to find out. Thank you! best of luck to you as well!!

Reply 34

DominicW123

258 days until your first exam??? (well 257 now it's a day after) My first is in 249 :/// I can't believe they've cursed me like this.

Reply 35

sadforsadboys

Onwards & upwards :heart:

Reply 36

troubletracking

Saturday, 14th September 2019
Days until first exam: 247

Act 1, Scene 2: Ah the horror hither we wend again
(Ah sh*t, here we go again)

Um, so I've always made a point to never say when I'll post because then that way I don't feel obligated to post every day or every week or whatever, but it's been made pretty clear after 10 days of being an A2 that I don't think I'll be able to manage more than one post a week :redface:

Think we're all used to my slow replied and AWOLs by now though :lol:

I can't deny the last few days have been pretty hectic, but after the first week I've definitely calmed down a bit now. My first week was awful and I was feeling anxious in ways I haven't felt since I did my GCSEs and I woke up with that ball of dread sitting low in my stomach at first, but I've eased into it now. I'm still stressed -- I think doing there'll always be some permanent feeling of imminent stress -- but I'm not the paralysed kind of anxious I was before, which is good.

My lessons are going.. uh.. fine?? My new French class is okay although I only know about three people's names and I think the period where it's socially acceptable to ask someone's name has long gone out the window, I'm making a valiant (although not entirely successful) attempt to stay on top of my history work at the expense of pushing writing my Russia notes further and further back (I've splashed out £25 on a textbook so I can do it as and when), and my English coursework is going considerably well to say I haven't finished the book I'm studying yet :redface:

Over the Summer, I really did lose all motivation and direction with my EPQ, but I had my first EPQ lesson yesterday and I left feeling pretty good about it. I've FINALLY made a source evaluation chart, because I had a long, dated list of my sources, but I didn't know we had to assess their usefulness until last Tuesday, and I'm on with my logbook. One thing I keep pushing back is getting a library card because I need to find the first edition of the DSM, and my school library doesn't even have the modern fifth edition so god knows where I'm going to find 1952 medical records :colondollar:

My IRP (that is, my French Independent Research Project -- sort of like a mini EPQ, but in French) was also stressing me out until I had a conversation with my French speaking assistant, and she assured me that having all my sources in English was fine at the moment (we have to have five French sources where we got the information from), and then she also went on to recommend me loads of French Existentialist books to read (I realise I've failed to explain this IRP thing very well -- basically I'm doing a speaking presentation on a topic of my choice, and I've chosen to do the impact of Existentialism literature on modern-day France), and when I was like "yeah, I was gonna do de Beauvoir's La Deuxième Sexe (The Seconde Sex) but it's like 700 pages long so maybe not" she was like "no you sohuld talk about that as well!!" so I don't knwo when I'm going to have time to read a 700 page book in english and then sussing it out in French. At the moment I've read L'étranger (The Outsider) and La Nausée (Nausea), but only in English, and they were the only books I was going to use as examples because I'd have to read them in French as well, which would take me and my three brain cells months to do, but apparently I'm doing four now :dontknow:

And now the big one, universities, which are officially Stressing Me Out™. The good news is that I've finished my second draft of my personal statement earlier this week, had a chat with my tutor about how it's 1200 characters over the limit (my first draft was 7000 so I'm counting this as an achievement tbh), and she told me to give it to my English teacher to tear it apart so that I could give her my third draft. I have about two weeks to get this sorted before our internal deadline of 30th September, and I also want to see if my history teacher will give it a glance cos although I may sl*g him off for his crap teaching, I think he originally did a joint English and history and he really knows what he's on about, and I've also been allocated into Oxbridge sessions during Friday (thankfully with two of my mates so I'm not alone with the boat shoes :laugh:

), so I'm going to have around four different sets of feedback to sift through (which is exactly what my tutor told me not to do but TIME IS TICKING LIZ I AINT GOT TIME)

ELAT prep is going.. well precisely, it's not going. Every week I tell myself I'm going to start a paper but I always push it back, mainly just cos I'm intimidated. I think as soon as I get going I'll be fine, but for now I'm just cautiously peering over the edge of the cliff and wondering if the drop is as scary as it looks :s-smilie:

I'm starting to whittle down my choices for unis: last Saturday I ventured into London with my friend to look at UCL (which i thought was alright) and King's College London (which I really liked), and today I went to York with my dad (which I wasn't much of a fan of tbh, and it's only an hour away from where I live so I don't think I'm gonna apply). Next Friday I'm off back to Oxford in an attempt to both motivate me, to get a feel for the English lit course (cos I did linguistics while I was at UNIQ and I quickly realised that was not the degree for me lmao), and also to look around more of the colleges. At the moment I'm thinking LMH but only because the dining hall was gorgeous while I ate one meal there three months ago (clearly a good judge of where I want to possibly live for the next few years), but I really haven't seen a lot of them. The day after I'm heading up to Durham which should be exciting, and then I've seen all the places I've booked in to see. Ngl, really wish I could've seen Bristol and Edinburgh but the dates just didn't work out :frown:

My biggest issue atm is that all the ones I like have requirements of AAA (durham has A*AA :argh:

), and I have no real insurance, so I either apply with all AAA and hope one of them gives me a lower requirement or something or I apply to a uni I haven't been to but they have grades of ABB; both of which aren't particularly ideal :confused:

Tagz (lemme know if you wish to be added or removed):

Spoiler

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 37

clouddbubbles

lol meg u sound pretty stressed!!
a true procrastinator :wink:

i hope you get some stuff done hahh

Reply 38

troubletracking

Original post by entertainmyfaith

means other exams can't be that far away, or worse even closer :cry2:

orrr we could be optimistic and say that if my last exam is 274 days away, then we have ~280 days until post-exam freedom :wink:

(or i can remove it if it stresses you too much :lovehug:

)

Original post by laurawatt

Ahhhhhh you sound like there’s so much to do already :hide:

Ahhhhhh ikkk!!! Hope everything's going okay for you :h:

Original post by nyxnko_

it sounds really hectic :console:

i feel like such a hypocrite saying this but you need to get reading :redface:

as for french, ask why they've moved you, cos it sounds a bit like they did it for an admin reason or smth stupid like that, so i think it should be okay to ask to move back :dontknow:

do you need to write or rewrite your Russia notes? :confused:

cos if it's just a rewrite, i think you might want to put that on the back burner and focus on writing your essay/epq/ps instead
you've got this, meghan! :rave:

Am a lil bit calmer now :yep:

Ikkkk!!! Still haven't finished it yet i've been so focussed on wider reading :argh:

Yeah my teacher said three classes became two, and it was just unlucky i was one of two moved to make the class sizes equal, it is what it is i guess :redface:

Both!! Mainly rewrite though :s-smilie:

I've said a deadline by Christmas for myself so if i do it little and often, they should be done, and it would also go towards revision :wink:

Thank you!!! What would i do without you kei??? :hugs:

Original post by DominicW123

258 days until your first exam??? (well 257 now it's a day after) My first is in 249 :/// I can't believe they've cursed me like this.

If it's any consolation my last one isn't until the 15th June when most of my friends finish on the 4th :mad:

Original post by emilynxlan

Onwards & upwards :heart:

Reply 39

Tolgash

Oohh, you gotta get that ELAT practice going! At least you have a chance of applying. I, on the other hand, was ****ed over hard this week (it's on my GYG), so I can't apply to a top university! Oh dear! Hopefully you succeed where I have failed!