May 20, 200321 yr I just went with it and see where it took me. Simply, go with the flow :xyx I'll post more after I'm done with my mountains of AS work......what, you said how to cope with school? ;)
May 20, 200321 yr Well...i left school official on friday. But i go in for exams and to finish courseowork off. Right now i feel like shit cause of school. I thought wow no more school, this week ive never spent so much time in school. I have my english exam tommorow (anyone help me with 'Of Mice And Men' man it sucks. Also my drama lines tommorow. As well as getting my GNVQ ICT Coursework done for Thursday, its bad bro really bad. Im not saying it dont rule now, cause its the best time of your school life, go anywhere do what you want. Im not known as a 'guest' at my school. lol. Right now im feelling the stress and burn of the exams. But once they are done it will be a really good releif. One thing im looking for is our leaving due. Everyone from year 11 in my school is gonna go up town for a meal, then all around town for a good piss up (only for the people who look over 18 can drink of course) THATS ME whooo. Eh and im gonna plan on having the best night of my life then, not sure if it will be as good as the night i tryed some of MLM moves. Whoo Eh but exams suck, anyone who thinks they are nothing, man they are bloddy stressful. Eh thats about it. Thankyou. *back to reading essays on Of Mice And Men* :( CJR
May 20, 200321 yr Just apply yourself to the task even if its subjects you don't like and try to concenrate on tests. I didn't care about the GCSE's and saw my marks take a tumble but still left school with 3 C's. That was one of my major mistake - burning out right in Year 11 -, never ever do that OK? Just apply and the time will go fast.
May 20, 200321 yr Mitchell, trust me, your actual marks or grades will be much much better than your mocks. My mock results were pretty bad and I ended up doing not too badly in the actual exams. That was the same with basically everyone I know. Once you get past the GCSEs and stay on to do A-Level or whatever, school certainly gets much better, in my case anyway. The idiots had left by that stage and the teachers were much better - it didn't feel like they were out to get you. I know teachers do seem like they are out to get you sometimes but the vast majority of them do have a keen interest in how you progress.
May 20, 200321 yr Funny, I was looking over my "National Record of Achievement" (aka "The Indian Restaurent Menu" cause it's bound in burgundy leatherette!) last week. "Total school sessions in the past year: 264[/i] Mark attended: 262 sessions." I didn't realise I was such a swot! I actually enjoyed school. Couldn't count anyone I met at school as close friend: I'm not in any kind of contact with anyone I didn't meet within the last five years. I just went and got on with it. Coursework's like tidying your room or doing the dishes. It's a necessary evil but also, it's never as hard as you think.
May 20, 200321 yr WEll i assume you are going through you GCSE's currently? Basically if a teacher gave me shit for whatever reason, give them shit back. You gotta stick up for yourself. For me thats the only way to get through life is to stand up for what you beleive in and not give a crap bout what anyone else thinks of your opinion. True a lot of people will hate you for this but atthe end of the day you will realise who your true friends are. I can understand what your going through to a certain extent. But from what i can tell you seem to be extremely lonely, I can understand how you feel because in about February a couple of years back i got permantly excluded from a private college. But even so it all turned out for the best and i ended up with good grades. You just gotta crack on with you school work. I know that probably dint help but just remember that friends will come and go but your familly will ALWAYS be there. Hope i helped in some way. ;)
May 20, 200321 yr You're right The Crippler - most of the time the mocks will reserve the actual GCSE's result. The mocks are there so the teachers can determine which subjects you are the strongest and the weakest in and help you to improve that particular weaknesses.
May 20, 200321 yr Let's just say when I did my GCSE mocks a few years back, it was a total failure. :) But when the proper exams came around, I actually revised for once and I was happy with my results. CJR - I could have helped you with "Of Mice and Men". I know that book inside out man. Good ol' Lennie and George!
May 20, 200321 yr Pab you still can help me LOL ;) its tommorow. George And Lenni rule, i got a feeling one of the questions will be. Why did George kill lenni. I got that down to a tie, its becuase he didnt want to suffer even more for what he had done to that woman, when he broke her kneck. Candy was her name? I know ths story just have trouble with the characters. I took this quiz also, i got 42% out of 100%, shite i know but i tryed. CJR
May 20, 200321 yr Originally posted by The Crippler Mitchell, trust me, your actual marks or grades will be much much better than your mocks. My mock results were pretty bad and I ended up doing not too badly in the actual exams. That was the same with basically everyone I know. I can relate to that :xyx Mock history: E GCSE History with no revision (sorry!): B
May 20, 200321 yr Originally posted by Chris2K In my mocks I got 5 Bs and 4 Cs. What does that mean for my future? :? It's a great start: good work fella! :xyx
May 20, 200321 yr I loved Of Mice and Men, awww, fab book. It makes course work/exams etc so much easier if you enjoy the subject. I was stupid when it came to my exams as i had discovered boys, so would rush home from school and head straight out the door again with my mates, hardly revised at all. Somehow managed to not do too badly, but the point is i could of done so much better, so don't make that mistake. I did enjoy school though, *best days of't life* hehe, and they were happy days, aww i wanna go back :D
May 20, 200321 yr First off, Acid's description of the 'Indian restaurant menu' - it does look like one though doesn't it? :lol In short, I didn't mind school at the time, middle school was good and after first year at high school it wasn't too bad. In fact during A levels I actually quite enjoyed it, but there's no way if I could help it that I would want to go back to it. OK Mitchell, I have gone off into a MASSIVE ramble about exams and school life in general, I have siad a bit about my own experiences but for the most part it's supposed to be aimed at giving you a little bit of advice, and trying to help you see why things may seem to be the way they are at school as well as how I dealt with them, and how I think you could deal with them. Also, since I have also taught people of your age (albeit in Madrid rather than here), I've also tried to explain the teacher's point of view in the hope that maybe you might see why they might be being a bit 'abrasive' themselves when they are discussing things with you. Exams What The Crippler has said there was basically the best part of my advice as well. No matter how much you might not think it's a factor, you should automatically have more focus on your genuine exams than on your mocks without you really making a conscious effort to be like that. If you're doing your Year Ten exams then you have plenty of time to recover even if you don't do so well right now. The worst thing that you could do would be to panic, but there's no point panicking. Just think that if you panic or freeze, you'll definitely get a crap mark, but if you just give it a go, even if you think you're writing crap, you just don't know if it might be the answer they want, so you stand a better chance of doing not so badly. If you make a good go of the exam from the beginning, then you can always go back and look to improve upon what you've written if you have time after the exam. If not, you'll know that at leqast you answered the most you could in the time you had, and that's better than having not answered large chunks of the exam from trying to be too much of a perfectionist. Just give it you best shot, that's all that you can do. Another thing is that when your exam starts, rather than looking at question one right at the beginning and doing it without thinking about anything else, take time at the start of the exam to look through the exam paper first, and look at the marks scheme and plan out how much time you intend to devote to each question. If you see that question one is worth ten marks out of a ninety mark exam, but question three is worth thirty marks, then if it is allowed, start on question three unless it is based on one of the earlier questions. That way if you don't finish, you've given yourself the best chance possible by trying to answer the most valuable questions and missing the less weighty ones. Know your strengths though, and look to use them to your advantage. If you are better at essay writing, but you are not so good at answering straightforward questions (now why would I look at it that way?!), then depending on what it is and your frame of mind, you might want to nail the essay questions first and worry about the other questions later, or deal with the straightforward questions first and then see how much time you have left to scribble out a reasonable essay answer. Just consider your strengths and weaknesses, and if you've done mocks then you should have an idea of how the exams will be structured, so take advantage of that to help you in your approach. The thing with your GCSEs is that all it takes is a bit of revision, not even that much. you will probably find some people starting revision as much as three months before the start of exams, and that's very admirable, but if you ask me that is going a bit over the top for GCSEs. I was very nervous waiting for my results and stressing over how I thought I had done, but without having to do too much revision I came away with three As, four Bs and two Cs, and afterwards I couldn't believe how much I had worried about something that didn't actually require that much work at all. Overall I think I did about twenty hours' revision for a chemistry exam (seeing as I was shite at science), and a bit for Spanish (because I knew I wanted to do that), and some for Maths and English. I must have started revision about a couple of days before the exams began, and was probably in a better position than those who had done months of revision because the stuff was fresh in my head rather than having left some stuff alone for weeks thinking I had already dealt with it. If you just stay calm, do things the way you would normally feel comfortable doing them and try not to force things, you should have a better chance of doing yourself justice. You do have to put in the revision, but don't try to immerse yourself in work if that's not what you normally do, because you'll hate it and the information will go in one ear and out of the other, because mentally you'll react against such intense study. Take it at your own pace and that will give you the best chance of success (pictures Tony from Bullseye saying 'just take your time, no rush, plenty of time'). I know I must have gone on and on again there, but hey, it's only because I care. I think you're a really intelligent guy and wouldn't want to see you not do yourself justice just from being a little but confused about how to approach things right now. :) In general Once again, basically The Crippler is right, as apart from his choice of football team he normally tends to be. :D Things do get a lot better if you decide to stay on for A Levels. When you are coming up to your GCSEs and beforehand you get a lot of dickheads mouthing off, thinking that they can look good by trying to put down other people and swearing a lot. They are losers. Forget them. These people can try to make themselves feel good by having a go at other people, but it can hide the fact that they are more often than not inept and to put it politely not the brightest people themselves, which is why if you go on to do A Levels you won't see them again, not as part of a class at any rate. Why? Because they were either not good enough or not willing enough to get the grades to continue studying. You, on the other hand, ought to become a lot more confident in what you are doing, especially since you'll be taking less subjects and the ones you are best at right now. If you are doing well at Media Studies, that's all you really need alongside a couple of mediocre performances for a couple of other things. I realised when I was about thirteen or fourteen, virtually as soon as we first started doing it, that I wanted to do Spanish. Something about it just clicked, even though I had been crap at French, and it didn't take much effort or seem taxing at all to know answers in class and pick up things really quickly, I don't know what it was about it but if you stumble across your vocational subject, you can just sense it, you just know that there is something there and that you will be going for that. Had I let the dickhead brigade bother me, I'd never have answered any questions, or asked when I didn't understand stuff, or participated in any way. However, I didn't, and neither should you. By now I have lived and worked in Spain and studied at Lisbon University. Those were great life experiences which I would not have had if I gave a shit what these people thought, and what would I have had in return? The answer is nothing. These people haven't done anything with their lives, and if you ever come across them together they still seem to go out and then spend most of the time trying to out-insult each other. Don't let these people have any sway on what you do, and don't lose your opportunities because of them. They aren't worth it. As for your teachers, if you do go on to do further studies you should notice them behaving very differently. Because you have shown a commitment to their course, and an interest in their subject by choosing it for further education, they will be a lot more open with you, and classes will be a lot more fun. At GCSE level, because you still have the wasters hanging around the classroom, the teachers cannot be very relaxed, because if they drop their discipline all Hell breaks loose. I know, I've taught Spanish students of your age, and if you try to ease up on them and give them a chance as I did they turn into the most obnoxious bastards you could possibly imagine. Honestly, I shit you not, I even had people setting fire to their pens and trying to smoke joints in class. Coming from the teacher's point of view, which I can appreciate a lot more now having experienced it, stuff like that makes you think 'F**k that'. You seem quite mature, but I'd be inclined to think that not all of your classmates would cope so well with being given more freedom. If they piss about, that's one thing, but when it affects the running of classes then the line has to be drawn. The teacher can try to keep faith and continue to let down their guard even in the face of things like what I have experienced, but then you get a reputation as a soft touch (as I did) and by then your chances of keeping control of your chances are slim or none. The easier option is to be more defensive and come down hard on everyone. That's not something teachers enjoy doing, but it's that or everything goes to shit. That might go some way to explaining why your teachers and yourself have had some heated disagreements. Yes, you may be able to get the upper hand in arguing your point, but the teacher doesn't have the same freedom to argue as you do. The teacher is probably trying to stifle your arguments to keep some sort of rigid order in the class, which isn't so much a reflection on your good self as it is on the general scheme of things. It's always in the back of a teacher's mind that they have to watch what they say and do otherwise shit will go down and they will get nailed for it (with disciplinary action and legal action able to be taken against them personally depending on what they say and do), but in spite of this they have to keep order. Other students who can be complete arseholes will argue with the teacher, so unfortunately to keep things fair your arguments or protests have to be seen to be handled in the same way as they deal with those people. I'm not defending them putting you down, but unfortunately the best thing to do is just to bite your lip and get on with it, because you can argue all you want but it won't change the way things are. Whether you are right or wrong, at the end of it at GCSE level all the teachers are there to do is to get you through exams, and not much else. If you follow what they do then you should be in with a decent chance of passing the exams for the subject, and that is the only concern really. When you get to further education then you have shown an interest for the subject and some maturity in applying yourself to it, so the teachers should be much more willing to help you and more interested in furthering your progress towards a career of some sort. Classes are more relaxed because the idiot brigade are no longer a factor and it is generally accepted that students who are attending classes want to be their of their own choice. It's kind of like 'paying your dues' really. Relationships between students and the teachers improve as a result of ths, so if you decide to go on to further education then many of the disagreements you have now either won't be an issue any more, or you will be able to discuss them in a more mature way. Also, and this may shock you, if you are right and the teacher is wrong, they get to admit they are wrong! I shit you not, it's true, it's damn true! You should have a better working atmosphere and be a lot more relaxed in yourself. In fact, half an hour before my Spanish A Level oral exam I was playing pool down the pub, and also having a couple of pints before one of my English Literature exams! The other thing is that if you run into problems like falling behind with work or suffering from personal issues at A Level, or AS Level or whatever, the teachers are a lot more willing to help you through the problem, because they've seen at GCSE level that you have a reasonable level of commitment, and because they don't have so many students and therefore not the same workload at post GCSE level which means that they can devote a lot more time and effort to you personally. So, what I'm basically saying is: Use your mocks as an experience, that is all they are meant to be. If you did badly at them, then that is only supposed to help you to concentrate on your strengths and weaknesses, as well as show you the structure of the actual exam and how you should time it. Revise as you normally would, keep to your own study patterns. That way even if you don't do quite as much revision (though I would advise you do a reasonable amount), you'll still take in more information. If you have an easy exam one day and then a really hard one a couple of days later, see if you can do a bit of revision early for the difficult one, or however you think would be the best way to revise going by good and bad techniques for revision you may have used before. Don't panic! Don't panic (Jonesy from Dad's Army impression)! Try not to get into too much hot water with the teachers. you may be right, but arguing with them is just going to give them a worse impression of you. On a practical note, considering these people will be marking your exams, I wouldn't piss them off too much! Seriously though, they are just trying to get you throught the exams, and maintain order in class. I've tried to explain how difficult that could be so I hope that even though you might not agree with it, you can see why things might be that way. If you go on to do further study, you should see things improve a lot more. Don't let other people try to detract from you, everyone has different things at which they excel, so try to realise in your own mind (as you seem to be doing with your Media Studies) what your best subjects are and how to make the most of pursuing them. Well, that's the end of my little attempted counselling session there Mitch, so I just hope that at least some of the helped you. I'm glad you've sorted out some of what's been bothering you, and I hope that you can sort out the rest of it sooner rather than later. Most importantly, good luck to you with your coursework and your exams.
May 21, 200321 yr Thank god I aint got no stress till next year. My report was the crappest I ever got this year cos I concentrated on having a good time instead of 100% effort in class. Been one of the best years because of it. At the end of the day, exams don't really matter. Yeah you can say "but I need em to get a job" but to Joe average on the street they mean absolutely nothing.
May 21, 200321 yr You know i swear MLM does long threads just to keep his reputation of long threads going lol, only messing big man. Anyways im now off to school to do my english :(. Speak to you guys soon, thats if i dont die on bordem in a 2 and a half hour exam. CJR
May 21, 200321 yr Another "Post of the Year" contender from MLM! :xyx I'm sure you'll do great CJR, good luck man.
May 21, 200321 yr Been in for 3 Hours now since I took my English Lit, good it was time consuming, for once the rough estimated time you should take on section A blah was correct wow, the thing is I am in Fountation for all my subjects RE on Monday turned out to be a piece of shit easy ICT on Tuesday easy English Lit today hard as hell, To Kill A Mockingbird and Hobsons Choice Only ICT Paper 2 this week tommorow 1 hr then its wisten holidays I think I better revise for Sciences :roll CJR got a question for you when did you finish it took me 2 hrs 20 minutes then read for ten minutes I try to go by the mark a minute so if its is 60 minute paper its 60 marks it dont work in English though I counted it, but was for ICT and RE
Edited by DraVen