so, this week i have completed my tax return forms, filled in a passport application, tidied my room, and have become extremely willing to go to sainsburys for my mother. am i alone? am i the only one who sees study leave as an oportunity to waste as much time as is humanly possible, and basically do anything but revise? today, for instance, i was going to do some history. i have so far visited kingston to pick up something for my mother and get a passport photo done, i’ve watched the repeats of ally mcbeal, and i am now on the internet. am i the only one incapable of sitting down with my books and revising (or learning in my case, as i haven’t been paying that much attention)? or are there others out there with similar plights? why was i cursed with such a short attention span? i’m off to procrastinate some more…
I’m feelin dat, Louise. The amount of work I have done for A-levels is shameful, and like you I have wasted study leave so far. I think this laziness could be a direct consequence of the AS system though…
I’ve been working out the percentages I need in the A2 modules to get my grades…and they have just made me complacent. The truth is, A-levels are not the ‘gold standard’ they are made out to be, especially since the introduction of AS. Though you might be told by teachers that nothing but a solid 2 years of hard work will get you As at A-level, the reality under the revised system is that we are about to be tested on something like 6 months worth of work. If it came down to it, I am sure most users of this site could cover each of their modules in a day.
I’m fairly sure that the old style all or nothing exam would have forced me to do some genuine hard work (GCSEs certainly did); but as it stands, however much I tell myself that I should be stressed and nervous, I just can’t care enough.
I am not criticising the level of the examinations, I just think that they are based on too little material to necessitate a great fuss. So, don’t blame yourself Louise…it’s actually the government’s fault for botching yet another bright idea (diversify 6th form education) by getting carried away with their executive power - at least that’s what I tell myself during episodes of self-doubt. In reality I’m just a lazy git. Damn.[/i]
Jawaad, you’re correct about ppl leaving revision to the last minute because they can; but I don’t believe that you hit the right reason. The exams at AS/A2 level are designed to be “45 hour modules”. It is possibe to cover the material in less time, indeed they can be covered from near-scratch in a weekend. However upon looking back at past exam papers, for maths say, they are at a consistent standard. And they are taken in the same two sittings. Although it feels like it, it seems that the governments revamping of the sixth form education system hasn’t really made exams any easier. There are of course exceptions: take the ‘new’ more vocational subjects; perhaps a few syllabuses have been shortened. But overall there has been little change with the core subjects. Is it possible that it has always been this way?
of course, if you’ve got teachers who haven’t yet adapted to the new system, you haven’t got a hope in hell. example, our english teacher. i don’t know about you, lou, but so far my blake revision has been minimal simply because we did the last 20 poems in two lessons … which involved handing out sheets. it took my dad and some serious essay planning to become the mildly confident student you see before you. and because i spent soo long panicking about how i should approach my blake revision, i haven’t spent ANY time on french … crap.
i did far too little work for GCSE’s and found the going fairly ok, (2 A*'s, 4 A’s, 1 B, 2 C’s and a D) i’m not saying my results are wonderful but my revision consisted of cramming when the horro that i only had 24 hours till the exam dawned on me and i didn’t exactly flunk them all. it seems to me that exams are totally inconsistent, for instance i sat 2 chemistry papers a few weeks ago by OCR, the first one was much harder than the second one, requiring much more indepth answers while the other one was full of one or two mark answers. to me exams are an utter waste of time as even if they do test your intelligence/whatever they only do so at that period in time and under great strain. surely a marking system based upon more upon class work and coursework would gave much fairer, less biased and generally more accurate results?
althought that is an utter impossibility as the exam boards are “the eppitom of the old boy network” (teacher from my school who used to work there) and i really doubt they would like to see comprehensives catch up with them.
hands up who thinks she (you know who i mean) shouldn’t be allowed in an a-level classroom? i don’t understand blake, and i don’t think i ever will now. if anyone has any useful insights on it, feel free to mail me before monday. i think by the time you get to 18 you should be allowed to pick your own teachers. we could blame the system, but i choose to think that it’s due to a certain level of incompetance on her part, and her wonderful ability to procrastinate.