About Me!

19/09/18 Maths notes!

02/10/18 - 20 days of productivity

Pictured above are my biology class notes and then my written up, neat version I refer to when I revise. I like writing them up - it’s therapeutic and helps me remember them. However, I typed these up in my only free period only for my memory stick to decide to corrupt itself beyond repair for no reason at the end of the lesson, so I lost everything. I’m currently crying about that - even though I have hard copies of all my other notes, which is good. I didn’t lose too much!

Today I had a fairly alright day - but I completely forgot to do my French homework and cried a bit because that’s so unlike me. I had an excellent German lesson though, and I’m Chemistry I got to do separate things to everyone else because my teacher dreads me getting bored haha

Hey, I would like to ask, which Programm do you make this cool pages? Sorry, my englisch is bad, because I'm a german and I learn in the school englisch🙈

Ist schon ok - Deutsch lerne ich in der Schule auch! Ich benutze „Notability“ :)

And for the English speakers out here, I use Notability :)

9/1/18 - 3/100 days of productivity

Today has been awesome. I had chemistry first thing, and then double German (my favourite class!), then I had some Galette des Rois in French and ended the day with Biology. No frees today but a really positive time all round :)

I’m sat doing homework now and I’ve promised myself I can watch a new TV programme that’s on later if I get it done haha

10/10/18 - 28/100 days of productivity

Two days in one

Today has been mad but fun. My lovely biology teacher lent me her old uni textbook because she knows I’m a massive genetics nerd. I can’t wait to get stuck in!

I’m making good progress with maths and am hoping to get some more pure done this evening, as well as lots of stats and mechanics. I started A2 stats and mechanics yesterday, which wasn’t awful. Everyone in classes moan they hate moments, but I find them okay!

I had my weekly Doppeldeutsch lesson with my favourite teacher and we had a lot of fun all round finishing watching The Reader.

09/10/18 - 27/100 days of productivity

Sorry I forgot to post! I fell asleep haha

I did loads of maths in my free, so I dedicated at least an hour to each subject. I’m very happy with my progress so far!

General advice for GCSE and A levels

So I was asked a question by a follower and I thought it might be beneficial to post some general advice for all the future candidates whose GCSEs and A levels aren’t cancelled because of a pandemic. Here’s a short list of what helped me get through these exams.

1) Getting exam technique down is IMPORTANT! Do not underestimate this importance - knowing what the examiners want from you is (sadly) almost more important than knowledge of content (though you do have to know that, too!)

2) Understand the question words. For example, explain means give detail, and list means don’t waste time with such detail.

3) Answer the question as it is written, not what you want the question to be. Some questions are really long winded - they’ll wrap up the question with some background material that you haven’t learnt about per se but is still relevant and applicable to your course. You have to be able to unravel the core of what the examiners are asking. Don’t worry about the wall of information. Do read it as be ready to glean clues from it, but find the question first.

4) Read the mark schemes AND THE EXAMINERS’ REPORTS! Last year’s documents are locked because teachers like to use them for mocks, but if you’ve already done those papers, ask your teachers to send you them. These are gold! Use the mark schemes to know which buzzwords and details the examiners will reward and use the examiners reports to see which questions candidates struggled to answer. There is almost always detailed analysis of common mistakes and advice to future candidates there!

5) Look through the teacher-oriented documents. I know for OCR A Biology A level, there were sample documents that gave examples of full marks, mid marks and low marks for long response questions. They literally hand you “what a good one looks like” (and it was easy to find because of how new the specification is). I was never given these documents in class! Nobody you have contact with knows the course better than a teacher who is meant to teach it. For A level languages, I read every single document, no matter how boring it seemed, which perhaps was a bit overkill, but it helped me know what exactly was expected of me. I’m talking everything from the specification to exemplar work and speaking exam conduct (which actually was useful because I then knew what would happen if I got too distressed to continue for example, as I knew what the teacher/examiner would be required to do in that case). It sounds nuts, but seeing it from a teacher’s perspective helped me. I knew the structure of my course by heart; I knew weightings of different aspects of exams and the learning objectives by which I was assessed. A lot of it is irrelevant admin, but there are actually some useful documents so do have a root through!

6) Don’t be afraid of old spec questions if the subject matter is relevant.

7) Revising using past papers is always the best way, ultimately. If you run out of past papers, make your own questions and file them away and come back to them! I buddied up with a friend and we tested each other, swapping our own exam-style questions at periodic intervals and marking our partner’s answers. You get to be the examiner, the marker and the candidate in one simple activity!

8) Learn from your mistakes. Don’t look at a lower mark and think you’re doomed; rather, think about where you went wrong. You’d be surprised at how many marks are lost to silly mistakes for which you’ll absolutely kick yourself in hindsight! Little mistakes might be avoided by doing something as little as slowing down, taking a toilet break to clear your head and generally being aware of them.

9) If there’s a certain type of question you struggle to answer, it may help to make a checklist of what to include. For example, whenever I’m asked to draw a graph, I write down things like “suitable axes using more than half the available space, x is independent variable, labels, title, units, correctly plotted points, line of best fit” in a corner somewhere out the way - and I’m at university rn! I do this before I start fumbling about with the question; it takes less than 30s to jot it down in a shorthand I understand.

10) Teach someone else, or pretend to! Even now, I remember stuff and understand it better if I’m “explaining” my thought process out loud as if I were teaching it. Understanding things will make subjects like chemistry a lot easier, because then you can apply what you know rather than blindly rote learn a bunch of examples. Mechanism you’re not quite sure of? Draw it out and talk it through! You’ll quickly pinpoint exactly what you’re struggling with.

11) Breathe and look after yourself. It’s not impossible; so much of success is about confidence. If you convince yourself you can’t do something, you absolutely won’t - attitude is everything and so is your health.

Story time! I noticed that the really pretty enamel pins you can get are REALLY expensive so I decided to buy some shrinking plastic and make my own! These are my latest designs, and they’re my most ambitious ones yet. I hope I can pull them off!

I can’t believe I have signed myself up for at least 4 more years of exams and mental burnout

Education in its current form is completely unsustainable. I feel like I hate chemistry even though I have to go and study it in October

Getting to know me

Tag 10 followers you want to get to know better

Thank you for tagging me @teaandanightowl :)

Name: Lauren

Sexuality: Asexual and potentially aromantic, too

Gender: Cis female

Hogwarts House: I’m not really into HP, but probably Slytherin haha

Time: 11pm-ish at time of posting

Cats or Dogs: Both! 

Favourite Animal: Birds, horses, dogs, quokkas (if you’ve not heard of them, give them a Google - you won’t regret it!)

Dream Job: That’s... a good question. Probably teaching!

When I Made This Blog: 4th August 2018 - that long ago, huh?

Reason For My URL: I study chemistry at uni, and I really like baking. I also wanted some alliteration :)

I’m going to tag @crimsonvenus @coffee-and-conjugations @translatorwannabe @rosethaturtl @bestudy @white-carrots @sloth-stubies @russianwave @watchmestudyandstuff @simplyconnectedstudy - you guys are some of my newest followers and I’d love to get to know you (but only if you want to participate - I won’t be offended if not!)

6/11/18 - 57 days of productivity

So my chemistry teacher just gave me a whole chapter of questions to do for Thursday. So my life will just have to wait until the weekend haha 🙃

Anyway, one set is done. I’ve had German with my favourite teachers today and also French with another amazing teacher. I missed biology because it was extended form time for SMSC today, and there was a guest speaker (I actually hid in the toilets for an hour and binged examsolutions maths tutorials because I knew I’d get into trouble). I hate SMSC so much 😑

Overall though, it’s been a good day. Apart from Chemistry, when I felt myself boiling over for no reason whatsoever. But we have this French teacher who’s visiting and she actually thought I was French, which is compliment of the CENTURY!

Happy Tuesday, peeps!

Also, Imagine Dragons’ new song “Bad Liar” is INCREDIBLE and I thoroughly recommend you give it a listen. Best part of today, honestly.