Thank You @chazza-studies-alevels For The Tag :)

a busy week for me, the last week of school before exam leave 🥳 but also oh my god now i actually have to,, do, the exams,, holy shit,,,

01/10/20

chem test number 2 tomorrow !

my tips for doing highers :)

(seeing as there are v few scottish studyblrs and highers are bloody difficult!)

(for non-scots, highers are exams we do in between gcse and a-level equivalents)

understand, don’t memorise. this applies to basically every class- if you understand why you do a certain method to solve a problem/ conjugate a verb/ analyse a poem then you can do it in every scenario

prepare to get stuff wrong. there is a significant difference between national 5s and highers, and most people i know took a confidence bump at the start of the year because of the sheer quantity of work. it’s okay!! it’s all learning and all learning is good

work with the right people. i sat with my friends in maths and desperately wish i hadn’t because i worked way better with people who actually challenged me to work hard! find people who are a similar level to you and work together

past papers. there are dozens of past papers online, far more than national 5s. watch out for content that isn’t in courses anymore! dunblane high school’s website has a great collection of past papers that i used loads

have time off. the workload in s5 is crazy so you need to balance your time. use any study periods to finish work and give yourself relax time in the evenings and at the weekends as much as you can

prelims are important but make sure you don’t burn out. as soon as you finish prelims you’ll likely start learning the next part of the course, and i know from experience that it is horrible to do when you’re completely exhausted after prelims. schedule days off into your prelim leave when you can!

i hope that helped somebody because s5 was a really difficult year for me and i wish i had known some of this at the start! if anybody happens to want tips on a particular subject, i got As in maths, physics, chem, french and english and would be more than happy to tell you what was helpful for me!! <3

that feeling when after doing so so much work and revision that you genuinely feel you know the work you’re doing. you know it inside out and understand it fully and can explain it without checking anything. that feeling is GOLD

'Let n be an integer' Why should I let it? I don't think n has behaved well enough today to be an integer. Maybe if n behaves better tomorrow I'll let it be an integer.

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

14/07/20

summer studying challenge 2: have your plans changed at all because of the pandemic?

YUP. i was meant to be at a space program at a university in june which got cancelled, me and my friends were going to go on a cycling holiday on a west coast island, and all in all i didn’t plan on feeling so down lmao!

last night i stayed up until 4am to watch for comet NEOWISE which i saw [first picture, faint smudge just above the tree in the centre] and was completely amazed by :D unfortunately i waited for three hours after seeing it to get a second look, but the clouds were very stubborn :( i am so tired today though lol

[ one hundred days of productivity: 2/100 ]

sat 17 august

second day back and the workload has increased an insane amount. currently working my way through 17 pages of grammar exercises for french then onto chemistry hw!

07/09/20

t swift and maths <3

Math is really tiring, im so glad i finally get to relax and do some knitting and crochet and i oh god oh my what the fuck