Exams

As of last Friday, my exams are over.

I know that first year 'doesn't count' and that at school they used to tell us that the step up to Sixth Form is harder than the step up to first year, but I have never worked harder in my life. I have never been one of those annoying motivated cunts who is just able to drum up the effort from seemingly nowhere to put in the preparation for exams, but for the past month or so I was exactly that.

I estimated a while back that I did about 20 hours revision for my A Level end of year exams. This is bearing in mind that 2/3 of them did not have January modules and were my entire year in one horrific sitting. I must have done at least 6 times that for these bad-boys. English, I didn't revise at all. It was hard to revise English because all you can really do is learn quotes, but my memory for those kind of things is, thankfully, awesome and there wasn't much additional memorising I needed to do. And I've never been a 'past paper' guy either; I think it's because if I struggle doing a past paper I'll just terrify myself ahead of the exam. In Year 12 I remember before my English exam I handed in a half-arsed past paper essay effort to my English teacher in the morning, she pointed out the obvious that it wasn't great, and then realising I couldn't revise at all at school I went into a fit of crazy and ran home, but my mum was out and I didn't have my keys so ended up waiting outside my house for half an hour. Eventually I got inside and chilled out for a bit, then did some work. That was my exam preparation, and as shambolic as it was I got the highest mark in the year for that exam so I must have found calm somewhere.

Geography I revised most for, I think. I know a lot of people, including myself, take the piss out of Geography but there's a lot of subject matter to cram in your brain which meant I had to do a lot more work to prepare for it. In both Years 12 and 13 I revised by going through the entire year in one day, which basically involved typing up the textbook and then committing it to memory. 

Everyone looks back at SATS and says they were easy, then everyone looks back at GCSEs and says they were easy and now I'm looking back at A-Levels, thinking how considerably easier they were. 12 hour shifts were never a daily thing for me before, but the sheer amount of stuff I had to know and the sheer amount of stuff that my brain needed serious effort to understand made them necessary. I was working 6-12 hours for a month just to pass these things.

One evening before my Public Law exam I was going through these flash cards (never done that before either) outlining what different provisions of the PACE Act did and I was so mentally exhausted my mind couldn't combine the effort of putting the cards down the right way round. I was learning 200 cases to heart per exam, and I still look at certain names of people or companies and immediately my mind connects them with the case and goes through the facts, only these names are a completely different context. 

This is really fucking hard. I've never been worked like this before and I've finally found that cut-off point where natural talent and bullshit won't carry me through any longer. Everyone finds it, and for me it's here. But I'll be gladder for putting myself through all of this if I can come through it unscathed; a stronger man, an even more pretentious lawyer. Jeff Winger never had to put up with this shit.

And now, I'm bored because there's nothing to do. I've already started reading for next year. But being able to lie-in is a godsend, and I'm slowly sleeping off those working hours.