My Worst A Level Topic

Hello, Reader!

I’ve opened up about my GCSE Geography nightmare, so naturally I need to tell you about my worst A Level topic. The reason is the same; to show that academic success doesn’t come without its struggles and that people who get “good grades” don’t find everything easy. And, of course, to show you that you’re not alone - but during A Levels, you already know everybody’s struggling. So why is my worst A Level subject experience so different from my worst GCSE subject? Well, firstly, throughout sixth form all my teachers were absolutely amazing. They were all very supportive and confident in the content they taught so, already, my problems weren’t based on the teaching. Additionally, in A Levels independent study is a must so it wasn’t unusual if I had to learn some of the content alone or make sense of it without the help of a teacher. Bottom line is that I found this topic difficult was simply because… it was difficult and I couldn’t get my head around it. And honestly, I still can’t. Here’s the story of how and why Mechanics was my absolute nightmare.

I’ve always been pretty shaky when it came to any kind of Physics. At GCSE I pretty much managed to memorise all the information I needed but I never really looked into it deep enough to understand it. Likely, that’s the reason I never really took an interest in the subject - I really struggled to wrap my head around it. But when my beloved Maths hit me with Mechanics, I had to just deal with it. The first few chapters were going okay, I was understanding what was going on, but the farther into the topic, the more stuck I was getting. Practice questions and exercises often stumped me, while my classmates had no trouble finding ways through the problems. I studied and studied and memorised the formulae and the methods and made revision notes and still, it was just not sticking. I remember being so excited when I finally started getting above 70% in my mock papers, because I consistently scored between 50-60% and I was genuinely losing confidence in the entire unit. Mechanics was one of my AS units, but, if you’re not familiar, you need to get a certain amount of ucas points total from all units to get an A and over a certain amount of points in every paper to be able to get an A* overall. This meant that if I flopped this exam, it could have cost me an A* at the end of the course. And I wasn’t going to let that happen. 

I just kept pushing through the past papers and eventually noticed patterns. I figured out ways to score higher even if I had no idea how to get to the answer. For example, I’d triple check the answers to the questions I knew how to answer to make sure none of my precious marks were lost there, since I knew that I was losing marks on some of the harder questions. Of course, just because I knew that I’d probably lose marks on those harder questions, I’d never leave them blank. I’d still try to answer it even if I felt really strongly that I was doing it all wrong. If one method got me nowhere, I tried another. I knew that even if I’d lose some marks on accuracy, I could get some method marks just for writing down a formula and plugging in some values.

The morning of the exam was nothing like I described in my exam routine blog post. I was so nervous and stressed and I felt so unprepared for this exam that I was reviewing some of the harder past paper questions on my journey to school instead of meditating. When I arrived at school, one of my favourite teachers saw how stressed I was and took me away from the noise and the nervous atmosphere of the main hall. In her classroom, I broke down and started crying because I was so sure that I’d fail this exam and I felt so unprepared and I thought I still didn’t know half of the content as well as I should. I didn’t even manage to collect myself completely before I had to rush to the exam hall. When I got to the playground, my row had already gone inside the hall. I entered with the next row and walked through a half-filled hall of students with tear stained eyes, unnoticed by anyone because everyone was just as nervous and focused on their own exam just a few minutes ahead of them. As soon as I sat down in my seat and saw the front page of the exam paper, I started crying again. I cried all through the regulations and the prayer... Yet the moment I heard “You may begin”, it was like a switch flipped inside me. Suddenly, I went into work mode and forgot about crying because I didn’t have time for crying in that moment, I had to focus on passing this exam because my grade depended on it. 

On results day, I found out that I got an A in Mechanics. I was over the moon, I completely didn’t expect it. I walked out of that exam hall, the day of the Mechanics exam, still sure that I failed it. In retrospect, I think I convinced myself that I was going to fail. Relative to other Maths units, which I found fascinating and- perhaps not easy, but definitely easier, Mechanics seemed impossible to me because it was a challenge that felt like an insult to my ability. It was easier for me to tell myself that it’s just not my thing, than to approach it with an open mind and convince myself that I will ace it, even if it’s difficult. 

If something you’re studying is just not clicking, try looking at it with an open mind. Maybe try a different approach. Sometimes the things that aren’t going right now, turn out okay in the end. Good luck.

Love, 

Agnes xo