A-Levels: They’re (not?) fun
Don’t you just love exam season? Studying, stressing out about studying, stressing out about stressing out about studying. Because, I, completely unironically, kinda do.
I don’t know, there's a strange sense of camaraderie during exam season. At least for me, you can basically just join a random group beforehand and talk about how stressed you are, wish each other luck, you know that whole spiel. Doing the exam, when you're at least somewhat prepared there's a sense of drive, exam flow state is truly unlike any other flow state. Or maybe I'm a masochist who just enjoys being stressed out.
But after the exam? That's the good shit, when everyone comes together to talk about the exam. Oh my god I love it. Something about talking about what you wrote, and comparing it to what everyone else did. Or complaining about a stupid as fuck question, which is guaranteed to happen at least once a paper because they cant help themselves. Its actually like crack to me I enjoy it so much.
I may be slightly odd (or lonely, probably both) leave me alone.
So, naturally, I actually haven't hated my A levels quite as much as everyone else seems to have. Obviously studying still sucks, but what can you do. And to be fair, I only do 2 A-Levels (my third subject was a BTEC, highly recommend they’re free qualifications), so that's a lot of pressure taken off me.
The next bit of this is just gonna be about what I thought of every paper and class. You know, just if I ever wanna reminisce about A-Levels which I will, I think its the sort of thing ill value in the future, so I'm gonna keep it here as an archive. Probably won’t be too interesting to anyone who isn’t me though.
Economics
Right so I do AQA economics and oh my god these papers are so much better. The first section has a context which saves me so hard everytime. Even if I unfortunately never seen to bloody use it in my answers for some reason. I really did enjoy this lesson though. My teacher was this bloke called john and he really liked cheese and bounty bars (mid chocolate) for some reason but I rate him he was cool. Had some good advice at times too and I liked it when he fandomly got political in the last lesson and YES Nigel Farage should go and die (well he didn’t say that I did but I’m going to headcanon he would agree with me). Shoutout Nathaniel freaky fingers (they were kinda freaky but I fw it), we carried that class for realsies. And to a lesser extent Tom who usually had the personality of a wet paper towel but he had his moments so I fw him. He did bite his nails all lesson though, bit odd but ok.
papers 1-3
paper 1Microeconomics is my goat yet again. Stellar paper as per usual, but it helps that I'm good at the content. I did context one, which was something to do with farming? About price caps and subsidies and I think I wrote about monopolies at one point? Sorry I’m writing this like 2 weeks after the fact. The second section was worse, but it usually is due to no context I love my contexts so bad. I lowkey forgot the question so ill add it if I remember. Also THE FUCK was that 2 marker on about, I skipped it icl, so hopefully in not 2 marks within a grade boundary because then ill be PISSED.
Overall though, this paper went really well. Microeconomics is definitely the better of the two economicses literally don’t fight because I'm right.
Paper 2
I kinda expected this one to go worse. I'm worse at macroeconomics, it doesn’t make as much sense to me. I'm not BAD per se, but its not my favourite of the two. But honestly, section one was ok. The section I picked was to do with Spain and its youth unemployment. Which I was slightly annoyed about bc it meant I had learnt all the UK stats for nothing (and come on the context couldve been about our youth unemployment like we have a lot of that.) But it was simple enough, just talking about policies (monetary, fiscal and supply side) to try and reduce it. A good first section.
But Jesus Christ, section 2… what a fucking shitshow. A financial markets question AND 2 (TWO) developmental economics questions. Those are like, the two hardest topics we do? I have a slight advantage because I do geography which covers some similar content but still, harsh. The question was on globalisation at least, which is probably my best human geography topic so I cant be too mad. But I feel bad for like, most people, who don’t do geography. I'm praying for you guys. Also bullshit ass 15 marker, there is NOT enough to comparative trade advantage to write a whole 15 marker on it don’t lie to me.
So overall, this one had its ups and downs, couldve been better, couldve been far, far, worse. So ill reluctantly take it.
Paper 3
Paper 3 timing isn’t real. I mean like, I got it all done, but I'm like a really quick writer obviously, so I felt bad for everyone who like, wasnt. Esp my goat nathaniel bro apprently didn’t finish pay respects to my man. Other than that though, I guess it was fine? Paper 3s hard asf to revise for too but I think I did ok. It was like about income ditribution in the uk, so lovely stuff more developmental econ but it was mostly about policies. Which was fine bc ik policies mostly. Didn’t know what to do for the micro stuff really so I js did subsidies, hope that counts.
Geography
I hate edexcel as an exam board. Its a personal preference but I like the synoptic bits of a paper more. I'm good at taking information and making links. So I wont lie I'm a bit worse at this than economics. Don't really have much to say about the class either, it was fine, i guess? I liked my teacher she told me i was good at paper 3 (true)
papers 1-3
Paper 1
but this does continue the trend of paper 1s being incredibly good for me. Another stellar paper, even coasts went ok, and that's my least favourite area. There was even a question on energy security, which is probably my favourite bit of the physical spec. SO glad tectonics was just on earthquakes, I mean all disasters would’ve been ideal but if I had to pick between earthquakes and volcanoes I'm picking earthquakes.
Overall, better than I expected this one to go, I don’t think I got an A* or anything but I'm happy either way.
Paper 2
yeah and this one was worse yet again. I don’t like human geography as much as an exam topic. I find it generally far more interesting than like, coasts which I couldn’t give a shit about to be quite honest. But its all a bit samey? Like all the case studies could probably fit in any question. Which in theory is good, just not for me because I get them slightly confused and write about the wrong ones which arent relevant but its hard to tell whats relevant because they all feel the same. Globalisation’s probably my best topic and I fear I may have written the best 12 marker of my life right there. Slight issue, that may have fucked up the rest of the paper slightly because I spent WAY too long on it (by which I mean about 5 minutes), so I spent the rest of the apper trying to compensate by writing quickly, which I easily did by like, the next section, but then I just kept on doing it.
Overall though, this was ok, paper 1s tend to be better for me though, for some reason.
Paper 3
I'm so 50/50 on if that was a good paper or not. It was abt international tourism which was great but its never on like, the whole world. It wasn’t bad though. Not much to say on it apart from that was a shitass post-exam sesh, just went home, love geo as a subject but FUCK ME the people in my class were boring.
Computing
not an A-level but I'm including it anyway. Oh computing extended diploma how I’ll miss you… if you ignore all the times I spent hating the coursework… hating my code for not working… hating myself for it not working… it was truly goated. Top 1 lesson ever. And the people, like I liked people in my other lessons but I would take a bullet for the people I met in that class and I'm not joking. Even if all they did was leech biscoff and kinder buenos off me. Anyways, so shout out my computing class and teacher. Alex you looked great with long hair by the way.
Core maths
eh I only did this for a year so I don’t have too much to say, apart from it didn’t go too well. Look I don’t like statistics, even more than I thought I didn’t like statistics. And the grade boundaries are sky high so I was never gonna do too great. Especially since I did focus on my other 3 subjects, which were like actually important. I really liked my class tho. My teacher lent me a calculator for geography paper 2 so I fw her on principle. I had a clash for core paper 1 and that honestly, wasn’t too bad. We just talked the whole time. Was great. Shoutout my core maths class and the people I did clash with.