Oh hey! Sorry for my recent absence from my blogging life, (if I even have one!) but I’ve been really busy, and that brings up what i want to talk about today…
…exams.
Now, for my British readers especially, exams are a big pain in the butt. Like high fat contents foods and long waiting, but much worse.
So most of you, if you go to secondary school, will be experiencing GCSEs/A-levels. I’m in year 12 and im doing my A levels (yeah, duh) German, psychology, human biology and re/philosophy to be exact. I know. Ew.
So, as I go to a grammar school, all teachers ever seem to go on about is exams and results and blah blah blah blah. You know what I’m talking about? Cool.
So, I was casually sitting with the year 7s in my mentor group, which is basically just 20 minutes a day of mixed age group crap and they got these exam time tables, then the year 8s did, and I was like what the muffins is going on? Like dude, when I did year 7 and 8 I did f-all in all of my subjects- and now they’re taking exams?? Bull. And also, year 8s in my school are starting their language GCSEs and I’m like dude, when I was year 8 I probably knew how to say like a few simple sentences, and I’m sitting there trying to help some of them get through their speaking and writing exams, like a good sixth former that I am, and they’re all talking about verb endings and the dative and like conditional phrases and I’m like wtf is that. Like, what?!
When I was a kid -well, at that age- life was about having fun and doing nothing in lessons and making your teachers cry (my class got a count of 80% before we separated…) and now they’re shoving knowledge and exams down their tummies and it’s just not fun. Dude.
Another thing about exams…
…I don’t know why they have a time limit. I honestly don’t. When they do that, they’re basically asking you to show how much you can write in an allotted about of time, not completely the knowledge. Like, I could write a banging philosophy essay, and it’ll take me about an hour or so just to make sure that I get everything in the right order and that is neat and grammatically correct and I can think it through blah blah blah and in 2 weeks I have to write 4 essays in like 2.5 hours and it’s like what the hell. So no matter how smart you are, if you’re a slow writer, you’re screwed. Please explain this to me, I’m not even kidding. It’s like, you’re not going to magically cheat the answer if you sit there for 3 hours compared to 2 like, how does it help? It doesn’t. And even if they did need to time exams, why dont they give it realistic timings?? Like, in my re/philosophy exam, I have 37.5 minutes (yes, 37.5 what a pisstake number) on each side, and I have 24 minutes to write a factual essay, AO1, then TWELVE minutes to write an evaluation essay, AO2. Now how I am meant to do it and make it good in twelve minutes I have NO idea. I mean, give us some realistic timings dude.
And then no matter how well you try you see your teachers once you get your results, and they’re like “good try” and it’s like the most patronising thing anyone can ever say to you, like they’re basically saying, well done for giving it a go, but you’re sh*t. Niiice. Why bother?
Anyone else share my annoyance?? Comment below.
Blog you again soon!
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