Why is it so cold inside?

No-one can answer the questions that you ask, because the essential point of a question is to discover, and the mind does not accept any discovery that has not been proved to the mind’s standard. Hence, no answer is accepted by your mind in response to your question because actually, unless you and the responder are in a metaphysical ‘sync’, they cannot know exactly what you are asking. So then that would, by a domino effect, mean that only you can answer your question.

Now what happens when the question you ask has no answer? Why do we say that the sun ‘rises’ when actually the sun doesn’t move? We’ve asked a question about something that has been proven in order to try and disprove what someone else has discovered!

Humans try to disprove what others have proven because they don’t believe something unless they themselves have seen the proof.

This contrary attitude is what made mankind evolve. Evolution, as Charles Darwin studied it, is merely the cancelling out of all the wrongs, and the formatting and re-booting of all the rights. He didn’t use that new-techno language, of course, but that’s the gist of what he meant.

Basically, the world would have not got anywhere without some deleting. If we hadn’t lost our curved spine and tail, we wouldn’t be tall and upright. If we hadn’t got rid of scaly skin when we reptiles (which we weren’t ever really, but then it’s possible to say that we were because we evolved from something that evolved from reptiles,) we would still be slithering and sliming today.

So thanks to man’s contrary physique, contrary thoughts, and contrary nature, we are who we are today!

Though sometimes I feel like the contradictoralists of this world are actually sending it backwards, not forwards. Those people who put up an argument to everything seem to be holding up procedures, and preventing progress: and yet that very same annoying trait is what built Man. It’s probable that back in BC nine thousand hundred and seventy seven, one caveman said, or rather, grunted, to another caveman, telling, or grunting, him to stop. That pause in Caveman A’s life might have stopped him from attacking a monkey, which in turn stopped the monkey from dying, which then led to more monkeys being born, which eventually resulted in more food for Caveman A. Caveman B’s annoying pause, meant that there was more food for mankind.

So us Humans try to stop each other, for maybe not so generous and useful motives as caveman B’s, but yet we still cause our race to improve. We’re pretty cool, aren’t we? (This is where you say you don’t believe me, and start some annoying little disagreement that will eventually better mankind.)

O Level Guidelines

Form Fours. O levels are here and they are real. They are terrifying and they are important. Some people might be telling you that they’re “over-rated”, they they’re “no-where near as tough as A level”; in fact, I was told that they were “easy!” Liars. O levels are not easy. 8 subjects, 9 subjects, 10 subjects, 11 subjects is NOT an EASY task no matter which subjects you’re doing or how many or what set you’re in. Round about this time last year I was going through a bit of a heart attack. Maths, Stats, Lit, Language, History, Geo, Enviro, French, Chem, Bio, Physics. That’s not much fun! You feel as if you’ve been, to quote Chido R, thrown into the Mariana Trench with 50 kg lead weights tied to your feet.

So I decided to write a little thing to make you feel better. Everyone does survive their O level year, somehow, and so will you. The year before you did, and the year after you will; and even if you’re not top in the subject, you will pass (with a certain amount of hard work and dedication!) Arundel didn’t get its reputation for nothing! Arundel makes you pass – it prepares you for the worst, and Cambridge does the opposite (Cambridge wants to give you marks and make you pass, teachers, on the other hand, want you to be so terrified of failing that you make yourself pass.) Have faith in yourself and in the system – if you put in the wise, dedicated hours, the system will do the rest. The most important thing is not to get overwhelmed.

They will be over eventually.

I’m going to divide the tips into four categories:           

Miscellaneous Tips

Timetables

Holiday Homework 

Past Papers

MISCELLANEOUS

• Get organised
• Plan Plan Plan
• Make sure you have all the notes you need
• Keep everything together - in neat piles, on a shelf (preferably not cluttering up your desk)
• Have a countdown to the end of exams
• Know your exam timetable like you know your phone
• Do things gradually – you won’t finish Geo in one night
• Reward yourself with breaks in between studying sessions

USE HOMEWORK TO STUDY

TIMETABLES

• Timetable your day from good morning to good night
• Divide your time up into workable time slots – not 2 hours for one subtopic, because you will lose concentration and waste time if you sit there for too long
• Be prepared to sit down and JUST DO IT
• Give yourself enough time to complete a task
• Dedicate as long as you think you will reasonably need to finish each subtopic – don’t sell yourself dreams!
• Make sure you can finish the task you’ve set for yourself in the allocated time slot (the worst is not finishing something in the time it’s supposed to be done in and wondering if it’ll ever get done)
• Make summaries of subjects and their topics and the topics’ subtopics
• Eg. Physics          - Magnetism, Waves, Movement, Electricity
• Make sure your subtopics are manageable, so you can handle the whole subtopic as one
•  Eg. Not just Electricity - engines, circuits etc
• Factor in your usual feelings on a certain day/at a certain time - sports etc
• Dedicate downtime where you can let your mind rest
• Give yourself time to sleep
• Give yourself time to exercise

Make lists of your subjects

Make lists of the topics of each subject

Make subtopics of each subject

HOLIDAY HOMEWORK

• Make lists of your subjects and their respective homework items
• Timetable your days – not every day needs to be exactly the same, but make sure you have something allocated to every hour of every day, even downtime and bathing and eating and sleeping (this will help with exam time routine)
• Fit Homework items into the timetable
• DO THEM!

Note: If the homework item is a past paper (or many past papers!) don’t be foolish and try and do past papers and studying separately, because it won’t work unless you’re some sort of robot. For specific essays and geo notes and that type of stuff, you can’t really study from them, so give them their own time slot. But for things like past papers, use them to study with. So when you’re studying the Digestive System in Bio, make your notes or read or do whatever you do to study, but also page through your booklet and look at the questions on the Digestive System and answer the questions you don’t understand straight away as a way of studying. Kill two birds with one stone. It’ll look like you’ve answered all the questions in the booklet - nobody notices the gaps.

PASTPAPER BOOKLETS

• No teacher is going to mark a past paper booklet, even if they said they would. They are lying to you to scare you. However, that doesn’t mean don’t do them, because if you don’t, you’re the one who will lose out.
• There is no point in doing the same question again and again, if you know the answer inside out: do the questions you DON’T understand and see how you can get them right.
• It is not realistic to say that you’re going to do 50 Maths Papers, 30 Chem Papers and 30 Bio Papers. Like I said, it is not humanly possible, and you will kill yourself. So do what you can in the time that you have.
• Be wise.
• People will lie to you and say they’ve finished their past paper booklets and are getting everything right and are doing it all. Trust me, they are not. If you actually asked them certain questions, you would discover that they, maybe, did the paper with the mark scheme in front of them, or actually only did the first few and the last few papers. Maybe they only did the questions that they could answer quickly and easily.

• Mocks are much harder, and by the time you get to exams, you will have had so much practice that the exam is just the same as every other paper, if not a bit easier.
• Please, please, please get some sleep. Your brain can’t function on 3 hour snatches of slumber – unless you’re a zombie, in which case you wouldn’t be writing exams anyway. You’re supposed to have 5 hours at least of solid sleep, in order to achieve a certain level of rest (only comes after 4 hours.)
• Remember, at the end of the day, it’s you sitting in that exam room.
• Remember too to keep God by your side all the way. Exams can be the make it or break it in any relationship, and your relationship with God is the most important.
• On the topic of relationships: there is nothing wrong with having a boyfriend now. As long as he doesn’t distract you or cause you undue emotional stress. Exams are bad enough without break ups. I know, though, that you can’t predict a break up, so just be wise and trust your judgement. And don’t you distract him! Sometimes a boyfriend can be a welcome stress reliever and a comforting shoulder to cry on – literally, you will cry.
• Don’t forget your family! They’re just as worried about you as you are about exams.

Lots of love and God bless,

Concerned Lower Six