h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Speaking as someone who is about to do their A-Levels (Next week! Aaah!) The thing that annoys me most is the way the exams are all so close together. Some people have 2 or more exams on the same day. Apart from the dangerous levels of tedium being sat in a hall for hours on end in the midst of summer, it means that revising can be difficult, having to cram in information for a small amount of time. There's different units, even diffrent subjects on the same day which can be a nightmare, especially if your taking a lot of subjects like a lot of people. It's a very high concentration of stress!

I agree but what other options are there

I'm taking about 14 exams this summer (GCSEs)but if they were spread out the exam period would last ages. I'd much rather the timings were kept the same but the exams sheduled for december.

I've had that rpoblem too, I'm currently doing my final exams for my degree, and it's 4 exams in 3 days. And to top it all off it's a schedule of afternoon-morning-afternoon-morning so they're effectively back to back.

Im right in the middle of my As exams and despite having a break of about a week between exams at one point I now have 7 exams in 3 days.

Two exams a day seems acceptable at this level if there spread one in the morning and one in the afternoon but today I did an hour and a half chemistry exam followed by another hour and 15 minuete chemistry exam

The worst thing is half way thogh the second exam having the call of nature. its hard to concentrate with pressure on your bladder.

mabey if they spread exams up a bit with no large gaps and had shorter exams say 45 minuetes there would be less stress.

Spose i better do some revision now. Yay!!

One of my friends will be in an exam room for seven hours on Friday. There are rules about maximum time spent in exams, but they get round it by saying she's only actually sitting exams for six hours.

Apparently, when AS was introduced, each unit was on a different day. Then people complained that there were too many individual exams, so they condensed them down onto one day. Odd.

I have a friend who spent eight hours under exm conditions.

he started his morning exams then got put in "jail" because due to exam clashes he had taken an exam early. then he had two philosophy and ethics of religion exams. he was under exam condition from 09:00 to 17:00 wich is a total of eight hours. okay he wasnt doing an exam but he wasnt alloud yo speak.

Yeah, I spent a whole day (9-5) under supervision. Wasn't too bad though, there was a whole class which had the same clash, so we could talk to each other.

how on earth can they fit 7 exams into 3 days!?! i feel for you archShade!

i am doing gcse's right now but even though i have just finished a 5 day week containing 7 exams most of the time between them was spent relaxing (apart from before history which had my whole year panicing!)

also i now have a 4 day break from exams followed by 4 exams in 2 days, then another 3 free days and then 3 exams in 3 days to finish.

i think that the amount of stress depends on the subjects you are taking. if you have 2 subjects that need lots of revision on the same day then that is quite stressful, but mostly we have exams that need revision on the same days as exams that don't.

I'm doing A2s this week and next week and I have the same problem. ON Wednesday I have English in the morning (2 hours) then General Studies in the afternoon. The next day I have Ancient History in the morning. It's a similar story next week too.

I'd prefer them to be more spread out than they are, but at least this year I don't have all my exams for one subject after each other - last year I did all my Ancient History and Psychology exams in a 3 hour block for each, which is awful. At the end you can hardly write, and you have to try to clear your mind when they're changing the papers (does anyone else get that feeling after revising or doing an exam for ages, that their brain just feels full and it's hard to concentrate? Or is it just me?)

I have just finished my AS exams and apart from 2 one hour and a half exams for maths i had all my exams in the last week, the only day i had with no exams was thursday.

Although it has been good to get them all done and out of the way, if they had been spread out a bit more, it would have been better, because i would come home from an exam and revise for the next one so the next day i was actually thinking aobut that subject, and not still thinking about stuff connected with my last exam.

Personally i think AS levels should be scraped, since all it means is that from year 11 onwards you have major exams 3 years in a row, meaning that you never really settle to A levels and teaching time is cut down, making everything more rushed.

But that would mean you get no opportunity to refine your choices further down the line. Taking Psychology seemed like a good idea to me last August, but after doing it for a year there's no way I'd want to do the full A-level.

they could have the exact same system but just without the official AS levels. that would have the same system without the added pressure.

"Personally i think AS levels should be scraped, since all it means is that from year 11 onwards you have major exams 3 years in a row, meaning that you never really settle to A levels and teaching time is cut down, making everything more rushed."

The problem with scrapping AS levels is you would end up having do exams on stuff you did nearly 2 years ago, and it would double the amount of revision you have to do. I certainly wouldn't want to be doing exams on stuff from that long ago, its hard enough remembering all my year 13 stuff. It would be even worse with subjects like pscyhology (which I do) because it is almost entirely facts. We did 6 modules in the first year, for which there are so many things to remember, if I had to do the exam for it now, I think I would cry!

well keep the modules throughout the 2 years so it is sort of the same but without major exams at the end of year 12 (i think)

That doesn't solve the problem of being tested on stuff you did 2 years ago. Plus you'd probably have to scrap AS levels altogether, becasue you'd have to do the exams for the one you wanted to drop in year 12 but you might change your mind.

I finnished all my As exams just under a week ago and now all three A2 corses are talking about corse work.

will the torent of work never end.

nope. not until you retire.

anybody like me currently taking exams won't be able to retire - the age will be about 120

I plan to be dead by then. Ha take that society.