Yet another GCSE results blog!
i ma gemius
Art & Design: B
Additional Science: A*
Design & Technology (Product Design): A
English: A*
English Literature: A
History: A*
ICT: C
Mathematics: A
Russian: C
Science: A
I like to think my results imply a greater intellect than my posts.
So yeah, I'm pretty chuffed about that.
I suspect my PD grade may have been fudged - I was predicted a B maximum. I had to design and make three different products in the time that most people only had to do one because my prototypes kept failing. This was partly due to my teacher giving frankly misleading advice, and he actually physically broke my final product. Twice. So he may well have had words with people (he's quite famous - as far as a D&T teacher can be famous - he literally wrote the book on GCSE Product Design) out of guilt. Meh, swings and roundabouts. Whatever that means.
English... yeah, I was pretty surprised by that, I wasn't very confident for that one. But I guess English language is pretty much a professional bullshitting exam. As a slacker, you get so used to writing with style to make up for lack of content that when you get actually get an exam that's all about writing style you're pretty well prepared. English Lit was just standard stuff, another contenting grade.
History, I'm just plain happy with. I'm good at History. It's dull as old bricks, but it ain't half easy. My essay was Why Clement Attlee is a More Significant Prime Minister of the 20th Century than Winston Churchill (The actual title was less stupid but I forgot what it was).
ICT was a bit of a cockup - I seriously overestimated myself there, oh well, lesson learned. Me and my friends spent the entire two years playing web games and slacking off. We occasionally say we could have done better, that we should have tried harder, but we know we couldn't, and we know that we had a great laugh for two years that no grade could match.
One of the Maths papers was written weirdly and a lot of people did worse than they normally would, so I'll be retaking that. I'm not taking Maths any further, so I need the best grade I can get to finish with. As far as I'm concerned I'm rubbish at Maths, I still don't know how any of it works, or why any of the answers are what they are. I just seem to have found a way of mechanically following methods and spewing out answers without actually understanding any of what I'm doing.
Russian's a funny one. I am shit at languages. Or I thought so. I spent all my lessons not understanding a word, so I eventually stopped listening. Then when the exams finally come round, I'm like, "Hey, I know what that word means! And that one!". Turns out I can understand it quite well, and write it okay, but just can't speak it at all. I did a presentation on Father Ted. That went fine, but the questions afterwards mystified me - even though I'd agreed them with my teacher in advance. So I ended up with A-B-B-D, which averaged out as a C. So while I'd like to retake whichever one got a D (the results sheet doesn't say, unhelpfully), if it turns out (and it probably will) that the exam that got a D was the Speaking one, I know I'll just get another D, so I won't. Which is annoying.
I'm planning to retake my lowest scoring science paper, since I've been getting straight A*s in Science since there's been an A* there for me to get. It seems a shame to fall at the last hurdle like that.
I know it sounds like I'm being really anal, and trust me, I know my grades are good (feeling pretty smug to be the highest achieving GCSE student on the forums - though I'm technically an A-level student now). But you see, I'm a slacker. I was born a slacker and I'll die a slacker. I don't like being lazy, it's just hardwired. So I'm quick to give up and quick to admit when I'm shit at something. (Except Spelunky. I will beat that game someday.) But when I find something that I know I'm good at... whoa mama. My lack of achievement in most areas of my life drives me to accept no less than perfection in the areas where I excel. I call it The Super Meat Boy Approach. I throw myself into failure, wholly and repeatedly, until I eventually fail to fail, and we call that success. So I WANT THOSE FUCKING A-STARS.
A-Level choices:
Art
Biology
Chemistry
History
Art was the only essential. It's the only thing I really see a future for myself in. I know how hard it is, but I haven't been put off yet. Everything else is just respected subjects that I'm good at, with the exception of Physics because I really hate Maths.
PHEW RELIEVING THOUGH
In other news, I was recently forced to conclude that I have a moustache, the reason being that I now I have to comb it sideways to keep it out of my mouth.
In my next blog: Me And My Accordion
