By far the most roller coaster two years of my life, I’m both sad and elated to have progressed from A-level student to an undergraduate student. Never in my life have I felt like so much of an abject failure, nor have I ever felt so proud to have had certain experiences and opportunities (see my previous post my Oxford interview experience) as I have had in the last two years. Whilst I was not lucky enough to have had an offer from Oxford, I’m still fairly pleased to have held my own throughout the interviews, and was fortunate to get into my other university of choice.

I appreciate, however, that others were not so lucky – many of whom deserved better than were awarded. But that’s the nature of exams – they are intrinsically imperfect. The exam itself as a form of assessment does not suit everyone. Different people perform differently under such pressure. Some of the most intelligent people I know absolutely fall to pieces under exam conditions, whereas some people simply get lucky with the topics selected for the exam. Not to mention the fact that subject vary hugely in their methods of assessment to each other – some of my A-levels were strictly essay based, whereas some never required me to write more than six or seven lines at a time.

It also seems to me that, particularly for science-related subjects, exam boards have yet to find a decent way of distinguishing an ‘A’ grade student from a ‘C’ grade student. In my opinion, students shouldn’t simply be assessed on how many questions they can answer, but also the depth of their understanding, i.e. by implementing a sort of ‘tier’ for each grade, and ensuring students satisfy the criteria of each tier to determine their grade. After all, this is how some of the humanities and a lot of BTEC students are assessed.

My advice to current and upcoming A-level students is this: if you have fantastic memory, it won’t be enough, you have to understand the material. If you are naturally gifted, understanding the material won’t be enough – you need to memorise information. However much effort you are putting in, there is no such thing as ‘enough’ effort. And remember, this is going to be the most difficult two years of your life (at least so far), but I promise it will be worth every second – live it, breathe it, love it!