The Power of Community and Belief

With A Levels looming over the horizon, I was still averaging around C+/B- in March and had been since lower 6th form (year 12). Like many of you, English literature was the bane of my existence during A levels and school in general. Sitting there in the freezing classroom, first thing on a Monday morning, listening to my teachers yapping about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or King Lear, or Atonement by Ian McEwan, I typed away on OneNote to what I could only comprehend as completely incoherent and pretentious mumbo-jumbo; even the thought of the subject was immensely (for the lack of a better word) cringe. After much procrastination, my friend and I decided to initiate the “getting our shit together” and “hoping on the grind” protocols just two months before our first A level exams. This blog is a loose story of what happened.

I need to say a huge thank you to one of my best friends, Robert. Him and I were your so called, ‘revision buddies’, during A levels. I remember we would often give each other these ironic but equally sincere encouragements like, “Keep up the grind my G” or David Goggin’s famous quotes like, “who’s going to carry the boats, and the logs”, and “They don’t know me son!”, and many more. The truth is, upon reflection, this is the first thing we got right, and however corny it may sound, it was the sense of community. It is very easy sometimes to slip into the mindset of thinking, ‘I have to do this on my own’, and especially during exam season, the ‘It is me verses them’ attitude. I mean, you’re not wrong, at the end of the day, it is down to you whether you get those grades or not. However, this type of ‘me verses everyone else’ mindset can leave you feeling quite isolated. For anyone who’s doing A levels this year, or next year, or even GCSEs for that matter, I would strongly encourage you to give each other a helping hand, support and be there for your friends, send your revision notes or methods to that group chat, spend some time with the person who’s struggling to keep up, tell them that they can achieve their goals, and have some fun(if you can, but understandably, fun is probably not the right word).

Here's another truth, the confidence you have in your ability (say, to write an English essay well) will be a big factor in determinating your performance in the exam. Confidence tends to reduce stress, and during this period, you need to pay closer attention to how stressed you are. During that first month of my revision, I was alone in my apartment, sitting at my desk, cramming my brain with as much information as it could possibly take. I was burning out frequently, and despite revising so much, most of it felt like it wasn’t sticking. I was extremely frustrated which led me to doubt my ability to meet the grade boundaries for my university (which is A in English, and I was at C+). I didn’t know it then, but I was already laying the foundation of knowledge I needed to exponentiate my understanding of the material during that second month leading up to A levels. Now, ideally, you should be doing ‘little and often’ but my guess is that you’re here because you’re in a similar position to where I was. In that case, the first thing in making sure you are aligned with your goal, is believing that you can achieve it, and just hang in there.

I remember, one week before my first English lit exam, my teacher said something that has stuck with me ever since. That previous week, I had been churning out practice essays like a printing machine to the point where I was finishing them faster than he could mark them. On that morning, I handed in my newly written essay as usual, and my teacher told me that he couldn’t mark all my essays as he needed to mark the others’ too. He then kindly offered to mark my new essay right there and then, to which, I happily agreed. Around ten minutes later, I remember looking up and seeing his face as he finished marking my essay. At first, it was neutral, then, his eyes widened, and eyebrows were raised. Surprised? Maybe? Did I do well? Or, horrifically, I thought. He swept up my essay and moved calmly towards my desk. Placing my essay face down (so the grade is hidden from others), he said something that has stuck with me ever since:

“Peter, I wonder what you could have achieved, if you tried hard from the beginning.”

I turned over the paper, and there it was! I had broken the A threshold, just in the nick of time! He then said, “cos you’re actually quite a smart guy”. Now, I don’t know whether to take the “actually” as an insult or a compliment, but I suppose the latter is more cathartic. The point, again, is belief. Like my teacher said, if I tried hard from the beginning, if I believed I can, I could have, and you could too.

So, among other things, it was ‘a sense of community’ and the ‘belief that you can’ that pushed me towards results. Originally, I was going to also write about the methods I used during those two months to revise effectively and rest effectively (which is equally important), but I am getting conscious of how long this blog post is getting.

If this post helps even one person look at their exams with more hope, then I will have done my job, and I am happy that I could’ve helped in some way. Good luck my friends! You got this! STAY HARD!!