The Self-Assessment that I did half-heartedly in school

Right, so my school really, really loves self-assessments, and as some of you may know, I don’t mind a bit of reflection here and there. However, I prefer to keep my reflections to myself. With lots of late-night deep thinking (you know what I mean – when you’re trying to sleep but suddenly it’s 1am and you are quietly streaming tears and having doubts about the meaning of life), I think I have this ‘self-assessment’ thing sorted. I just don’t fancy the idea of writing it down and having that be shared with my Head of Year, the Head of Sixth Form, my Form Tutor, the Acting Headmistress, and my parents (who I am sure don’t even glance at the thing).

Oh yeah, did I mention that this Self Assessment goes in our goddamn reports?

I think its purpose is to soften the blow by making us reflect fully before our parents make us do the same.

I think most people just blag and waffle their way through these, but despite being an aspiring writer, I can’t make this stuff up. I am very glad this blog exists. Yes, I do fully intend to ‘self-assess’ more properly in this post. But I’d rather a lot of strangers on the web read this than my teachers.

First, grades. I don’t even know what they are. I haven’t even gotten all my papers back yet. I can tell you now I’ve probably failed Chemistry. (Edit: I did. I was three marks from passing.)

What factors contributed to your success? That is, assuming it was a success. I’d call it a failure. Passing on this. But you know what was a success? I didn’t completely fall apart over the entire thing. I am still here. Feeling very… dead, but here. Minor success.

Name your top three priorities to achieve by Easter.

Being able to write two and a half sides in twenty minutes for Psych. I write slow, so this kind of time restriction is not even fair.
Magically gaining the power to mind-read whoever makes these damn exams. So many of these questions just… no. (Basically, exam question analysis.)
Being able to understand calculations as fast as I can read. Sigh.

What has been the highlight of your time here? I can’t just write down ‘nothing’, can I? There hasn’t been a particular highlight. I really enjoyed making friends with so many lovely and mad, mad people, and I’ll really miss being to see their faces every day. They are what make school kinda bearable.
(I also liked getting the best Essay Prize for last summer’s Psych Project, but you’ve heard me go on and on about already. It even got its own blog post.)

Subject Specific Targets

Psychology

Incorporate more AO2 stuff (analysis, comparison, evaluation) into my essays. The way the essays are marked is that 1/3 of the marks go to AO1 and the other bit to AO2, so the ratio of AO1: AO2 should be 1:3, right? Only, after analysing our mock essays in class, my ratio is 73: 27. Sigh.
Improve my writing speed by setting timers. Only problem with this is that I don’t react well to timers. I freeze up and get even slower. Sigh.

Biology

Write the answers on the right lines. Sigh.
Analyse the questions, but don’t overdo it. Sometimes, I might be right, but I doubt myself and cross out the right answer!
Add in all the detail, no matter now unnecessary it seems. Odd marks are lost for not going that little extra in my answer.

Chemistry

If I’m gonna memorise my equations I should memorise them properly.
Apart from that, absolutely everything went wrong with this one.

General Studies

Well, I don’t even know how I did, yet.
Does anyone even revise for this?
It doesn’t even count for any of my uni offers.
Let’s just hope my real exam has a multiple-choice topic I am actually familiar with, because our mock had a physics theme which sucked.

Other

Get enough sleep in the weeks leading up to the exam period. If you don’t, you’ll get spots.
Don’t stress, because you’ll break out in spots if you do.
Skincare is clearly one of my bigger daily motivations right now.

Sigh.
I really, really hate school self-assessments.

Until next time,