Tag Archives: exams

How the hell did I get a B in French? – 26th & 27th August 1999

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Thursday 26th I’m so happy, relieved and shocked now I’ve finally got my results. I was really, really nervous this morning and when I got to school at about 10:00am, I was absolutely wetting myself. We all filed into the canteen where different tables were set up for different surname initials. I went to my one where Miss Ph and Mrs L were sat.

It took a while before my turn because there were forms to fill in but finally I sat down and got handed my results. There were 3 sheets of paper stapled together (because of the different exam boards). I couldn’t believe it when I looked through and I couldn’t stop smiling and I couldn’t concentrate on the questions asked so this form could be filled in. They just wanted to know where I was going next term and what subjects I was taking. I said Biology, Geography and Sports Studies because the grades I’ve got meant I could do the ones I wanted to.

These are the grades I got:

Science: double award – A
Science: double award – A [This was a combo of Physics, Chemistry and Biology and we got 2 grades for some reason.]
Food Tech – A
Business Studies – B (combined with Food Tech for a grade B overall)
English – B (speaking and listening)
English Literature – B
French – B
Geography – A
Physical Education – C
Art – A
Mathematics – B

I really can’t believe some of those grades! How the hell did I get a B in French [this question still stands] and an A in Science?! I’m so unbelievably pleased with those results. I’ve not stopped smiling all day!

I ran into the school car park to tell my mum and she said that’d been the longest wait she’d ever had but was so pleased when I showed her what I’ve got. We phoned Abby and she was pleased too but is now worried she won’t do as well next year (course she will!) and then drove round to where Dad’s working and told him. He said he’d just been talking to Mr B about it before I came. He was glad as well.

Most of my friends got what they wanted or better…

  • Hayley got one A and the rest Cs and Bs (well, she got a D in Business but it combined with Food Tech for a C)
  • Emma got one B and the rest As
  • Dougie got 9 A*s and the rest As (pretty good, hey?!)
  • Cat got 7 A*s and the rest As (good one again!)
  • Lizzie got mostly Bs and Cs with a couple of As and possibly a D (I can’t quite remember)

I know what quite a few other people got but I can’t be bothered writing it all down.

When I got home, Dougie phoned and asked me if I wanted to go to the cinema with him, Stuart Hobbs, Brian Short and Stuart’s sad older brother to see Austin Powers 2. They seemed to be all the people that were going and I’m not sure why they asked me, although he did say I could ask other people.

I didn’t end up going though because I went bowling instead with Freda, Lizzie, Cat, Poppy, Lucy, Karen and Hayley. It was quite good because we went on the dodgems and stuff too. When we were getting out shoes back, the bloke working there was messing about and kept giving me the wrong shoes. I don’t know why but he only did it to me and Lizzie.

Afterwards, we got the bus back to Poppy’s, bought a Chinese takeaway, ate chocolate cake and drank white wine (there was no champagne!).

I got this card from Hayley and her parents which I thought was really nice of them. ↓

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When I got home this evening, I had to phone Auntie G and Auntie S so I did. I got congratulations off Auntie G and squeals from Wick! Auntie S said that she told me at the barbecue in Wick that she’d give me a fiver for ever A I got. That should make me £25 richer! I don’t remember her saying that but I’m not going to argue. Grandma S also said she’d give me some money. This is cool! I never knew passing exams had all these benefits!

I spoke to Rhian later on tonight because she’d been at MADD (Music, Art, Dance and Drama) earlier. I got more squeals off her but no news on Duncan unfortunately.

Anyway, I’m going to catch up on a bit of sleep now.

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Friday 27th I’ve been bored for most of today because Mum and Abby went to Southport for a textiles project of Abby’s and Dad was at work.

I did get this card and a top present of Mum and Dad though for doing well in exams. ↓

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They bought me a mobile phone. I have to say, I do feel a bit guilty because it must’ve been expensive but they kept telling me I deserved it. My parents are so cool!

I went to the cinema tonight with Freda, Hayley, Poppy, Lizzie, Sarah, Karen and Cat to see the South Park movie. It is so funny!! There’s a lot of swearing so Tom and Minnie had better not see it, even though they want to! We finally got to see what Kenny looks like and hear him speak briefly. He’s so cute! I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many people laugh in a cinema before.ugh in a cinema before.

BYE!

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I’ve probably failed them all – 25th August 1999

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Wednesday 25th I met up with Keira, Emma, Patrick Campbell, Dougie and Stuart Hobbs at Warrington Bus Station this morning ready to go on a ‘mystery tour’ because we didn’t know where we were going to go. We were just going to jump on a train and go somewhere. I was actually late because I got the 10:10 bus instead of the 9:40 bus and, when Emma didn’t get on in her village, I got off, found a phone box and tried to phone Emma to see where she was but it was engaged so I stated walking home.

Mum drove past, stopped, picked me up and said they’d phoned saying they were waiting for me so she gave me a lift there. I ran to the bus station and eventually found them all, apologised, they laughed at me and we made our way to Warrington Central station. We looked down the list of places to go and chose Liverpool. We got on a train and went.

All we really did all day was wander round the Albert Dock, wander round the main shopping area and sit in McDonald’s, flicking a carton of tomato ketchup across the table to each other until it burst all over Stuart and Dougie.

We got this photo taken in a booth: (I am on it but very blurred!)

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When we got bored of Liverpool, we came back to Warrington and went in McDonald’s. Then Dougie left because he had to go to work at that tennis centre thing so the rest of us went back to the bus station. The lads went home but Emma and I went back to Keira’s house for a bit.

The other 2 discussed Robert a lot and what Keira should find out for Emma (such as if he likes her) and I kind of groaned when ‘Better Off Alone’ came on the radio. They asked me why so I told them about Duncan although I didn’t go into too much details on what happened because I could feel myself going red.

I got in this evening and phoned Rhian to tell her that I gave the letter to Dougie today. (She wasn’t in but she rang back later.) I gave it to him at the bus station when I arrived and he took his time reading it. He wouldn’t show us so I think he took it seriously! He kept getting it out and reading it again all day. Then he started asking me questions about Rhian such as, “How old is she?” and “What does she look like?” I think I’ll have to show him a photo sometime.

Just before he went to work, I asked him if he had any messages for her and he said something like, “Tell her that as you’re giving her this message, I’m on my way up to Scotland so she’d better brace herself!” I think I’ve made his head enlarge rather considerably!

I get my GCSE exam results back tomorrow. I’m worried now. I was okay until about 9:00pm and then I got bored and began worrying. These are my predictions for how I’ve done:

English – C (if I’m lucky!)
Maths – D
Science – Fail
French – Fail
Geography – D
Food Tech and Business – Fail
P.E. – D
Art – C (if I’m lucky!)

I think that’s all the subjects. I might be pushing my luck a bit by saying I’ve got Cs and Ds. In reality, I’ve probably failed them all. Oh well, looks like I’ll be seeking employment as a bag packer in Tesco or something.

I’m really nervous now. I can see myself tomorrow finding out my results and being so bloody annoyed with myself because I know now I could’ve done better than I have. All the people around me will be satisfied at least because all my friends are clever. I’m not thick but when it came to the exams, I knew I’d not got a chance of getting the grades I should. I’d be happy if I got one A but I won’t have done. I don’t want to fail or get any Ds either but I’m bound to. I don’t think I’ll be getting too much sleep tonight.

These are my train tickets from today. I thought I may as well just stick them in. ↓

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(I lied and said I was 15 to get half fare!)

I almost forgot, Rhian told me on the phone that she’d told Duncan he had to write to me and he said “Alright then” or something. I hope he does write back, I still really miss him. Rhian also said she’d got photos of Chin, Sanders (but he was hiding) and Ashley Ewart’s back so she’ll send them when she’s done more I think.

I’ll go away and panic now! AAARRGGHHH!!!

BYE!

Maybe it’s just not meant to be! – 7th-11th June 1999

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Monday 7th I had an English paper again today. It was that non-fictional stuff with the argue/persuade/instruct parts on it. It seemed okay and I wrote loads.

I’ve got the day off tomorrow though. Adam said he’s got a Tech exam in the morning so I’ve got to think about him! I probably will anyway, seeing as I can’t get the idea of going to Alton Towers to see him out of my head.

Part of me’s really wary and part of me’s really excited. The others (Lizzie, Cat and Hayley) who are coming seem cool with going on the train. Hayley’s got plenty of time to back out yet and no doubt she will. I’ve not told the others yet that I’ve never actually seen these lads before in my life and I’m not sure I will. I might wait until they can’t back out, like when we’re on the train!

Mind you, Hayley’ll probably tell them coz she won’t want to come with me but she won’t want the others to come either. She’s scared of going but also scared of missing out! Me too!!

BYE!

Wednesday 9th I had my first French listening exam this morning. It was okay, well, as okay as French can be but I don’t think I did brilliantly. It was only 40 mins though. Then this afternoon I had my Maths exam. I’m so glad I took the intermediate paper and not the higher like the teachers wanted me to do. It was pretty easy although I’ve still got another paper to go yet.

It turns out that getting to Alton Towers on the train is more complicated than it first seemed. I’d have to get the train from here then change at Piccadilly and go on to Stoke or Uttoxeter. Apparently there’s only 3 buses from Stoke and at weird times and none from Uttoxeter so I dunno what Adam had in mind.

My mum checked all this out for me and she says she’ll see if there are any coaches running there from here too. My Dad offered to take us in a minibus but, other than the Adam factor, I’d feel guilty for making him hang about all day.

Maybe it’s just not meant to be!

BYE!

Thursday 10th I had my first Science exam this morning. It was alright. The hard bits were really hard but the rest seemed okay. I only got 51% on the mock so that didn’t make me feel much better! I’ve got another paper yet though.

This afternoon I had the Food Tech exam. That seemed okay to me too but everyone else said they thought it was solid. That means I’ve probably done something wrong!!

BYE!

Friday 11th I had my last English exam this morning and it seemed alright but French this afternoon was horrible. That’s done with too though now… and failed!!

Oscar Price asked Lizzie if she wanted to go to town tomorrow with him and his mates so she is and Sarah L and I are going with her.

I’m also going to the All Saints concert with those two, Freda, Karen and Zoe I think. That should be good and it’s in the evening. Different from going to the Sports Club anyway!

BYE!

The only lad who likes me is Nutter – 13th January 1999

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Wednesday 13th I’ve not had a very good day. The only good thing really was I got an A in Geography. I was the only one who got an A in the class which made me 3rd with 76.6% or summit because 2 people got A*s and guess who they were. Yes, Dougie and Ewan.

Okay, there’s quite a lot of bad stuff to tell you about now.

My Maths mark. I got 36% on one exam paper and 37% on the other. I’m not sure what grade that got but it’s not good, I know that much.

Then there was my P.E. lesson. It was hockey and I thought I was doing okay but, as usual, Miss Pinder decided to pick on me again by keeping telling me to “get involved”. I think it’s built up because she keeps catching me when I’m out of games like basketball and volleyball and she’s never watching when I do actually do summit good so now she’s always expecting me to make no effort and watches out for it.

I have noticed (and she said so herself) that Shauna Adams is also usually out of it but I think Pinder likes her coz she’s on school teams and stuff. I think Pinder’s convinced herself that I’m crap at P.E. but there are 4 girls and loads of lads in our group and we find it hard to keep up coz the lads are so selfish too.  They ignore me mostly so I do find it difficult sometimes to get involved if the rest of my team is excluding me. If I don’t have the ball, I can’t show the teachers what I can actually do.

Anyway, after the lesson, Pinder said, “Tess, can I just have a word?” She started asked me what was the matter and why I wasn’t getting involved and that my grade could drop even though my written work’s good. I couldn’t answer and say what I wanted to because, if I’d have opened my mouth to speak, I would have burst into tears. It was so humiliating and then, of course, everyone wanted to know what she’d said to me. I had to go into the toilets to calm myself down.

On top of all this, Emma and I discovered today that Lena’s having a sleepover for her birthday and we didn’t get invited. When Emma asked her about it, she told her it’d been cancelled but it hasn’t. We really feel like they’re all being a bit off with us but there’s no reason we can think of. I invited her to my birthday meal thingy so it can’t be that. Emma wouldn’t have been able to go anyway but that’s not the point and I could’ve done.

You see, that’s another thing I’m worried about because Emma’s going to Mr Smith’s with Davis and all his mates from wherever he lives. I’m not invited coz I’m not particularly friends with them and Emma and some Gavin lad are getting on pretty well, I think. Ewan’s going too.

Oh yeah, that’s another thing. Ewan fancies Alice Croft. He asked for her phone number. Abby says she doesn’t like him though. It’s so annoying.

The only lad who likes me is Nutter and I’m completely on my bill at the weekends with bad marks at school. Emma doesn’t make me feel much better with her new group of friends out of school (a part of her social life I’m not involved in. I thought I was her best mate) and a new lad just about every week. What am I going to do, hey?

My French oral exam was awful. I had no idea what the teacher was on about. I never want to do it again!

BYE!

P.S. I’ve just found out that my cousin Rhian’s in hospital. Something happened to her back and she couldn’t walk so they carted her off from school in an ambulance. I’ll tell more if I find out more but she may have to see some specialist in Edinburgh or somewhere.

‘Stuff’ not being too innocent – 8th & 10th January 1999

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Friday 8th There was major long eye contact between me and Ewan today. I don’t think either of us realised at first that we were looking at each other so we didn’t turn away.

I’ve gone off him a bit since tonight in the Sports Club. Johnny Doherty, Tunde S, Naveen and Jack Eddison were there and we were telling them about New Year’s Eve and got onto the subject of Ewan. It was Tunde who was telling us really. He was saying about Keely Wade and the party at Ed’s and also that when Ewan fancied Grace Langley and Corrine Hayes he kept phoning them and telling them to go to his house so they could do stuff. ‘Stuff’ not being too innocent, I don’t think!

Emma told me that Az Hart and his mates (being Kris Bates, Ned Arncliffe etc.) called me Bambi. I got worried and asked why and when they’d said it and she told me he’d said it on the phone and it was just that I’ve got really nice eyes. Okay!

BYE!

[Maybe it was that deer-about-to-by-hit-by-a-car look of mine.]

Sunday 10th Oh shit! I’m so scared of things coming up in the next few days. I’ve got my Art exam all morning and, like last time, I’ll probably get moved into another room where I’m on my bill and everyone else is all sat together. That’s for 3 hours as well.

Then after that I’ve got another lovely (NOT!) Maths exam which yet again I’m going to fail. I’ll be sitting there panicking again coz I don’t know much when it comes to Maths. Plus I’ve got to do the higher and hardest paper.

Even when tomorrow’s over I’ve got to face Tuesday and my French oral exam. I know now it’s gonna be bad. I’ll go in and won’t be able to remember anything. I know what I’m like. I’ll get that stressed, nervous and panicky that my mind will go totally blank and I won’t know what I or the teacher’s saying.

Then after that there’s Wednesday. That needs no explanation, I think I’ve said it all before! [I just dreaded the lessons that day. I remember being pleased whenever I was ill on a Wednesday because I hated Drama so much.]

Okay, I know I really need to chill about this week but I just can’t seem to do that.

BYE!

Ewan Floyd Swann, candle-wanking genius – 7th January 1999

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Thursday 7th Hey, guess what. Now I’ve failed Maths AND French. Bugger! That was horrible. The reading one wasn’t too bad coz it was mainly guess-which-letter’s-meant-to-go-by-each-sentence style questions so there’s always the hope that I actually got some right, whereas the writing one, well, what can I say other than AAARRGGHHH?!!!!!

It was bleeding torture. There were 2 questions, both worth a lot of marks (which I didn’t get any of, I’m sure). The first was that you had to write a letter in French and there were lots of things which you had to include. That’s all I knew coz the instructions were in bloody French. [The cheek of it in a French exam!] Not only that but my dictionary may as well have been in Chinese for the amount of vocab on the paper that was in there!

I had 50 mins to do the paper and I wasted half of that trying to work out what I had to do. And that was only on question one. I wrote about 5 lines of French words on a page of A4 (which I think we were meant to fill), looked at Shauna Adams’s who’d written nearly a page, looked at the clock and panicked.

I then decided to try question 2. I was surprised to find that I actually knew what most of the instructions meant (I think it was just luck that the only page I’d looked at for longer than 5 mins in revision was what the question was on) but that didn’t help when I came to answering the question. My mind went totally blank when I realised I only had 15 mins left. I think I managed to write about 8 lines that time but the question was worth more marks so it didn’t really help.

With 5 mins left, I could’ve gone back and added more to both but then I thought, “Oh, fuck this!” (excuse the language) and stopped. Now I wish I hadn’t coz I’ve got to go through the humiliation of getting my marks back. I can hear it now… “Ed, 54, well done. Hayley, 42, good. Emma, 45, very good. Robert, 35, could be better. Tess, 3…” I don’t want to really think about what’ll happen next!

Oh yes, and I’ve still got to go through the sheer hell of my oral exam, the worst of the lot. Help!

I’ve got my Geography exam tomorrow morning. I’m bound to have Ewan sat behind me or next to me, just to put me off. Ewan, that is, Ewan Floyd Swann, candle-wanking genius. Ha ha ha!!! That’s his full name, Ewan Floyd Swann! They’ve put all our full names up to show when our French oral exams are. Poor lad!

As for the candle bit, well, that’s to do with the piece of work he did in his Art exam this morning which I saw at lunch. It’s a massive painting of summit with 3 big candles sticking out of it. Emma said they’re meant to be on a piano (that’s what the paint bit was, I think) and she said he was getting funny looks off people as he was stood there moulding these candles into shape! The genius bit, well, he said so himself that he was a walking brain. Nah, he’s not that bad, I’m sure!

BYE!

“But I need the toilet” – 5th May 1998

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Tuesday 5th Well, I’ve failed miserably in both Maths and Science after all the questions I skipped in revision (last night!) came up. Oh well, it’s too late now. At least we had a long lunch hour and got to go home early. Actually, we had less time off at lunch than expected because our Maths exam started late coz the teachers had some papers missing and my set didn’t seem to exist in the timetables. It all got sorted about half an hour later though.

It was funny at lunch. I’d just been to see Mr W coz I can’t have the placements I wanted for work experience. I’m now going to a vet. Anyway, Hayley, Emma, Olivia and I had seen Freddie, Dougie, Ferny and Graham in A Block too so we went on a search for them as we were bored.We found ‘em again and were just stood in the corridor.

Us girls then decided to go on a walk round A Block but the lads warned us that some woman was patrolling the corridors and throwing people out. So we saw that as more of a challenge and went in anyway, followed closely by the lads.

Just as we thought we were safe, the woman leapt out from somewhere. The lads scattered and we tried telling her we needed to see some teachers. She wouldn’t let us. She noticed the lads make a dash for it. They’d all gone out of the back except for Ferny who’d run for shelter in the bogs. She saw him and when she told him to get out, we heard a small voice say back, “But I need the toilet”.

Everyone just burst out laughing and legged it leaving poor Ferny to take the stick. He came back bright red and they started making cracks about George Michael.

P.E. and Business Studies exams tomorrow. Wish me luck. Mind you, I don’t really need it! Hmmm, yeah right!