Now the IGCSE examinations are finally over, I feel relieved and relaxed and a lot freer than before. The whole moving thing dawns on me more too, and makes it all the more hard. The intention of this post is to record what the IGCSE experience has been like. (For IGCSE resources, click here)

The IGCSE’s began on Oct 15, with the Spanish first language exam. The exam went ok, though I left with big doubts that made me truly uneasy, like having called someone a cretin in a letter and having given an introduction and a conclusion to my summary. It was a very boring exam, too.

Tuesday was the Spanish literature exam. I had prepared pretty well for it, but the questions can be hard sometimes, so I was panicking a bit. I suddenly felt I no longer had clear what had happened in Doña Barbara. As I was going in, though, I reminded myself something that Mr Andrews told us during his History revision sessions: don’t go in scared to the exam, take it as an intellectual challenge. You have no idea how much that worked. I instantly felt relieved of a lot of pressure, and knowing that I knew the books quite well helped too. When I went in, it was hard to choose what asterisk question to do, because I thought all the essay ones were easy. I chose an asterisk one for Doña Barbara, one on dramatic irony in El Sí de las Niñas and one on Impía, a poem I had done a project on. I was amazed and happy with myself that I could do well the question on Los Heraldos Negros, since Vallejo and his suicidal tendencies can be my weakness. It went well.

I had the next two days free to do nothing, and then on Friday I had the writing on Spanish, in which I wrote about the benefits of máquinas expendedoras and then wrote a very heartfelt story in which my MC had to find someone they hadn’t seen in a very long time. It was full of feeling and romance (Note to life: when you have the time, throw some romance my way, dammit.) though the end came out a bit wrong because of the time pressure. Funnily enough, it was almost the same as the story I wrote for the English Mock. Anyway, all good.

Then we had French, the reading paper. Everyone thought it was really hard, but it’s FRENCH. Meaning, there’s no way it was hard.

Wednesday was a scary day….HISTORY PAPER 1 DAY. But we had English FLE Paper 2 just before, which went OK I think. We had to read a story on a shipwrecked family and write an article about it. But what you want to know about…HISTORY. History was the day after my birthday. I had studied, though. Everything except Stalin. The day before I decided that Stalin was too much and that either the Tsar or Lenin WOULD come up. Of course, by the next day I was already panicking. What if two questions on Stalin came up? So I panicked and panicked.When I went in, the first thing I did was check at the back part what had come up on Russia. I breathed again when I saw the Tsar (+ Stalin). Paper 1 went quite well, except for a really tricky 7 point one on Corfu that I think I handled ok and ‘to what extent one’ on the League of Nations that I couldn’t finish because of time. I took it as an intellectual challenge and that worked again too (now that was a piece of really good advice!)

Next day was French Listening. It was rather tricky at times, and I made the mistake of writing it all in pencil, which means I had to truly race myself to change all the answers to pen. I didn’t pay attention to some bits because of that.

English Literature next day was hard. All questions (save one on Caged Bird) were quite nasty. The asterisk one I answered on Macbeth was puro floro, I just had no idea what to put. And for Lord of the Flies, I chose to argue that we love Piggy despite his character imperfections. Still, hard!

On the next Monday (that’s Oct 29), we had the FLE Paper 3.  We had to write a story in which we lost ¨something vital¨, so I used the story I used in my Spanish Mock and lost my little brother in a supermarket. Tragic and with a super cheesy ending, but well written. The moment I left the exam though, doubts attacked me. After all, I had to lose ¨something¨ not someone. I hope they don’t penalize me (though I secretly know they probably will).

Tuesday was History Paper 2. Now that was quite tragic. SO much harder than the Mock exam we had. I even got so confused in one of the Sources, that I assumed the caption was wrong and pretty much changed the question (I assumed that because when I’d seen that Source earlier on during the year, it had a different caption). But I think I killed the whole thing with my last question. I left that exam feeling the A* I had wished for had just ran away from me and mocked me in the distance for my futile try. How depressing, really.

Wednesday. BIOLOGY PAPER 3. This was like confronting my fear. You might want to be reminded that I failed last year’s Bio exam and that it was my Practical Portfolio that saved my life. Biology is too.freaking.much. I didn’t finish on the night before, and decided to screw it and go to sleep, after all I’d get to school at 7.15 like every other day. I had enough time to finish reading everything and rereading it all once again. And guess what?? It went really well! I think it was the Science I did the best on. I had trouble with a question on reflexes and stuff, and there was one on the use of hormones for birth control that confused me a bit at first but later allowed me to display all the knowledge I had bottled up in my brain in the last hours. Fabulous.

The Biology multiple choice was on Friday, and I’ll be honest, I barely studied for it. I remembered it all quite well from the long answer one, anyway. Can’t remember that much about it, but that means it wasn’t tragic, so all good.

Monday was Physics multiple choice. I had to guess lots and lots, which does NOT make me happy. Multiple Choice exams are tricky exams, because they’re supposed to be so easy, so the grade boundary is high. I used logic to guess them, so they should be right (at least some!) but still, it was hard.

Next day was French writing and History Paper 4. Needless to say French was neglected by moi. Much to my regret I had to at least give Stalin some of my attention, though I was almost certain Lenin would come in. And it did! SOOO happy! (An as always, at the door, I began panicking because I knew so little on Stalin). I just regret not having finished the last question, though.  On the next to last question I kept stealing a minute, and then another minute, because I knew so much, and that was my mistake. Still, the paper went well overall. So happy! Oh and French went well too. I had to write about wanting to go to France and having a really bad day working somewhere (I picked a restaurant).

Wednesday was Chemistry Paper 3. That one was very hard. I suffered so much in that exam. Might have been the one I did worse in, of all. It was also the exam in which a dove flew in and then could not get out and kept throwing herself against the windows. At first everyone was laughing, but after a good fifteen minutes of throwing herself very strongly against windows, I wanted to put my hand up and beg some teacher to open the freaking windows. The poor dove! It was so sad. She was really hurting. And it didn’t help my concentration, either.

Thursday was Physics Paper 3 and Geo paper 1 day. Awful combination. I barely studied for either, I must admit. I had reached that point of no return in which you feel absolutely exhausted from so much effort studying for the mocks and stuff, and just don’t care that much anymore. Luckily I knew physics, but even after 3 hours of intense geography studying, I wasn’t ready for my IGCSE. (After the 3 intense hours of geography I began jumping around the library pretending to be a bird. My brain burned. I went in the exam with a burned brain). I invented 2/3 case studies, and they were both on India. I spent too long reading all the questions, and then had to finish one case study and one WHOLE question in 15 minutes. I rushed too much. It wasn’t a good exam.

Next monday was Paper 2 Geography. I was hoping to redeem myself for my mistakes in the first one. Did not happen. They wanted really specific info on Rivers, which I had completely ignored while studying (I decided to concentrate on Population and Settlement and Economic Development) and the map was really crappy.

Tuesday was Chemistry Paper 1. Strangely enough, I can’t remember very much about it. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great. I do hope it pulls up my disaster on Paper 3.

Wednesday was Geography Paper 4. Now here I did redeem myself (well sort of, because it’s worth 27.5% of the marks). I did really well on this one. I had studied all the Rivers thingy just before the exam and had it all fresh and secure in my head. It was quite easy. All good!

Thursday and Friday were the Additional Maths Internal Exams days. On the first one, I did REALLY well. I was so happy when I left it! I was also so happy when I opened it and saw that the questions were not past paper questions. It saved my life, and my average. The one on the next day was a lot harder and more intrincate. I finished at least 30 minutes earlier, like everyone else, and fooled around for long, doing origamis. In both exams every time I couldn’t do something I invented weird methods to get to weird answers. The things we do for working out points…!

And then yesterday was Historia del Perú. Needless to say that after the pre the whole studying mood (which was gone anyway)  was SUPER GONE and I hadn’t studied. Seriously. Also, the subject is so terribly boring that I could not bring myself to doing some work. I studied the morning of the exam, trying to gulp in as much of that useless knowledge as I could, as fast as I could. I surprised myself in the exam, though. There was HEAPS of stuff I had to invent and guess, but there was a lot of stuff that was still in my head. I did know some things! THere was a question on getting conclusions from a text, which might have gone well, and then on the essay one I couldn’t do any well, except for one on the role of political parties in the history of Peru in the twentieth century. I added lots of floro and some examples and I hope that saves me. Wasn’t good, but wasn’t as bad as I thought, either.

Did you really read all that? If you did, I’m amazed. Honestly amazed. Actually, if you did, please post a comment saying ¨This account of yours has left me flabbergasted.¨ and then something else. That would honestly be exceeding my expectations.

So…how were my IGCSE’s? Were the IGCSE’s hard? Some of them were. It all depends on how much you’ve studied really, or so you think, until you see a question that knocks you off your feet (or a whole exam, as in History Paper 2). Were the IGCSE’s worth it? I certainly hope so! I hope that on Jan 20 when my marks come from Cambridge, they’re all all letters I can be proud of displaying on a Curriculum or something. I did learn many techniques and skills, and also a lot of knowledge. It’s helped me realize my calling- and to know what my calling is not. Am I glad they’re over? Definetely! I’m exhausted of exams and studying and having exams and going unprepared to them, and simply having exams.

Alas, they’re over now, and I can barely believe it.
It’s like a cycle that’s coming to an end.

It comes to an end and I can’t stop it.