How to not panic during your English Exam

Last year, I was so determined to do well in my English exam. I’d passed all my SACs with flying colours and now it was time to end on a good note.

My plan: do the argument analysis essay first to get it out of the way and spend no more than 50 minutes on it. Then devote more time to other two essays, which were harder for me since I didn’t like memorising quotes.

Except, when it got to the exam, it took me longer than planned to do just about anything. It took ages to finish annotating the article, to plan my piece, to write my intro, to write the first sentence of my first paragraph - which I somehow managed to get stuck on and cross out multiple times. All those minutes stacked up, and I was falling more and more behind.

By the time I finally finished my argument analysis, I was already way off track. And I still had a text response and a huge comparative essay to do (you should be glad comparatives aren’t on the exam anymore!) If that had been a practice 3 hour exam in my bedroom, I would have given up. Crumpled up the lined paper. Started again. New set of prompts, new me.

But I wasn’t in my bedroom. I was in the exam hall. And my plans were falling apart.

Because I’d cheated in my practice exam.

Well, not cheated. Let me explain.

My school held its official English practice exam in the first week of the school holidays, which I thought was way too early to be of any use. We’d just come out of the death week of SACs at the end of term 4, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I certainly hadn’t had any time to revise the texts we’d studied at the start of the year. Last year, two essays out of three on the exam were based on texts - the text response with one text, and a comparative essay, with not one, but two texts (which we had to compare.) Three massive sets of quotes and ideas and topic sentences and whatnot that I hadn’t revised.

I decided that if I couldn’t write those two essays well, I wouldn’t write them at all. So, in the practice exam, I only did the Argument Analysis essay. Once I finished that, I handed everything in and walked out.

A couple of weeks later, when we were back at school for revision, we got our marks back. I got 8 out of 10 for my argument analysis. Very decent. It was high enough to feed my ego, but still with lots of space for feedback and improvement. All was good.

Except it wasn’t.

Because guess how long it had taken me to write?

One hour twenty minutes.

Yeah, you read that right.

A full hour and twenty minutes when my plan, walking in, had been 50 minutes. That’s why I say I cheated to get that 8. If I’d done it in proper exam conditions, I wouldn’t have been able to get the 8. I’d cheated myself. Cheated myself out of the chance to practise writing an essay under proper exam conditions with the proper exam timing. It doesn’t hurt to be a little stricter with yourself, because no one else is gonna take care of you in this revision period.

The practice English exam at my school was technically compulsory, but the teachers didn’t chase after those who didn’t sign up. They didn’t bat an eyelash at me leaving in the middle. They didn’t scold me for using up one hour and twenty minutes to write only one essay. It was up to me to get the practice I needed, and because I was so hesitant about forcing myself to be uncomfortable, I wasn’t able to get that. Which led to me panicking in my exam.

To avoid panicking in your exam - go make yourself uncomfortable now.

Go memorise the quotes you’re avoiding. Go plan the creative piece that’s been intimidating you since the start of the holidays. Go read the feedback you’ve been too scared to look at.

At this stage, it’s all up to you.