Failing my A Level exams changed my life for the better
Picture this:
The year is 2014 and it’s A Level results day. 17 (nearly 18) years old me has just checked the UCAS website to see rejections from both firm AND insurance universities.
And as you know, not going to university is the worst thing that could possibly happen to a young person. At that moment, I knew then that my life was over.
Okay… so enough with the dramatics.
My life wasn’t over; it was actually just about to begin in ways I wouldn’t have been able to comprehend back then.
It’s been nearly 10 years since that day and I honestly can’t remember the grades I got in the individual A2 exams apart from the U I received in the BIOL4 module (damn you AQA for creating that horrible exam!). All I know is that my final grades were a B in Psychology, B in Geography and a C in Biology. A much lower result than my predicted AAB.
The rest of the day was a blur especially because a couple of my friends also didn’t get the grades to go to university as well. So we were all just a bit sad that the future we had planned for ourselves wasn’t going to materialise that year.
A few weeks before results day, I created a long list of possible options from 1-9. I wish I kept the list but it was something like this:
- Go to firm choice uni
- Go to insurance choice uni
- Appeal / get exams remarked
- Go to a university in clearing
- University 1 – Phone number – Course ID
- University 2 – Phone number – Course ID
- University 3 – Phone number – Course ID
- Etc…
- Retake the year at current sixth form
- Retake the year at a new sixth form
- Retake the exams but self-study
- Take an access course
- Take a gap year
I truly considered all conceivable options and left no stone unturned. Possible foreshadowing of my future career as a Project Manager
I took a big risk
Ultimately, on A Level results day 2014, I made a decision that would change my life forever.
I decided to retake the exams and self-study – option 7.
I didn’t know anyone who had taken that path before but I was determined to go to The University of Manchester to study Psychology and I knew I had to do it on my terms.
So, I told the Sixth Form my plan and set my sights on going to university in 2015. I remember, the Exams Officer pulling me aside to urge me to go to a university in clearing because my grades were decent enough for me to still study Psychology. She also warned me that most students who resit the year end up getting worse grades than they did the first time around.
She wanted the best for me and didn’t want me to waste a year of my life when I had opportunities at my fingertips. To this day, I am still very grateful for her message. And I mean that in a genuine way… you won’t find me creating the next best-selling hip-hop song talking about how the teachers tried to keep me down. I truly believe she wanted to see me succeed but she also didn’t want me to believe that the path I was going down was going to be all sunshine and rainbows (because it wasn’t). If she didn’t pull me aside, I don’t think I would have realised the seriousness of my decision to retake my exams without the support of an educational institution.
If I was going to study at my dream university in 2015, I was going to need to believe in myself so strongly and I had to come up with a comprehensive plan that was foolproof.
So, I gave myself a break.
Yep, I decided to step back from education, start healing my anxiety and get a job.
I actually got 2 jobs: one working part-time in Primark during the week and then the other working in Greggs on the weekends. Busy bee me.
I needed to experience life in the real world to help me improve my confidence and social anxiety. It helped to take the pressure off going to university and allowed me to make friends with a variety of different people. And I loved it! I realised that even if I never go to university, I would be fine and I would still be a person with intrinsic value.
The actual reasons why I failed my exams
After 4 months of working, I returned my thoughts back to education and reviewed the reasons why I failed my final year A Level exams. The main reasons were:
1. I had no revision strategy
I haphazardly studied the topics I thought I needed to study without focusing on what was needed for the exam. I worked very hard but I did not work very smart. Which resulted in me wasting so many hours of my life in the library.
2. Lack of understanding of the content
This ties into my previous point about not working smart when it comes to studying. I spent a lot of my time focusing on studying the textbooks and never developed a deeper understanding of the topic. For example, I memorised a lot of key definitions for the exam but I didn’t understand what I was talking about. This meant if a question came up in the exam that required me to apply my knowledge to answer the question I was screwed. So, yes, no wonder I failed my exams.
3. I had unmanaged anxiety that took control of my life.
My biology teacher was the first person that ever told me about anxiety. Nowadays, teenagers have a wealth of information about the symptoms and effects of anxiety but back then the information wasn’t as readily available. I remember explaining to her my process of studying which involved racing thoughts, sleepless nights, difficulty concentrating and a deep sense of dread. At the time, I thought this was a part of normal exam stress and assumed that my classmates were going through the same thing. So imagine my shock when she turned around and said ‘Teresa, that sounds like anxiety’. MINDBLOWN!
4. Classroom-based learning was not for me
I didn’t enjoy being in the classroom environment and could never 100 per cent focus in school. I’ve always preferred self-studying and then asking the teachers for clarification or further explanations. I found sitting in a classroom boring and anxiety-inducing.
5. Lack of self-care
I didn’t prioritise my wellbeing and took on an all-or-nothing mindset to everything in my life. For example, I would feel guilty if I did anything fun because I felt that all of my free time needed to be spent studying. This meant I stopped spending time with my friends, I stopped exercising and I stopped pursuing my hobbies. Life just became solely about getting the grades to go to university and I based my entire self-worth on that.
So how did I turn things around?
1. I reviewed my exam scripts
I was so embarrassed when I reviewed my biology exam scripts. I literally talked about photosynthesis when I should have been talking about respiration and respiration when I should have been talking about photosynthesis. Nearly every answer was wrong. The worst part is: I studied so hard for that exam and genuinely tried my best. I can laugh at it now but at the time I was devastated. It reminds me of a tweet I saw a few years ago that was something like ‘Nothing humbles you in life as much as getting a U in your A Levels’. I was truly humbled. If anything, that experience highlighted how bad my anxiety was because I remember shaking while sitting the exam.
2. I hired tutors
Despite deciding to forgo educational institutions when retaking my exams, I still knew that I needed subject matter experts in my life if I had any chance of passing my exams. I used the money I earnt from working at Primark on the weekends (I quit working at Greggs) to pay for tutors. I used websites such as First Tutors and Tutor Hunt to find Geography and Psychology tutors who would be able to review my mock exams and answer any of my questions. My sixth-form biology teacher also stepped in to tutor me once a week. Working directly with tutors enabled them to identify gaps in my knowledge of topics because this time around I couldn’t just hide in the back of a classroom.
3. I bought a variety of educational textbooks and resources
As I mentioned before, my previous revision strategy involved rote learning textbook definitions without gaining a deeper understanding of the topic. By using multiple textbooks and online websites, I was able to form my own opinion on topics and appreciate the theory behind certain definitions.
4. I got help for my anxiety
I told my GP about my anxiety symptoms and was added to the waiting list for the NHS mental health service called Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). I was on the waiting list for 9 months so by the time I received Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) I’d already sat my retake exams. Despite this, taking the first step toward helping my anxiety empowered me to take responsibility for my life, particularly with regard to my mental wellbeing. I also spent some time learning how to manage my anxiety by researching websites and YouTube.
5. I got organised
I got serious about creating habits and routines that were achievable and realistic. I reviewed each syllabus and created a daily and weekly routine that made sure I covered all of the core topics and also gave me plenty of time to complete practice exam papers. Since I didn’t go to school I had to force myself to wake up at the same time every day and drag my butt to my designated study desk in the living room. I treated my revision session like a full-time Monday-to-Friday job.
6. I was honest with myself
I used to waste hours of my time half-heartedly studying so this time around I called myself out when I was not giving 100% to my revision. When I was preparing for my GCSE exams I didn’t try too hard and I would spend a lot of time on Facebook instead of revising. One day my dad caught me on my phone and said ‘There’s no point pretending to study because the only person you are fooling is yourself. I’ve already got my qualifications so it’s not my problem if you are faking revision, no need to hide.’ I had matured a lot since my GCSE days so the lesson my dad was trying to teach me clicked into my head properly during this self-study year. Sometimes you have to learn the lesson the hard way.
All of these strategies combined resulted in me learning a valuable lesson in working smart and not so hard that I burn out during exam season. I had a lot more free time to enjoy hobbies but I also streamlined my focused attention into structured revision.
And it worked.
I got the grades! I got into The University of Manchester to study Psychology and in the process, I built an unshakeable belief that I can achieve anything I put my mind to.
How this experience changed my life for the better
This experience has been the foundation of what I call my ‘backup generator’. Life hasn’t been easy but I have this inner fire in me that kicks in just when I feel like giving up. I can map exactly how the organisation and time management skills I developed during that period of my life have directly impacted my education and career. For example, while studying for my master’s I was able to work 2 jobs and still achieve top grades despite wanting to drop out. I then went on to become a Project Manager working on high-stakes complex projects starting with very little experience. And now, I have the courage to become an entrepreneur and pursue my passion for combining psychology and business. If I didn’t begin the journey of understanding anxiety management and goal setting I wouldn’t be where I am now in my life.
It all comes back to the decision that 17-year-old me made in August 2014. I honestly don’t know what possessed her to choose option 7. I am always in awe of that version of me that took a leap of faith into the unknown but believed that no matter what she would be able to get to her destination.
If you made it down to the end of this post, tell me what lessons you have learnt from failure. Did you fail your A Level exams too?
Check out my About Page to find out more about my story.
