How I did A/Ls..

Well as per one of my readers request I decided to tell you how I did A/Ls. So before telling you that I think telling you the background story will be important for you to understand why I did certain things. So lets get started.. (It's gonna be a very long post)

I always had good marks. It was usually in the 95+ range and I also had 9 A's for O/Ls. (Sounds good eh?) But that does not guarantee you will even pass A/Ls. I know people who had 9A's but didn't pass A/Ls. I also know people who barely passed O/Ls but had 3 A's for A/Ls. So forget your O/L results. That's history. Work hard to make your future bright. Always have an idea about what your life will be like after A/Ls. For me, knowing what my goals are makes the life easy. When I know I should get this particular marks for this subject I plan the whole thing out and make weekly goals. So in 2011 I got to know about Nuclear Science and I decided to become a Nuclear Engineer. So my next step was to check which universities offered it. (I did it after O/Ls) The only affordable university I could find was Amity University, Greater Noida. And they had asked for an average of 55 marks for 3 A/L subjects. Seems pretty easy. So I thought "wow this is so easy. I had 95+ marks before. Seems like I don't wanna put much effort here." And then I decided to talk to people who are already doing the degree and I made a Facebook account. And instead of studying hard I kept talking to people. Wasting hours and hours online. (It started with talking to people related to uni but ended up talking to not relevant at all people) Except the homeworks given by school and classes I didn't do a single thing on my own. And then there came the very first term test. I had 50s.... from 95+ to 50s. I was so shocked. Nobody had more than 70, but I was not used to anything below 75. And that was shocking. But did I learned a lesson? No. I spent time playing games, watching dramas to relieve my stress that was building up from the work that was piling up.. (which only caused more work to pile up) Life was miserable. And I was particularly weak in mathematics. For chemistry and physics I just knew how the calculation should be done, but for maths I was totally helpless. I hated it. (I still do)No matter how hard I try I can never find the answer on my own. When someone explains one question I can understand it, but I cannot do the other questions on my own. There were some people who solved mathematics in the speed of light which depressed me more.I was feeling like a total loser. And one day out of blue I decided to change everything. I can remember at that time organic chemistry lesson was taught for us at school and my loving chemistry teacher Sujatha miss suggested that we should buy a particular organic synthesis exercise book and do the exercises if we wanna excel the subject. So I bought it and oh boy.. I loved that book. That book was what gave me motivation and hope. I felt like I'm not dumb and I can do this. So I finished the book in 2 3 days. I did the exercises whenever I had a free time and completed the book. And there I was, the organic synthesis pro. Since I'm done with organic chemistry I started doing the 5th lesson. Long ago I bought a book from the voucher I got for the prize for the highest marks in school for GCE O/L paper of "Appreciation of sinhala literary texts" (It is not the normal sinhala paper. It's analogues to the english literature, music, drama etc). That book was " shakthi vidyawa" by Hemachandra Basnayake sir and I had totally forgotten about it. I started working on it at around 8pm one day and completed the whole book by 5am the following day. I was happy. Finally I was achieving something. And then I started working on chemistry term test past papers from around 10 schools which really helped me. My chemistry marks really started improving.

I actually now would like to thank my chemistry teachers. Mrs. Sujatha Mahaarachchi was my school chemistry teacher who always believed in me. I really love her. Even when I had very low marks she believed that I can do it. She usually asks questions by pointing out students but she never pointed me out. In the parents meeting she told my mom " I don't even ask questions from her coz I know she knows." The reason I worked so hard for chemistry was because I never wanted to break the trust she had in me. I am also thankful to my other chemistry teacher Mrs. Sakura Dodampegama who was like a mother to me and teaching me extra hours despite of her busy schedule. She always made chemistry much easier. Even now, whenever I get some victory those two are among the people whom I tell the news first.

My chemistry was good, but what about the others? Physics was good coz I learned physics theories from my classteacher Mrs. Nimali Ranatunga who is an excellent teacher. And she suggested that I should have more practice and therefore I should go to tuition class which focuses on problem solving. So I decided to go to Dr. Charith Jayathilake from University of Kelaniya. He did thousands of questions and it was really helpful. So what about maths? It was literally going to down at the speed of light. I literally couldn't understand a thing the school teacher said. Tuition sir was so boring I literally was sleeping in the class, but after he taught me I had some basic idea. However that did not help in solving problems at all. No matter if I get 2 A's for chemistry and physics, if I fail mathematics it's gonna be totally useless. So I must pass the maths paper somehow. So I had to find out a way to "pass" the subject. It was 2013 September. As usually I went to the Colombo International book fair and decided to buy some mathematics books by K.M.D.S. Jayathilake sir. While I was buying the books sir actually came there and he told me "putha, baya wenna deyak na. thama kal athi. Mahansiyen wada karannai one" which encouraged me. So one at a time I became good at the basic units they check in A/Ls like integration, differentiation, coordinate geometry. My aunt also helped me a lot explaining things I couldn't understand. 

So by 2014 April I excelled at chemistry and all I had to do was to keep all those facts in my head without forgetting until August which is really hard. I was preparing for physics so it's natural to forget chemistry. What I did was, I did MCQ papers daily. Since MCQs are made from the whole syllabus you eventually recall everything when going through the paper. So my routine was as follows in those days.

I wake up and start doing an MCQ paper from 7am to 9am and then I have my breakfast and go to upstairs leaving my phone and everything in the room (once I go upstairs I'm too lazy to come down. So I remain there until lunch) And then I work on Physics. 

I first read Geekiyanage Sirs book for the unit and then solve problems related to the topic. And then I solve the problems in that unit in the book Charith sir gave us. (He used to give us MCQ books organized chapter-wise) I solved tons of problems until I felt comfortable with the unit. And then I move on to the next lesson. Once I have a handful amount of questions I visit my cousin brother who is an A/L physics teacher at Sirimavo Bandaranayake College. I also would like to thank him for tolerating my weekly extremely annoying Q and A sessions. Because of the 55 average university requirement I was not competing with other students in Sri Lanka and that was a relief. So according to my calculations all I wanted was an S for mathematics and I'm good after that. I planned the questions I'm gonna choose before hand and practiced a lot so I won't screw the exam and fail. This post is already too long and I will tell you what happened in the exam in a future post. So in conclusion I will mentions some tips here.

- Don't waste time online. (I am telling you, you will regret about the time you wasted)
- Unless you have like a very important reason (like your mom or dad is abroad and the only way to contact them is facebook) do not use social media. At my time it was just facebook, but now there are so many sites.
- The time you have in grade 12 and 13 are priceless coz it will never come back to you and that will literally change your life. In other words the most important two years in your life are those. It will decide how you will live the rest of your life. So don't screw it at any cost.
- You get low marks on A/Ls and that's natural. Don't let it pull you down. And remember it's okay to get bad marks once in a while. You can improve it.
- If you feel like some teacher is not good for you do not go to that person ever again. (In my case I thought I'm dumb so I don't understand maths, but apparently it was not my fault. The style of teaching did not suit me)
- Don't get stressed out. Complete one task at a time.
- Use a journal. (I used 2 separate books. One to write things I should complete, the other is to do particular lessons I completed within that day. It visually shows you that you are working and your workload is reducing. It's mentally really helpful)
- Focus only on studies. Boys and girls will not vanish after the exam. And trust me 18, 19 is not a mature enough age for relationships. Once you are in the university if your bf/gf is not in the same university 80% it will breakup. (I have observed this a lot. And many of my fellow students will agree on this) So don't waste the precious time you have on something that will not end up nicely.
- Eat chocolates 15 minutes before an exam. You will not be feel stressed at all during the exam. It is scientifically backed and works every time like magic.
- Talk to teachers about your weaknesses and get their solutions coz you are not the first student with that particular problem and they have handled it before so many times.
- Do past papers and model papers as much as you can. Learn how to manage time during papers.

I will tell you about what happened to me during the A/L examination in a future post. So until then work hard and make your parents proud. Good luck everyone !!! You can do this !!!💗💗

PS: If there is anything more you wanna know feel free to comment below or email me.📧

Update (13-08-2019)

How I did A/Ls- Part 2
Time management for A/L students
How to gett 90+ for GCE A/L Chemistry paper