Who out there is writing matric this year? ME!

I do the following subjects: Maths, English, Afrikaans, Computer Studies, Music, Science and Additional Maths.

The final's timetable is as follow's: (this is jus an exert)

Tuesday 26th Oct:
Maths HG Algerbra

Wednesday 27th Oct:
Music Paper 1 (3 hours)
Music Paper 2 (1.5 hours)
Additional Mathematics HG (3 hours)

Thursday 28th Oct:
Afrikaans Paper 2 (3 hours)

Friday 29th:
Mathematics Paper 2 (3 hours)

WFT!!!! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE 3 FUCKING PAPERS IN ONE DAY!!! PLUS WRITE ALL THE OTHER ONES AROUND IT AND STILL BE ABLE TO FUNCTION!!!!

My friends and I are now screwed...the government won't change it because they are too bloody lazy! We're going to fail those exams!

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

edit : changed # to 3

Think of it this way... at least you'll be finished all your papers in one week.

Seriously though, that sucks. I remember when I did matric (waaaaaaay back in 91) our exams were very spaced out, almost as spaced out as we were when we finished.

Good luck!

when my dad was in university, he wrote 9 exams in 5 days.

when i was in university, i had crappy timetables also. but hey, i studied, and i passed.

you've got almost 2 months before you write those papers. instead of moping, use those 2 months to prepare yourself.

when i was in matric, i was ready for my finals by the time i wrote my trials. i could have sat for the final exams any day after my trials, and done just as well. you should be that prepared also. if you're not, work at it. bitching wont help any, so dont waste time on it.

good luck

well considering this is the bitch and moan section i decided to add my 2c. Its not the learning part...its the fact that I write 3 exams in one day with exams all around. I dont have the stamina to function.

i've written 3 exams in one day at stellies university. sat 9am then noon, then 7pm, on a bloody saturday nogal. damn did we get pissed afterwards tho :-)

dude for my BSc Comp Sci subjects at UPE I did 12 subjects in 7 days...

Math 2, Algorithmics, Advanced Programming, Stats 2, Web Design and Networks.

Each with 2 modules.

still passed all... guess you should start studying like a poes!

Vuilbek !!!

Lol Jumba, at least you waited until after your exams, I remember getting really creative with my creative writing exam...

Don't be negative, study hard, and you will make it - and dont do what I did and leave the toughest shit for the end - that really messed me up.

im only in matric! not even univercity...its not supposed to be like this. How the hell am i supposed to get into univercity with shit like this I basically feel this is hectically unfair! Neways...off to study i guess...

Anyone else feel like bitching bout Education Department? Feel free to post. I wanna no if im alone in this...

ps Shot for support

Heh... I guess it all depends on what you are looking for as well...

My subjects were:

1. English
2. Afrikaans
3. German
4. Science
5. Mathematics (evil shit)
6. Computers

I wanted to go into IT after school, so when it came to exam time, and my time was limited, I didnt do any kind of studying for the languages, because for my mock exam (which I hadn't leanred for really), I passed those subjects with ease.

So basically, I focused on studying for the "scientific" subjects instead, and passed with varsity exemption...

Uuh are you writing GDE or IEB?

Im assuming GDE coz Im not writing IEB. What the difference?

It may seem like a lot, but when you do get to varsity (assuming you actually pass matric ), this kind of thing is commonplace. I've written a couple of exams a day for a week solid, and I still passed. Just chill and start preparing asap, you'll be fine; and always think of how great your first pint will go down after your last paper

Son the fact that ur writing all the maths papers on one day is not a bad thing first off learning for admaths will aid you in the other maths papers that you will write. Another bonus about writing them on the same day is ur brain will be in maths mode for the two subsequent maths papers.

Before you ask WTF (who the frick) is he. I did admaths and it was a great help for standard maths.


Nows a better time than ever to get used to this, depending on what you study your going to have to work through the night to get projects reports finished. Some days you will have exams, projects and reports due. But all in all you manage to get it all done and pass everything.

So I am pretty sure you will kick both maths and admaths in the balls and pass matric. Fear not the world is not ending.

/me thinks he should be a motivational speaker.

Heh... another thing, Klepht - if you think that the stress you are experiencing now is something, wait until you get into the real world.

I have the exact same problem as you Klepht

I also do maths, add maths and well as afrikaans and have to put up with them all basically in a row, in the same week.

It shouldn't be too much trouble but with the way my prelims are going I'm not too sure anymore, left out 45% of the Maths second paper that I wrote on Friday.

I was told that they released the time table early so if there are any major complaints they can still change it, doesn't look like that's gonna happen though.

The point is that the stress at this point is unnessassary. I know everything gets worse but as it gets worse I learn to deal with it. Thats how life works. I feel this maybe is too much of a big jump in stress levels.

Sorry to hear bout that Azgard. I also hate paper 2. It costs me soo much every year in exams. If you feel the pain of writing those exams all in a row add 2 music exams on the same day as add maths. It a pain!

Get used to not getting stressed out in little doses. Things don't work that way, and they have not for a while... Just remember, as much as you may be suffering now, one day you will look back and see that Matric is a joke - serias!


They say that the average difference between your prelim marks and finals differs by about 5%... I say they are full of shit instead, because I more than doubled my Math marks from prelims to finals... and ja, I failed prelims miserably in terms of Math.

I don't want to sound like a dipcheese here, but you can't really prepare for maths a few day before. You should really get a grip on all the things you need to know long before that. Like Ravilj also said, having all your math papers so close will keep you in super math brain mode so you will do better in them.

Well thats good, shows other people it can be done, so I might still have a chance of getting a distinction for maths



I haven't always done so bad in paper two but in Matric maths they teach you a few new principles in trig. and geometry and they expect you to be able to do questions that are much harder than what you couldn't even do before.

I'll have to wait and see how badly I did, only have about two weeks to wait.

good luck Azgard

as a voluntary student advisor (its more an experiement than anything else) anyway, i VERY often deal with students who consider dropping maths altoghether (this also means dropping science for anyone who doesnt know this), do your best to pass, ofcourse the more the better, but doing maths and just passing is worth a lot more than not doing it at all (ironically most of the students i 'advise' are not your 5% maths students either, the majority of them range from those who just pass to about 65% avg. they just want to drop cause they feel the effort outweighs the benefit of it..)

Scale it out, dont be intimidated by what you're learning and take it on like a mofo, it might sound messed up, but enjoy it, it'll make things far, far easier than resisting it..



best of luck..

www.sosmaths.com <-- worth a look

dont anyone get me wrong...i love my maths! I really dig it! I do get on average 90% for maths. Still, I dont know how Im gonna cope with that week of exams. I wrote a 3 hour computer prac and a 3 hour add maths exam on the same day and I was finished! I could not concentrate for the life of me!

Hikizume: Any tips on maintaining concentration?

i dont think theres anything i can tell you that you dont already know..

but anyway, i'll try..

o.k in order to do something, you must understand what it actually is and what it involves.. i.e look up concentration in the dictionary (it may sound like a silly excercise, but there have been books written on this very thing)

Im sure some of us have to deal with people several times a day who are busy doing many things at once, including listening to you or whatever the case and im sure we've at some point experienced the consequences of this action, usually resulting in a mess up or misunderstanding of whatever was arranged or discussed.. ( im not saying multi-tasking is recipe for disaster, im just saying it takes practice and its not too wise gambling on your capacity to do this when you cant afford to have to deal with the actions of it possibly not working out )

I dont want to stray to far off, but what im saying is, the very idea of concentration is to withdraw from other activities so as to deal with particular ones more effectively.. Its about focusing your mind on relevant things and excluding your focus from others... a working example would be, take note of the exam you have tomorrow, but dont focus on it.. Theres nothing you can do about that right now, so just put your focus in the only place where your concentration will be of any use.. this could be studying before the exam, or even while writing one, the idea still remains, concentrate and focus on whats at hand at that moment, its the only area your efforts can produce results at that particular time..

Dont allow yourself to be distracted for too long.. its much harder to get into the swing of things when you allow yourself to stray.. Taking a break is important yes, this can be a few minutes during the exam, while studying etc. but do still try and maintain a certain amount of focus on the task at hand, dont just bomb out completely, like i already said, its harder to get back into it if you've gone too far into lax mode.. (i hope this makes sense)

its really just about striking a balance between, work, interest, concentration and focus..

If you ever look into any of these things, you'll see, its all very controllable..

Some of what you say seems more related to fatigue ( im assuming so since you seemingly do have healthy academic results ), its pretty simple; fatigue is overcome with good regular sleeping patterns, balanced diet and so forth, just dont over do it on whatever energy supplements you may take, this can be very distracting and the same applies for any calming substances too.. I dont generally recommend any, but its up to you in the end whether or not you feel you can benefit from them..

i hope i have helped and that all this makes sense, i didnt include as much as i could have, but im sure you can source far more detailed and richer information around the web, in your library etc.

Hopefully the sparse information ive provided will help you at least a little bit..

once again, best of luck..




EDIT: just saw this thread here specfically on this topic, it doesnt seem to be heading to anything constructive, so im not going to post there.. however you may take a look at it if you like..