Good luck to all of you out there who are taking your 0500 paper 1 tomorrow!

I trust it’s going to be an interesting experience, and as you go into the exam, go in the knowledge that you have already prepared your very best, but do remember some of the following small things.

Remember to read your questions.

When you are navigating, you need an address. If you don’t have the address, it doesn’t matter where you go, what you do, at the end of the day, you still won’t get to where it is that you want to go.

So, learn what you’re supposed to do, read the questions carefully, and then go in that direction.

Don’t just throw yourself along a path while hoping that you’ll get somewhere, because you definitely won’t.

Next tip, make sure to plan out your answers.

I know it’s very easy to just think that you should go in guns blazing, writing as fast as you possibly can, but really, planning out something can be helpful in a whole bunch of different ways.

I can’t remember who it was, but someone, perhaps it was Lincoln, said that if you were given 6 hours to chop down a tree, he would spend the first 4 sharpening the axe.

Obviously, you don’t have 4 hours during the course of your IGCSE exam, and if you try that, then you’ll be off and with no grade. So please don’t follow that advice literally; on the metaphorical front, do take some time to think about what you’re going to say, because that is going to pay dividends down the line when you structure, have a clear idea, and then finish in time.

Next tip, make sure to think about time.

Generally, each of the sections that you complete can be thought of as a 40-minute section, a 40-minute section, and a 40-minute section, respectively for your reading comprehension and then summary, then your reading comprehension, and then explanation and writer’s effect, and then finally, the extended response to reading.

Budget your time well, and make sure that you are going ahead and just ensuring that you have ample time to respond.

Next tip, when you are reading, make sure not to deceive yourself.

Remember that you are reading a text. This is not a time for you to impose your own opinions.

It is a time for you to understand, to retrieve, and from there to synthesize. It’s not time to start campaigning.

None of you are going to become Greta Thunbergs and simultaneously obtain an A-star if the cause that you are going for is environmental science when in fact the paper was actually about running a marathon. It doesn’t work that way.

My last tip, just go in with a sense that you are going to learn something along the way and that you’ve already done your best.

So treat it as a good time to go in, enjoy some interesting text, write a response, and know that you’ve already done your best by that point because it is going to be the best that you’ve done by that point.

You can’t really change anything.

I have no idea if any of you are going to retake things but that’s a separate question. Go in with a feeling that this exam will not determine your life because certainly it won’t. It may decide the kind of grade that you eventually get but that at the end of the day isn’t really going to be consequential relative to the other things that could ostensibly affect your life.

So just go in with the knowledge that it’s going to be an interesting time and that there is going to be something cool to gain right here and enjoy yourself.

That’s all there is.

Alright, good luck everyone, have a great time and I look forward to seeing you on the other side!