Things that prelimmers never say

Prelims: irrelevant? Unnecessary? Worth the stress? Worth the hours of procrastination, subsequent stress and downward spiral into crippling inadequacy?

Now that you might have experienced them in all their glory… you may/may not be familiar with a few of these classic quotes:

“I’m so happy that I’ve got the Lent holidays to revise!”

Let’s be real. Your ‘three days off’ inevitably lapsed into a three week long binge of doing fuck all, revising sprawled in front of day time television with your textbook lying open a few odd meters away, close enough to give off the impression of having at least ‘looked over’ a topic, but not too close to prompt inevitable panic of how little you actually know. After those three weeks concluded, you made the mistake of looking in your subject group chat and come to the valid confusion that you’re done for.

“I’ll make a revision timetable to nail that work/leisure balance over the hols!”

After running out of font colours to categorise your topics and will to live and after feigning attempts at inventing ingenious, novel revision stategies… you will find your mouse flitting to the red x in the corner. Delete spreadsheet. Fuck it, you’ll freestyle.

“I work better at home than at Cambridge”

After eating approximately 10,000 calories in snacks, collecting your books ready to work via a 30 minute long chat with your siblings or pet you finally sit down and open the textbook and group chat simaultaneously and begin scrolling. Repeat x 10. It’s called multitasking.

“I’m going to do every past paper ever, so I’m prepared for whatever!!”

Reality is, you’ve probably not even logged into Moodle yet. You probably have never even seen a past paper before and probably intend to keep it that way. If you have indeed ventured into the previously unchartered depths of Moodle, you probably made a swift retreat at the sight of Question 1 from the 2012 exam, sure bodes well for this year.

“I won’t be going home this holiday…because I’m staying in Cambridge there will be 0 distractions so I’ll revise all day!”

You arrive at the library, you’re one of the only ones there. You pull out your books then pause to admire your library aesthetic. You check no prying neighbour is looking, then snap the obligatory Insta story. Perfect in showing that you are indeed ‘hard at work’. Plus it has an added intimidation factor to make your fellow course-mates fear your drive and determination to succeed…. An hour later you’re on your college brother’s younger sister’s Instagram, have placed a rouge ASOS order and you’re exhausted and hungry. So very hungry. A break (or multiple) is definitely needed. Why didn’t you leave Cambridge again?

“So looking forward to having a mad rest of the term”

After having finished your exams in Week 1, you will have earned the enmity of pretty much everyone bar the few Englings and Historians; i.e nothing in the face of the sea of NatSci’s who throng the ground floor of the library where they shall thereby remain until June, or so it seems. And with C Sunday getting ever closer, the end of fun as you may choose to describe it, is nigh and signals the start of your lonesome existence frolicking Cambridge free of cares, lightly burdened by the odd deadline and supervision, sans pals.

“It’s impossible to fail!”

Watch me stack the exam and become the first prelim ever to cock it all up. There always has to be a first one. That said, this excuse makes a very comforting to justify your slow progress throughout the holidays as you find yourself yet again knee deep in Facebook, three hours behind schedule.

“When do the results get back? I just want to know what mark I got!! ”

It’s a pass and a fail. Let’s not muck about with this “high pass” crap and repeat this foolproof mantra to ourselves; a pass is a pass, prelim’s don’t count.

Sit back, relax and enjoy the rest of term; the hard part’s over.

Now I’m off to make the most of this free term, and being the scourge of everyone else’s exam term. Whilst they have their face stuck in a textbook, us prelimmers will be out enjoying the sunshine. Don’t worry though, of course we’ll make sure to post it on instagram for you.