5 People You Turn Into During Exams

Exams bring our holidays to a depressing end with a realisation that January is one of the shittest months of the year: it’s cold, dark, and your bed has never been more appealing.

As copious amounts of students flock to the library, laptop and headphones in hand, we all lose a sense of who we really are in this stressful period.

Here are five of the worst people we turn into during exams:

The Revision-Shamer

Waggling your finger won’t make you any friends

 You’ve been on the ball this term. You have all your topics categorised by the date of the exam, the weighting of the mark and by your personal preference.

Sticking to your revision timetable was a hard and stressful experience but, now that you feel on track with your progress, you feel the need to flaunt your preparation in everybody else’s face.

As your weary housemate approaches the kitchen at 12pm, ready to resume the cycle of coffee and cramming, you happily boast about how you’ve “been up since 9, bossed two topics and have managed to fit in a quick gym sesh”.

Revision and Yoga? No challenge for a Revision-shamer

It’s great that you’re so productive, but please fuck off rather than being outraged at your fellow student’s lack of preparation – “your exam’s in a week and you haven’t started?!” – maybe that’s because some of us had better ways to spend our time than reciting our seminar notes backwards … (like scouring online sales to find the ultimate bargain in the Urban Outifitter’s sale).

The Procrastinator

A JMU mug will remind you of where you would’ve ended up without revision

You spend more time moaning about the amount you have to revise than actually doing so.

You will take on any new hobby and interests to avoid the library or revision – suddenly, it seems like an appropriate time to start watching Breaking Bad.

Tetris is a favourite for the procrastinators of the Sydney Jones

Your cooking has never been better – eating a luxurious brunch of eggs benedict every morning and preparing a tempting tray of coffee and biscuits for everyone else in your house with the hope that they too will have reached procras-nirvana – an unreturnable and defeated state of mind.

“I’ll get started on revision just after I’ve visited the drive-thru”

The Peacock

You’ve discovered that in some shallow form of magic that the prettier your stationery is, and the more colourful your bullet points and flash cards are, the better your results.

Instagramming your revision is guaranteed to get you a better mark

The staff at Paperchase welcome you with open arms, and your friends look enviously at your alphabetised notepad of “handy quotes” copied out in skilful calligraphy which you could never hope to achieve during the exam word-vomit where you’re lucky if you can find time to scrawl it into your answer – if you manage to remember it!

And whilst you’ve spent your weekly food-budget on beautiful revision ephemerae you’re eventually brought to the harsh reality that gel pens really can’t pass your exams for you.

A Peacock’s artwork … I mean … “revision” is even scented

The “Blagger”

What exams?

 “I’ve just been sleeping and going to the pub” – yeah, in an alternate universe where your friends aren’t also chained to their desks for a month, arduously copying out PowerPoints from lectures you now wish you’d attended.

Nobody has a social life during exams, Instagram and Facebook may be telling you otherwise, but they’re probably just backlogged pictures from New Years Eve, or a “spontaneous” night out well-deserved after a long day dedicated to revision.

No matter how much somebody boasts about how little they’ve been working, they’re bullshitting or secretly freaking out about the lack of work they have done whilst putting on a cocky bravado.

“I haven’t even touched a book this holidays”

The Crammer

A Crammer’s diet

 Maybe you were prioritising your other exams, maybe you had a family crisis or were in Dubai for Christmas, or maybe you were just really lazy – but you have left any concept of revision to the last minute.

It seemed that every time you tried to approach your notes, or log into VITAL, something cropped up – you’d forgotten your password, the book wasn’t in the library or you just needed a day where you didn’t do anything (and a few more after that).

Now that exams are approaching, and I mean in less time than it takes for Moyes to fuck-up Man U, you need to up your game.

You don’t leave your room, unless it is for coffee or food – supernoodles are your 5-a-day as everything else takes too much time to make. Like a cyborg you: eat, sleep, revise, repeat – hoping desperately for a miracle that will ignite your unknown super-power of photographic memory.

As you have become nocturnal, with 3am being your peak of productivity, you manage cut off everybody around you and essentially disappear into a revision-void consumed by your own lack of planning until January is over.

Hopefully nobody will notice a few extra notes you brought into the exam