A definitive guide of where not to revise this exam fortnight

The festive season is over and between all the drunken merriment and copious amounts of food, your brain totally removed the thought of January exams. Well now you have less than a week until they begin and everything just got very real, very quickly. Fear not, you can save this and though the cramming you’re about to embark upon may be temporarily stressful, these exams don’t have to be a total disaster.

It is key to find the right space to revise in, so here is a comprehensive guide to the places you should avoid altogether.

Home 

Yes, Christmas is the perfect time to be at home and enjoy the free heating, but when it’s time to revise it might not be your best option. Full of the kind of distractions uni offers you escape from: your parents nagging you about what you’re going to do when your degree is over; your sister bragging about how perfectly her graduate scheme is going and friends who aren’t students convincing you to go to your local club even though you know it’s going to be a bit average.

Why do we even bother

Your uni room

The distractions at home were clearly too much for you so you venture back to Liverpool and settle down into your beloved Smithdown room. However, it turns out there are 500 new distractions here and it’s 10 degrees colder so you’re mostly concentrating on not getting pneumonia. You’ve certainly had enough of hearing about Beth’s family trip to Iceland over Christmas and Jack only had Coursework modules in first semester so him and his course mates are having loud pre drinks whilst you try to learn about Soviet Russian economic policies. Quite frankly, it’s all too much so you sack it all in and watch Netflix.

The Guild courtyard 

There’s only one thing for it, you need to get yourself out of the house. You head down to the Guild courtyard and optimistically treat yourself to a hot chocolate from the Starbucks opposite. However, it appears half the Liverpool student population have decided to join and you waste half your time looking for a place to begin your revision session. Finally you find a seat and get an hour or so of decent work done. Once 5pm hits, they’ve turned the lights off so you can’t see anything and they’re playing a mixture of 90’s R&B and weird acoustic covers of pop music far louder than necessary. There’s a high chance you’re going to burst in to tears as you realise the Courtyard was a poor choice and another day is wasted.

I’m going to sleep

Library social study areas

“Why are there are never any tables in the silent study zone?” you ask yourself as you awkwardly sit opposite a stranger with no sense of personal space. You manage to get a little bit of work done but in the time it takes for you go to the toilet and back the stranger has been joined by a gang of friends. Naturally they all decide to take up more space and give up on their own revision to have a gossip about who’s shagging who on their Physiotherapy course. You wish you got up early enough to secure a seat in the silent zone, as you become totally distracted and emotionally invested in the conversation these strangers are having.

“Babes he is NOT worth it”

The library you don’t belong in

While some might say a change of scenery is good, when it comes to the library we suggest you stick with what you know. If you’re an arts student stay in the Sydney Jones, the Harold Cohen will only cause you a great deal of discomfort, stress and the kind of turmoil you want to avoid during this stressful exam period. It also will not contain any of the books you didn’t read in first semester.

Trying to blend in

In a study room you haven’t booked

“Fuck it” you think to yourself, “I didn’t book one but I’m taking a study room anyway.” You get yourself organised, spread your books and revision tools across the desk and post a picture to your snapchat story. Ten minutes later in walks a gang of Marketing students who have a presentation due in the morning. They aggressively point their iPhones at you with an e-mail proving they’d booked the room – which you didn’t even ask to see. You have to gather your belongings in a rush with more books in your hand than you can possibly carry and drop them all on the way out like Gabriella and her sheet music in High School Musical (the Marketing students, unlike Troy, don’t help you out).

“Okay if they come in don’t look at them and maybe they’ll just leave”

In a study room you have booked

The only thing worse than a study room you haven’t booked is one you have. Stressed out passers by look at you like you’re an over organised weirdo. How dare you be so prepared as to book a study room? You become an animal trapped behind a pane of glass in the zoo that is the Sydney Jones.

Surveying all that is yours for your allotted hour

The 699 on the way to your exam

It’s too late. Give up. Your only option now is to blag it entirely.

Don’t do it