This year I only managed to find two paid jobs and they were both temporary jobs: I counted votes for the council elections on the night of the AV referendum and I completed surveys about people's opinions about a pub. I got paid £15 per hour to count votes because you have to stay up into the early hours of the morning counting the votes and they have trouble finding people to do this, so I definitely recommend doing this job if it comes up.
Nevertheless, I don't recommend working for companies, that ask you to complete surveys because I had so much trouble getting the company to pay me. I didn't fill out all of the surveys because I couldn't find enough people to ask in the time slots allocated for the surveys and they didn't say I had to fill out all the questionnaires, so at first they refused to pay me because they said that I hadn't done the job properly. They also said that I'd been rude to people, when I was filling out the surveys because some people had complained that I'd asked them, which age range they came under, even though they'd asked me to ask them those questions and they tried to use this fact as another reason to not pay me. It took me months to get this company to pay me and eventually I had to accept half the amount of money, they originally said they'd pay me, because it costs money and takes months to take it to a small claims court. I later discovered that a lot of companies, who employ people to carry out surveys, try to not pay you, if you didn't do the job properly, so please don't make my mistake.
Apart from having pocket money and the Job Seeker's Allowance, which I used to pay for Latin lessons, my other income came from doing online surveys. I admit that it doesn't bring in a great amount of income but I've earned about £90 in vouchers this year from doing these surveys. The advantages are that it's flexible and anyone can do them but the disadvantage is that there are so many questions, which they will ask you time and time again, so it can be tedious in that regard. In any case I thought I'd recommend some survey sites to any of you, who are interested in making some money in this way but do beware that most survey sites pay you with vouchers.
1. http://uk.toluna.com/ - Toluna offer some very quick polls as well as long and short surveys, which you can get points for, so it's quite easy to earn points with Toluna. In any case it still takes a good 3 months to get enough points to request a voucher.
2. http://uk.mysurvey.com/ - The MySurvey panel offer you the chance to convert your points into many different vouchers and many other rewards. They also give you points for trying to participate in the survey, if they decide you're not a suitable candidate for the survey.
3. http://www.iap-interactive.com/default.aspx?language=en-GB - Ipsos Access Panels offer you the chance to convert your points into a fair range of vouchers or indeed donations to some charities but they don't offer the same range of ways in which to convert your points as the MySurvey panel. They also give you points for attempting to participate in the survey, if you're not a suitable candidate for the survey.
4. www.onepoll.com - OnePoll give you short surveys to complete. You usually get something between £0.05 - £0.20 for each survey you manage to complete but you can also get vouchers, which allow you to be entered into prize draws. They offer you the chance to do surveys on almost every day of the working week. They give you £40, when you have completed enough surveys to earn this amount. Although I started a year ago, I haven't quite got my £40 but I'm less than £5 away from earning it!
5. http://www.opinionpanel.co.uk/future/ - The future panel is a panel, which seeks the opinion of young people, who are in higher education or planning to go on to further education. Because there is a low supply of these sorts of people they offer you a £1 Bonus Bond voucher for each survey you complete, so I recommend joining this panel, if you fit the criteria.
6. http://www.opinionworld.co.uk/ow/index.aspx?filterid=2078&chapterid=1075 - OpinionWorld offer you a fair range of vouchers and charitable donations, when you receive enough points to earn a reward but they don't give you points for trying to complete a survey, if they decide you don't fit the criteria wanted for a particular survey.
I've had rewards from all of the above apart from OnePoll but as I said before, I will soon receive a reward from them. In any case I hope this helps you! Please feel free to ask me any questions about taking a gap year, if you feel I have the relevant experience to answer your question.
Saturday 27 August 2011
Friday 26 August 2011
Results Day/ My grades
If you read my other blog/follow the Twitter count for my other blog, then you almost certainly saw the news that I got into Sussex. I'm happy that I got into Sussex because it was my first choice but I only met my offer because I only got the necessary sum of AABB. I know that I haven't got a bad set of grades but I would have liked to have 3As and a B or indeed 4 As.
I admit that I wasn't expecting an A for Maths because although I knew I was capable of getting that grade, I had to do the same papers as I did last year for S1 (ie. statistics) and I find S1 very boring. My best mark was in C3 (one of the pure and core Maths modules) and although this is partly because I prefer pure maths, it's also because I did OCR papers instead of doing Edexcel papers (which was my exam board for Maths) so that I didn't lose concentration by doing papers that I'd done time and time again. I'm starting to think that I should have done my maths modules in a different format though, I think I would have been better off doing C3 & C4 in January and then doing S1 & S2 (S2 is also a stats module) in the summer, then I would have had a more realistic chance of getting an A overall. I say this because I think it would have been a better idea to just concentrate on 2 modules instead of 3 at a time but also because although it's a good idea to do other board's papers for Maths, they structure each modules content in a different way, so that all the content on the paper is only relevant if you're doing either C3 & C4, S1 & S2 and so on at the same time.
Nevertheless, the marks for my Maths modules were on the whole better than the marks for my Latin modules. Admittedly I got 94% for the AS retake of my language paper but when it came to the 2 A2 papers, I got a high C for Prose Literature and a D for Verse Literature (although it was one mark off a C). So overall I got an average of C on my two A2 modules but I know I could have got As in both of them. I'd always known that I'd been at a disadvantage this year with Latin because I'd had a year out of it, and although you don't have to be able to actively speak the language, I found this particularly disadvantageous with Latin because since it's a dead language, I've only ever learnt it in passive form and it's very hard to learn any Latin outside of the translations you do and the texts you study because most of it is too hard for A2 students to read on their own. Admittedly you can get famous books such as Harry Potter, Winnie the Pooh etc., which have been translated into Latin but that's not so useful at A2 because the texts you're translating tend to be about love and wars and of course they don't tend to write in the typical style of Romans.
When I finished my summer exams, I began to realise that one of my main faults was that I undertook too much in the first term because I was revising for German and 3 Maths modules, learning Latin, doing driving lessons and working at the CAB. So if I could go back in time and change anything, I would have left driving for another time because I still haven't managed to pass my test and my parents admitted that although I might have been able to cope with driving and A-levels, if I'd been at school, they admitted it was too much for me, as someone who was having to teach herself. So my parents have paid for more than 60 hours of driving lessons, only to find that I've still not become a qualified driver, even if I have picked up some driving skills. I think my other main mistake was not discovering the library at the beginning of the school year and instead discovering it in the middle of the second term, when the chances of me getting an A for Latin had decreased because I hadn't been spending enough time going over my work and the course content (ie. the literature). The problem with regard
to going to library was that I usually have good memory and so I was relying too much on this asset, even though this asset became less reliable this year, when I had no one around me and I wasn't having 4 hours worth of lessons for Latin. I also hadn't realised just how hard it is to motivate yourself, when you're on your own. I think I would also have been able to get an A if I'd discovered the podcasts, that I mentioned in an earlier post, in the first term.
If you're doing anything like what I've done or plan to do so, I also recommend starting a blog because when you're on your own, it really helps you to put your problems into perspective and feel less plagued by your problems.
I admit that I wasn't expecting an A for Maths because although I knew I was capable of getting that grade, I had to do the same papers as I did last year for S1 (ie. statistics) and I find S1 very boring. My best mark was in C3 (one of the pure and core Maths modules) and although this is partly because I prefer pure maths, it's also because I did OCR papers instead of doing Edexcel papers (which was my exam board for Maths) so that I didn't lose concentration by doing papers that I'd done time and time again. I'm starting to think that I should have done my maths modules in a different format though, I think I would have been better off doing C3 & C4 in January and then doing S1 & S2 (S2 is also a stats module) in the summer, then I would have had a more realistic chance of getting an A overall. I say this because I think it would have been a better idea to just concentrate on 2 modules instead of 3 at a time but also because although it's a good idea to do other board's papers for Maths, they structure each modules content in a different way, so that all the content on the paper is only relevant if you're doing either C3 & C4, S1 & S2 and so on at the same time.
Nevertheless, the marks for my Maths modules were on the whole better than the marks for my Latin modules. Admittedly I got 94% for the AS retake of my language paper but when it came to the 2 A2 papers, I got a high C for Prose Literature and a D for Verse Literature (although it was one mark off a C). So overall I got an average of C on my two A2 modules but I know I could have got As in both of them. I'd always known that I'd been at a disadvantage this year with Latin because I'd had a year out of it, and although you don't have to be able to actively speak the language, I found this particularly disadvantageous with Latin because since it's a dead language, I've only ever learnt it in passive form and it's very hard to learn any Latin outside of the translations you do and the texts you study because most of it is too hard for A2 students to read on their own. Admittedly you can get famous books such as Harry Potter, Winnie the Pooh etc., which have been translated into Latin but that's not so useful at A2 because the texts you're translating tend to be about love and wars and of course they don't tend to write in the typical style of Romans.
When I finished my summer exams, I began to realise that one of my main faults was that I undertook too much in the first term because I was revising for German and 3 Maths modules, learning Latin, doing driving lessons and working at the CAB. So if I could go back in time and change anything, I would have left driving for another time because I still haven't managed to pass my test and my parents admitted that although I might have been able to cope with driving and A-levels, if I'd been at school, they admitted it was too much for me, as someone who was having to teach herself. So my parents have paid for more than 60 hours of driving lessons, only to find that I've still not become a qualified driver, even if I have picked up some driving skills. I think my other main mistake was not discovering the library at the beginning of the school year and instead discovering it in the middle of the second term, when the chances of me getting an A for Latin had decreased because I hadn't been spending enough time going over my work and the course content (ie. the literature). The problem with regard
to going to library was that I usually have good memory and so I was relying too much on this asset, even though this asset became less reliable this year, when I had no one around me and I wasn't having 4 hours worth of lessons for Latin. I also hadn't realised just how hard it is to motivate yourself, when you're on your own. I think I would also have been able to get an A if I'd discovered the podcasts, that I mentioned in an earlier post, in the first term.
If you're doing anything like what I've done or plan to do so, I also recommend starting a blog because when you're on your own, it really helps you to put your problems into perspective and feel less plagued by your problems.
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