Advice for year 13

Year Thirteen is the last in a series of tough years where students take exams at the ages of sixteen, seventeen, and - finally - eighteen. If you're planning to go to university, you must send your UCAS applications off by the 26th of January, and you'll be told whether you've got in by the 19th May. You'll have till the 9th June to choose between your offers, if you have more than one. However, these are conditional offers, and there's always the risk of failing to 'make' the grades required.

Make a schedule: Learning how to structure a schedule will be hugely important in university or in your working life. Not only does this get the jobs done, it stops you from worrying in case there's something crucial you've forgotten!Here are a few tips to make it revision easier:

• Explore! If you're studying science, read the latest Richard Dawkins or Simon Singh; if it's politics, make sure you check a newspaper's website daily. Informal learning will let you put things into your exam answers that examiners haven't seen elsewhere - and it's easier to remember something you've been interested in.
• Do it for its own sake: If you're caught in a loop of negative thinking, such as 'If I don't do enough revision today, I won't do enough tomorrow, I'll fail the exam, not get into university, not get a job...' you'll be distracted from the task in hand. It's good to be ambitious, but it's even better to be able to focus on the here and now.