You will just have to wait a few years to find out how much fun loud 50 year olds can be.

My grade D O'level in religious studies has been of no handicap through my career to date, any more than I'd expect a grade D in poetry GCSE will be to you*.

Push hard for good grades in Maths, English language, and all three sciences (but especially physics), and so long as you have a good set, you should be fine. The occasional failure in less important subjects should do you no real harm (although clearly a good set of GCSE and then A level results will help you stand out).

I agree with everybody else who thinks that you should do A levels. One further pointer however - for goodness sake get somebody to teach you how to use an apostrophe properly before any future English exams of any description :{

G


*I confess, I often read poetry for pleasure (currently working through an anthology of Scottish island poetry in a mixture of English and Scots) - but as an academic subject it's horrible. I doubt very much that many, if any, of the world's great poets studied it as an academic subject. Do your best, but really really, nobody in the real world will give a damn how well you did in that exam, certainly not once you have your A levels as well.

Sorry, please point out the apostrophe mistake, I genuinely want to know where I made it wrong. Thanks. Laughed very much at Mad Jocks last reply :)
Just wondering what you think I should take at A-Level. I am looking at Maths, Physics, Geography, and possibly Chemistry, but, not quite sure. If I do chem at AS level, I'll probably drop it at A-Level, but, please tell me what you'd recommend
Thanks

A-levels: Maths, Physics, and any other stuff you'll enjoy and get good grades in.

Use of the apostrophe! It has two purposes - the possessive, and where a word is abbreviated.

So: possessive:

Owners not ending with S: Steve's boat, George's aeroplane, the aeroplane's wing.

Owners ending with S (often plurals): the clubs' members, Dennis' jumper

A distinction here:

the club's members (the members of one club)
the clubs' members (the members of several clubs)


And where a word is abbreviated:

that's (that is), it's (it is), 'though (although)

(incidentally, an exception - "its" means "belonging to it", and you don't use an apostrophe there. Just learn it!)


But you don't, ever, under any circumstances, use an apostrophe to denote plural: so "GCSE's" means "belonging to the GCSE", and the correct plural of GCSE is GCSEs"

Unless, possibly, you are running a market stall! Hence this mis-use often being referred to as the "Grocer's apostrophe" (or possibly the "Grocers' apostrophe", since most of them seem to do it.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...he_798439c.jpg

Sadly, many of your teachers probably don't know this either, since they went to school in the 1970s and 1980s like me, when teaching grammar and punctuation had become unfashionable. I was lucky enough to have decent English beaten into me by a succession of old fashioned senior engineers in the first half dozen years of my working life.

G

Get a really good headset, ideally an ANR one. You'll thank yourself for that investment for the rest of your life if you are going to do a lot of flying in a noisy cockpit.

G

Pilots are a fabulous lot. Whether they're got PhDs in aerodynamics or left school with little in the way of qualifications, you'll find that we can all talk on near-equal terms. Do what you're good at; or like. Not what'll get you meaningless A grades.

And M-J is one of the most entertaining but informative posters on Pprune. Once you've appropriately filtered his posts you'll find he talks a lot of sense.

Thank you all so, so much for the help. Thanks G for the apostrophe lesson, I may well get better grades in my GCSEs now. And thank you to every one else who contributed.
One last question though, Genghis The Engineer, are you the one, or one of a group of people, who started PPRune? Just seems like you have many posts, and, whenever I have a question, you are normally the one who comes out with one of the most informative answers, although everyone does help in their own way

No, I've been a member of Pprune for a long time (around 14 years I think) but the board is a few years older than that.

I've had the privilege of a very good professional education; I'm also a compulsive over-communicator, and an aviation obsessive. By posting a lot on Pprune, I avoid my friends and family being driven up the wall ! Hopefully I also do a little good.

Pprune was originally created by Danny Fyne (who currently posts as Danny2) and Robin Lloyd (who currently posts as Pprune Towers) - both great guys, and by all accounts very good pilots as well. But, they're not me.

G

Okay, thanks, and, are you a pilot, or just have very extensive knowledge of the subject? if so, commercial? who do you fly with etc. You seem far too well informed to just be the average joe

He'll be far too modest so allow me. Graduate aeronautical engineer. PhD aeronautics (very good too; I should know I was his external examiner); Boscombe Down flight test engineer; CPL and instructor; manager of a major national aircraft asset; aircraft owner; etc, etc, etc. I've embarassed him enough now....:E

To be honest you could cherry-pick any number of Ppruners and write a cv that's the same, only different. You'll figure out who to listen to yourself:ok:

Something along the lines of what my good friend I-M just said. I've basically done nothing but play with aeroplanes for the last 22 years. Even better, I get paid for most of it. I recommend the lifestyle.

I don't think that there are that many people in the UK with both PhDs in aeronautics and professional flying licences - maybe half a dozen. Although since he's embarrassed me, I'll point out that India-Mike is one of the others, as well as being one of the UK's leading researchers in rotary wing flight mechanics :}

Now, what the heck were we actually talking about?

G

Wow! That's extremely impressive. This Sorry, I keep thinking of more questions, this isn't really related to previous posts, and, it probably doesn't belong in this section, but, it's just a quick one.
I need a class one medical, and, for some reason, Needles scare the living bejeezus out of me. I was wondering what kind of injections and tests etc they needed to do on me. Blood tests aren't too bad, but, I read somewhere about a radiation injection with a huge syringe. Now, that's not going to put me off doing what I want to do, I was just wondering if someone could explain so I know what to expect.
Thanks

Just a blood test, doesn't hurt much.

Look the other way, and grip something hard! It's worked for me for years - I hate needles.

G

Its not the needle that you need to worry about, its the finger up the bum.

^^^^^^^^
Just 1 finger? Lucky you

I do maths, physics, geography and Spanish a-levels. Physics is difficult at a-level. It went from being my easiest subject at GCSE to the hardest at a-level. I like maths a lot, lots of logic to it and I genuinely find it interesting.

I've done the class 1, it's not too bad and no finger up the bum thank god!!! and only a pin prick for me. No huge needles or anything. I did mine in June so I doubt it will have changed since then. For what it's worth I hated poetry aswell and somehow managed to pull a B out the bag at GCSE after Ds and Es in the mocks. It can be done :ok: