Eating Salad Alone in an Empty Classroom Every Lunch to Fight Afternoon Drowsiness: IB Chemistry 7 & Global Medical/Pharmacy Acceptance Story
Contents
- 1. What Comes Before Past-Paper Drilling: “Until You Can Explain It to Someone Else”
- 2. Inside Her Actual GoodNotes Mistake Notebook & Daily Volume Targets
- 3. Running to an Empty Classroom Every Lunch to Eat Only Salad and Solve Problems
- 4. IB Chemistry 7, Global Medical/Pharmacy Offers & Waking Up Her Juniors
Hello! This is JjangJi Edu (JjangJi Science), where we teach IB Chemistry, AP Chemistry, IB Biology, and AP Biology to international and overseas high school students worldwide.
Every year we send graduates off to top medical, dental, and pharmacy schools around the globe—yet sometimes, the quiet discipline a student practiced behind closed doors moves us even more deeply than the acceptance letters themselves.
Today we share the unedited reflection and actual GoodNotes chemistry notebook of a student who achieved a Grade 7 in IB Chemistry and earned offers across top global pharmacy and biomedical programs—including UCL, King’s College London (KCL), Nottingham Pharmacy, Monash Pharmacy, Sydney Pharmacy, and Boston University (BU).
First, watch her 55-second highlight story below:
1. What Comes Before Past-Paper Drilling: “Until You Can Explain It to Someone Else”
As IB Final Exams approach, nearly every international school student feels a wave of anxiety—tempting many to skip thorough concept mastery and rush straight into solving stacks of past papers.
Right at the beginning of her reflection, she gave her juniors this essential piece of advice:
“Looking back on IB Chemistry, solving past papers repeatedly is important—but studying each chapter until you can explain every concept out loud to someone else comes first! As IB Finals approach, students get anxious and blindly rush through past papers while skipping solid concept study.”
Across IB/AP Chemistry and IB/AP Biology, students who consistently score 7s and 5s share one habit: before touching past papers, they can stand in front of a blank page and articulate every particle-level mechanism and experimental graph like an instructor.
2. Inside Her Actual GoodNotes Mistake Notebook & Daily Volume Targets
Below is a page from the actual iPad GoodNotes IB Chemistry notebook she kept during high school:
Whenever she encountered a difficult problem, she followed two non-negotiable rules:
- Never Say “It’s Hard, I’ll Look at It Later”: Every tough question went straight into a dedicated mistake notebook and was resolved on the spot before moving on.
- Daily Page Targets Instead of Self-Satisfying ‘Study Hours’: Instead of measuring how many hours she sat at a desk for self-satisfaction, she set a strict daily target of problem-set pages to complete before calling it a day.
3. Running to an Empty Classroom Every Lunch to Eat Only Salad and Solve Problems
The part of her message that moved both me and her juniors the most was her lunchtime routine:
At eighteen years old—when anyone would want to eat a warm lunch and chat with friends—she ate only salad at lunch so she wouldn’t feel drowsy during afternoon classes, running to an empty classroom every lunch break to eat alone while solving math and chemistry problems.
In that single sentence—“To avoid getting drowsy in the afternoon, I ate only salad at lunch and ran to an empty classroom every lunch break to solve math and chemistry problems alone”—lay the entire secret behind her Grade 7.
4. IB Chemistry 7, Global Medical/Pharmacy Offers & Waking Up Her Juniors
Those quiet lunch hours in an empty classroom blossomed into a perfect 7 in IB Chemistry and simultaneous acceptances to top pharmacy and biomedical programs across the UK, Australia, and the US.
When I shared her reflection with her juniors, the entire class sat up straight. When I told her how much it woke them up, she replied with a laugh: “Haha I think I was just born with a stubborn drive! Thank you so much, Teacher!”
We have no doubt that the discipline forged over those solo salad lunches will make her an extraordinary healthcare professional!
For 1:1 and small-group IB Chemistry, AP Chemistry, IB Biology, and AP Biology course inquiries and our full archive of global medical and pharmacy acceptance stories, visit our official website and YouTube channel below:
- 🌐 JjangJi Edu Official Website: https://www.jjangji.com/en/
- 🎬 YouTube Shorts Highlight: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qnJnx1gNqDM
10+ years dedicated instruction in AP, IB, and A Level Chemistry.
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