The former Ashton International College pupil matriculated from the school last year.
He aced 11 distinctions in the 2013 Cambridge International Examinations, for mathematics, mathematics A-level, English, geography, geography A-level, chemistry, chemistry A-level, physics, accounting, Afrikaans and computer studies.
Nathan found his exams at various degrees of difficulty.
“Some exam papers were easy (the vast minority) and a lot were on another level of difficult.
“I remember stopping mid-way through one of my five chemistry papers and thinking, “Gosh, how am I supposed to know how terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol react together to form a condensation polymer?”
“I sat there for about five minutes looking around at my fellow peers who were as stumped as I was.
“I never did complete that question.
“The exams were tough, taxing and mind-numbing.
“I would get home and stare blankly into the abyss for half an hour, while my brain recovered from the onslaught of a particularly difficult exam.”
Nathan, who was the school’s headboy, swam for the school (swimming captain for 2013) and participated in drama and debating, cautioned matrics to not take too much on their plates.
“I would caution students in matric to avoid too many sporting or cultural activities; these after school extra-murals at times take presidence over one’s academics, to one’s detriment,” he said.
Nathan said you need to be a driven and passionate person, with a tremendous amount of ambition, to achieve good matric results.
“The distinctions will take care of themselves; the key is to believe wholeheartedly that you are a capable individual (everyone is truly able to attain excellent matric results),” he said.
