A Level students: it's a wonder we haven't all stopped bothering to continue our existence...

There's a frightening phenomenon sweeping the A Level students at my college right now, and possibly A Level students in general. Few are immune to its effects and it has felled even the hardiest of students. Experienced to an only too real extent by many, it's a deadly affliction more commonly known by its acronym: CBA syndrome.

Can't. Be. Arsed.

Oh yes. It's a spate of missed homeworks, ignored set reading, dozing in lessons and doing coursework at midnight because it took that long to find the enthusiasm. It's the slipping of grades, a smattering of failed mock tests and a deluge of less than satisfactory comments on reports - "Her last French vocabulary test was not up to standard. She needs to focus a little more..."

Barely a week goes by when we don't hear about a new ground-breaking scientific study - 'Scientists have conducted new research that suggests obesity may be linked to eating too much...' - but it seems nobody's taken the time to pin down the causes of this worrying condition. So it seems it must fall to me to examine just what is behind this plummeting motivation of students. If I can muster up the energy.

Ironically, this is just the time when a lack of interest in work is really not a good thing. On the brink of university, if that is the plan, getting the right results is essential. These are our lives we're talking about. My conscience pipes up with the fact that I made more effort when I was doing SATs, whose only purpose was to determine what set I'd be put in next year and to make my school look impressive. So why throw it all away on teenage apathy?

But it isn't just teenage apathy. Sure, if you could see me sitting in bed on my laptop with the pathetic beginnings of an essay open in Word, and fifteen infinitely more amusing tabs open on my internet browser, you'd find the excuse 'I didn't feel like working' incredibly lame. If the reason for my lack of essay had been, 'I sat at my desk for six hours straight desperately trying to think of something to say about Chaucer, and eventually abandonned the pursuit to sob into my textbook instead', I think some sympathy might be in order, but this is not the case. However, the power of academic lethargy should never be underestimated. Friends who have maintained their zeal for college work ask us poor, disenchanted souls, "Why don't you just DO your work when you get it?" If they seriously felt as strongly as I do sometimes about not wanting to write a 3000-word period and genre study, they'd put it off too. When every cell in your body protests loudly against the very idea, every key stroke is like pushing a boulder up a mountain. And students are not known for their willpower.

Perhaps it's got a lot to do with how high the stakes are at this point in education. As aforementioned, these qualifications are going to get us into the university of our choice. Failure to achieve the conditions of our offers means we'll wind up in Clearing - scratting around for something half decent in the handful of places left at universities which didn't manage to attract enough people. It's all getting rather serious, because our careers also hang on this. Back when we were five and starting out at school, adulthood seemed a million lightyears away and it was inconceivable that it would ever arrive. Now we're suddenly expected to make important decisions about where we're going in life. Rather than face up to all this, when the pressure gets this high is it not partially understandable that many metaphorically stick their fingers in their ears and shout "LA LA LA NOT LISTENING! My future, you say? I'm not even going to think about it!"?

I've mentioned that childish inability to believe that we'll be adults some day, when we first went to school. That time might have arrived all too quickly, but there's no escaping the fact that in reality that was a very long time ago. Are we as unmotivated students simply becoming all too aware of how much time we've now spent in education? Are we simply weary to the point of exhaustion with the whole routine? It's difficult to face up to the responsibilities of suddenly being classed as an adult, but quite easy to be filled with a sense of our own importance now we've reached that status. "I'm eighteen and I still have some teacher telling me off for talking in class? Puh-lease!" cries the arrogant voice in our heads. It tends to forget that the alternative is going out right now and getting a job, and that the real world is much worse than this place - that teacher, no matter how much of a bitch she is, has got our backs.

And the final reason for this slump in eagerness: perhaps a slight impatience is beginning to creep into our minds over the fact that we have to exercise effort in those subjects we won't be continuing with. We've spent so long trying to choose the best degree courses for us (don't even get me started on UCAS, that's enough to take the fight out of anybody) and now we just want to get there and devote our whole efforts to that subject. We want to specialise; we know where our interests lie and frankly all this other stuff can get irritating.

So there we go. The mass decline of application to work explained. But the picture's not quite so bleak as I've painted it. Some days we can bring ourselves to start our work when we get home. Most days I love college. It is possible to supress the sulky little person in the mind that's screaming "DON'T WANT TO!" It's just a bit of an uphill struggle, that's all. But I've heard that life gets much harder, unfortunately, so it looks like I, like everyone else, will just have to get used to it (and that thought alone is enough to make the sulky little mind-dwelling person take hold of the controls and refuse to ever work again...)