Wednesday 3 February 2016

My First Exams and What I Learnt From Them

Well it's been quite a time since I last wrote.

The last time I posted was a few days before my exams started and I expressed how I wasn't feeling too stressed about things and that I was feeling pretty good.

Things didn't go the way I thought they would.

My Sunday before exams was planned out: go to work, tutor a student in my French class for our exam and then study math for myself.

My work shift is just 9am-12pm Sunday mornings, however I got myself into a bit of a jam because I took an extra shift right after.

They were desperate for someone else to work, so I step up because frankly, I need the money.

It wasn't too bad, but I ended up working 9am-5pm.

That set everything back at least three hours.

I only met my friend to help him study French at around 5:30 and we both had to leave at 7:15. 

I did as much as I could to help him prepare and taught him how to answer the question with the words already placed in the question.

I found out today once I walked past him in the hallway that he passed the exam which is great! He struggled with a failing grade for the majority of the semester, however he was able to bring it up in the end!

After I got home, I studied for math and then went to bed for a good night's rest before exams.

I woke up the day of my first exam feeling immensely sick.

The stomach flu had been going around just a few days before and I was convinced that I got sick myself.

There's not much you can do, you can't miss an exam unless a family member has passed away or that you're hospitalized. 

I went to school on Monday and wrote my first two exams, English then French, and felt progressively better throughout the day.

I thought I was getting better and went to bed early that night to be refreshed for my morning math exam on Tuesday.

I woke up and the stomach pains hit me harder than ever.

I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink, I had a headache and my mind was set that I had the flu.

Once again, nothing I could've done so I went to school.

I used my whole two hours to work on my math exam and when I walked out of the exam room, all of my symptoms disappeared.

There's nothing else it could've been except for anxiety. If that's the case, I've never had anxiety at a constant level that high before.

It was crazy to realize that it was anxiety, but then I figured that I must've been so stressed about my exams that I kept my mind busy with anything and everything, like taking an extra shift and focusing on tutoring someone else, to keep my thoughts from drifting to my exams.

Im so glad I have them over with and that I've started my second semester, however I learnt an important lesson.

In a few years from now, possibly even one year from now, those marks won't matter.

Your exam marks don't define you as a person. They don't test your knowledge in a skill rather than your memorization skill. It's completely unfair to tell students that they all learn in unique ways yet have a standardized test to challenge what we can remember, however there's nothing that we can do about that yet.

Anyway, your exam results are a number, a fraction or a percentage that you won't be able to remember in two years time. 

Those digits will not define you as a person or limit you to what you can do in your life.

If anyone else had exams I hope you did well and if you have any coming up, I wish you the best of luck.


One More Girl, no longer online

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