Inspirations and Motivations

Exams, eh?

Dedicated to good-is-strength 

So, some of you are starting on exams-eh? They seem to be routinely appearing and disappearing, appearing at the times that we have loads of work. Exams often are very stressful, anxiety inducing, exams are the reasons to why some people quit school; why do we need exams? And how can we handle them?

I really cannot give a solid answer as to why we need exams; perhaps teachers hate us? Perhaps they want to know how much we have been paying attention in their class? Maybe it is a bit of both, or maybe not...who knows?

Exams brings us nostalgic memories of our dark nightmares; they haunt us until we cannot bear look at a periodic table of elements and not know the answer to He (Helium). Many of us often find it difficult to concentrate during exams, because most often other work is being handed out; assignments, projects, and other major work; but what do you do when you're being tumbled over with stress?

Sleeping is the most important thing anyone can do, it's hard to sleep when you're focusing on work and on marks instead of on your health. We should always put health before work, but sometimes that's hard too.

Let me tell you a story of how I became the most determined, most motivated person in my class.

I was in Gr.9 when I realized that there were such things as exams, that there were harder courses than Gr.8 math or than Gr.5 science. I wasn't paying attention in Gr.9, I was too busy focusing on being the class clown. Then a teacher told me of how smart I was and that I would have received higher grades if I had focused on my grades; thus in Gr.10 I focused on my grades, I was trying to receive those high marks; however, in Gr.10 I was too stressed out to receive high grades. Now, I'm in Gr.11 and let me tell you that I've made progress in my grades, I don't know whether it's because of the fact that I'm at a new school, or because I am coping. It doesn't matter anyways, what matters is that I'm coping.

So, how do you cope when you're stressed out?

Exercise, meditate, poetry...do anything that you like and do it as a hobby, for fun. Now, you can take strolls out in the sun, and you can write until your hand hurts too much but eventually you'll have to go back to work....and by that time, it's probably dark out, anyways, and you feel too tired..oh and you have a sports game tomorrow, so instead of doing your work or studying for exams you're brushing your teeth and going to sleep. When that happens, I'll let you know that you had too much fun; and yes, there are times for fun and times for work thus one can have too much fun.

When I can't focus on my objective goal (in this case, exams), I take a regular interval break; so, if I had a math exam two days from now and I didn't study until now, I would turn of all electronics and remove myself from a noisy room then I would study for 2 ½ hours straight after I have finished studying I would take a 30 minute break. Repeat this process until you feel confident that you have learned everything you need to learn about math (or that subject), then the next day all you would have to do is review and go over what you don't know. This is what you can do if you feel overwhelmed or unable to concentrate.

You can also try following this slogan, "Just do it!" ☺

I hope that this is motivational, and that y'all like it :-)