The Politics of Exams

E Week. Exams, exams and more exams. The week where myself and my fellow Year 12 peers are frantically trying to remember all the facts, figures, dates and information we have learnt in the last 6 months of school. Everywhere I look I can see students with notes and textbooks scattered around them, with panicked looks discussing things like the Hydrolysis of Esters, and essay questions like, 'How does George Orwell in his novel 1984, use stylistic features to convey emotional messages to the reader'. The politics of exam week in a school changes also, and everybody knows it. This week the students in all the years below know, not to mess with us, for fear of abuse and or decapitation. My fellow peers and I, are full of sugar, caffeine and no sleep wishing and hoping we have done enough to get through the next 120 hours, before we can celebrate with the Formal on Saturday night.

Yesterday whilst I was in my Economics exam, I began to ask myself, what on earth is the point of exams? I mean why have I been freaking out for the last 24 hours trying to prepare for an exam that is not going to be going towards my grade, nor is it going to be helpful if I decide that being an economist is not for me? Why? Because I care about my future, and if that means that I have to suffer through a horrible 2 hour exam I will. I read an article in The Age the other day that was discussing whether or not there is too much pressure on Year 12 students to perform at such a high level, with comments from teachers, students and former students. Reading it I began wonder who puts this pressure on me, and my friends? Our parents? Our families? Society? Or even Ourselves? The only reason that we are as stressed as we are must to be please someone . . . right? I feel I must succeed in order to be my best, and anything other than that, I will be disappointed. But is it the same for everybody? In some countries children need to perform to be loved, in other families children must do well because their families will depend on them in the future as a source of income. I am just lucky that I love to study, i find it relaxing and fulfilling to sit in a library and learn simply because I can, but some people not so much. I sometimes feel sorry for them, because it must be hard to keep motivated.

My motivation for my hard exams this week, was the fact that my happy and fun exams are later in the week. Legal Studies and politics while still hard came as a welcome relief from the technically hard and difficult Economics, and long English Studies. Come Friday at 11 o'clock I will be both jubilant and worried, jubilant that they are over but worried, worried because in a mere 13 weeks real end of year exams start. And that should scare even then most competent students, let alone those who haven't listened all year.

And then I remember its TE Week. Trial exams, or practice exams, and so I can almost rest easy!