Exam fever

1. I’ve always been terrible in exams, what is probably why I can’t stand them! I don’t know what it is exactly, but I just seem to go to pieces. I forget everything I’ve learnt. I think it’s really unfair because I write really slowly ‑ when I look around the exam room, everyone else has usually written twice as much as me! The other thing is that it all depends on luck. I mean it’s all right if the questions you have revised come up, but sometimes they don’t and then it’s a disaster. I must say I hate revising ‑ it’s so boring!

2. I think exams are much better in a way than coursework. I’d prefer to just have exams at the end of the year. As far as I’m concerned, the problem with coursework it that the pressure is on you all the time and nearly everything you do counts towards your final stages. I think exams are Ok… in the end I think they generally give a pretty accurate picture of how much you know about the subject. In fact, I quite like revising for exams. I find it brings together all the different things I’ve been learning and I suddenly begin to understand what the teachers have been going on about. I like to get up early and go through my notes on the day of the exam. That way everything is fresh in my mind.

3. In my country we have to repeat our school year if we fail the end-of-

year exams, so they are pretty serious. In fact, most people repeat a year at some point or other. Something which is a bit different to England is that we quite often have oral exams where you see your question a few minutes in advance and then you have to go and speak your answers to a group of professors, for example. Another thing which happens sometimes is that exams can be competitive, so only a certain percentage will pass. That makes it hard if you happen to be taking the exam at the same time as a lot of very good students!