It is that time of the year again. Confidence is a little low, anxiety is high but preparation varies. O and A level students are about to sit their mock exams before the actual plunge in May and June. Some are all set, some are taking it lightly.
“Never mind what they say, mock exams only have one strict rule — never study hard!” says a nonchalant Muhammad, who studies at St Patrick’s High School. He is not worried about the mocks, just about the new thick-rimmed spectacles he has to wear “because of the cramming”.
The opposite stance is held by Collin Mark Joseph of St Paul’s High School
“I can go to any extent to get good grades [for the mocks],” says the O level final-year student. Being an extrovert fuels his scholastic hunger, especially after he received a distinction in Karachi in one of his exams last year. He claims to have given up all his volunteer work and competitions to concentrate on the ‘most important exams ever’.
A1 student Naima Qamar is making a slightly different choice: She is only studying for her psychology mock and not for economics. “These exams are not that important and I do not want to disturb my study timetable to accommodate the mocks.” The only good thing about mocks is the teachers’ pressure on the students that she believes is going to help them.
Some are forced into preparing and standing well in the exams. For Hammad, an O level student at Army Public School, mocks are nothing more than a compulsion. “I won’t get a school recommendation if I don’t score at least 70 per cent,” he says.
Faraz Nauman, an A2 student at the Avicenna School, just got done with his mock exams. He says there are some high achievers in his class who are so flippant about the exams that they just come to mark their attendance in the paper handing out blank sheets. They think that they do not need to study. “With schools finishing the course a week or two back, it is usually difficult for students to revise everything and perform well. We usually get off with whatever little we recall of the last few lessons.” He termed the mock a school norm.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 11th, 2011.
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