Preparing for secondary school exams

Dear Candidates, time has come for you to reap what you have been sowing ever since you entered high school. Learning is like a season for a farmer. The farmer toils in sowing period, works for longer hours to feed his plantation and waits in pain and patience for the season when his plantations get ready for reaping. Days of reaping are normally very wonderful, interesting and rewarding for the farmers if they worked a great deal and God blessed their energy with favourable weather. Dear candidates, you have spent sleepless nights reading books, preparing for the examinations to enable you join another education level. If you have toiled enough and you think you have satisfactorily done your part, then you need not to worry. If you have hearkened to your teachers’ advice and counsel, be sure you will pass your exams and joy and jubilation will be yours and your loved ones including your teachers when results are released. Dear candidates, this comes to wish you the best of luck for your forth coming exams. We are praying for your luck, for your good health during this examination period and for your good interpretation of the questions as well as the examination instructions to be able to excel beyond heights. This is my simple advice to you as you partake of your examinations: Relax and feel at ease before entering the examination room. Relaxation is important for anyone going for an examination of any sort. When you relax, you allow your mind and brain to function normally. However, when you are under terror and fear, you send your nervous system crumpling and trying to survive under a terrible situation and be sure your mind is only on defense and cannot generate a lot of memory. Prepare adequately. I am sure by now; you have read and revised sufficiently well to sit for that examination that you will be sitting in a few moments. Therefore do not panic. You have done your part of revision, leave the rest to your calm head to memorize and interpret the question to be able to generate correct and desirable answers. Pay attention to written and verbal instructions. Read the instructions carefully and interpret them before you start writing your answers. This will help you avoid attempting more numbers than required, know the requirements and keep in the light of the instructions. or example, the instructions will help you identify the compulsory questions, the time allocated to each number, numbers that take more marks than others among others. Read the question more than two times. Even when you think you have understood the question, it is always good to reread the question to be sure that you have interpreted it well. Set off to answer the question. Along the way, reread the question to make sure you are generating the right answers. Rereading the question helps get you back on board when you misinterpret the question. Keep an eye on the clock. It is very important for any candidate to keep in the range of time allotted for a given question. Apportion time equally for writing your answers for different questions. For example if it is presumed that each question takes forty five (45) minutes, then do not spend an hour on a single question. After the allotted time, start off on another question, then you can go back to that question you think you still had answers to if time allows. If time allows, you may do proof reading, but time will always be limited and do not mind when you don’t proof read. Write as many points as you can generate. If you run short of points from your memory of the book notes and discussions, generate other points that you think can attempt to answer the question. No examiners will penalize you for generating answers that seem to partially answer the question in point. This is what one may call brainstorming in the mind in an examination room. Try to raise more points than the teacher gave in class. A paper finished is done no matter how you may have attempted it. Finish the paper in the examination room and when you are out of the examination room think of the paper to be done next. It doesn’t matter whether you think you have passed or failed the exam, do not talk about it. It can demoralize when fellow students tell you that you have answered wrongly, when actually it is not true. And this reduces and greatly affects your morale to prepare for the next examination paper. Finally, be disciplined. A disciplined candidate is at a less risk of disqualification during the examination period. For God‘s sake, do not attempt to enter into the examination room with unauthorized material. It can be a piece of paper written on and the supervisor will suspect you for cheating exams, do not enter with mobile phones, or other unauthorized gargets. Follow the instructions as will be given to you by the invigilators and supervisors and you will be safe from suspicion. Remember, the country is looking up to you for success in these National examinations. You should also know that you are competing regionally and internationally. If you are going to compete for vacancies in the reputable international or regional schools and universities, then you must really prove that you are worth securing a place in them by excelling in your national exams. Your parents, your teachers and your schools are praying for you and looking upon you for better results. Everybody is a stakeholder in your success. You will be in the limelight come early next year when your results are released by the Rwanda Education Board and the Ministry of Education and let us all jubilate at the news of your success! Go for it, do it well and beat the best. Success in your examinations! intarepaul@yahoo.com The writer is an educationist