I am writing this article basically because I am as nervous as heck and I need to vent to let out some steam. My little golden girl, Barbie (short for Babara) is rewriting her Common Entrance Examination for All Souls Secondary School tomorrow. I used the word rewriting because she had written it about a month ago. She aced the English and General Knowledge papers but failed horribly in Maths! That came as a great shock because she had taken a different but supposedly similar Common Entrance Exam at her current school and passed in flying colors! I began to seriously doubt the reality of the first result after that. I mean, could it have been that my girl wasn't doing great in Maths but the teachers in her current school just passed her so she could continue schooling with them? Or was it that she wasn't being taught the standard curriculum?
My husband and I ruminated over the issue and after receiving a lot of good advice, we took the bull by the horns and with great trepidation, approached the new and preferred school, requesting for her to retake the examination. Our request was granted to our great delight, but we didn't stop at that. We found the school's best Mathematics Teacher and employed him to come coach both our girls for a month. He began immediately and has been teaching the girls. He confirmed that they were a little behind the required curriculum and this strengthened our resolve to change their school. Juwura is the studious one of both girls and is always her teachers' favorite while Barbie is rather restless, with a pretty short attention span. She dances like a dream and is absolutely into arts & gadgets. However, she would be the one to fall asleep during lessons or argue with the teacher! I had to settle several arguments between Barbie & the teacher these past few weeks...lol.
It's all over now and I'm told she is ready for tomorrow. However, I'm so nervous, so jittery, I could scream! I remember being nervous but confident during all my past exams, Common Entrance, WAEC, Undergraduate exams, Masters' exams, CIPM exams and many others so I honestly don't understand why I am so nervous this time. The weird thing is that Barbie herself is super confident and has been in pretty high spirits this evening! I wish y'all could hear her screaming with laughter with her sister! What I feel isn't a lack of faith in her ability, especially beacuse I have watched her study this past few weeks and I believe she is ready. However every time I think about tomorrow, I feel myself going hot and cold at the same time.
Yes! Even though I am not the candidate, I am definitely feeling a lot of jitters as regards my daughter's exam tomorrow. Exam Jitters are basically the feeling of nervousness and anxiety one experiences when about to write an important or qualifying exam. I Googled it and found an article by "Shantanu Sampath" [here], in which he said;
Exam nervousness happens due to a variety of reasons. Low self-esteem, past failures, poor preparation..... etc.
It's pretty obvious that my current state is as a result of the past failure and so I went further to search for ways to overcome it. I found this amazing article and I would encourage anyone experiencing anxiety about an examination to read it [here]. Writing this article has given me both an outlet to vent as well as the knowledge and encouragement to calm down. So, like a sweet young lady advised me tonight, I'm going to stay positive and show my confidence in Barbie, speak positive words to her and let her know that the questions she'll be asked are things she has been taught already, things she knows. I will tell her to read the instructions properly and calm down as she answers them. I'm looking forward to sharing the awesome news of her excellent performance with you when the time comes. Till then, be good!