Exams

Exams; a traumatic ritual enforced onto unsuspecting young citizens by means of torture. There to 'test your intelligence' and squeeze barely functioning adolescent brains into weeks of revision and then pressure the poor souls to sit for an hour answering questions with no relevance to actual real life. Also situated, for pure satisfactory effect, at a time when the sun shines brightly and beats perfect sunbathing/going outside heat down onto the labouring individuals locked inside with books full of words they can't comprehend. Thousands of wasted trees scribbled on with symbols of silent torture, millions of wrists aching with the continuos action of writing, each of the foreboding persons suffering, hidden away from the carefree adults without a GCSE in sight.

Unless you are still unaware, after reading my melodramatic opening, that this post is about exams, then please leave now, you clearly can not relate. If you did feel the pang of an ever painful yet distant memory, or ached inside as you recalled that you too were also suffering then read on, I'm here-not to save the day- but to rant about how stupid, pointless, condemning and oppressing these worthless pieces of paper really are.

When these hellish examinations are finally over and you receive the much anticipated results that will supposedly dictate your future, your nerves almost exceed the height at which they had reached during the papers, which is largely ridiculous. Although the results are an enormous answer to how your adult life will begin, the rest of your life is not under their influence and nor are your choices. So this daunting stress and pressure we are presented with is mostly a load of, for lack of a better word, poop. You do not decide what you are taught or forced to have imprinted into your mind, you go to lessons, listen to what will never effect your life, leave and then have a test on what you can vaguely remember. You mostly get good results if you enjoy the lesson, which unfortunately relies on the way in which the subject is taught. This turn of fate is unfortunate because some old gits decided that being passionate about a subject is sinful thus enforced courses to rot your brains. You are incredibly blessed if you have the fortune to be situated with a good teacher because the subject that you are taught is more likely to stick. The lessons are no longer about what they contain, but about whether you can remember worthless facts and write them down.

I do understand, however, that there is a good reason behind this seemingly awful period of a teen's life. The large amount of work does have its advantages. It teaches you perseverance and self control. Making you realise that to get what you want, you have to work hard. This, as much as I'd like to deny it, is an important lesson to learn whilst growing up. It doesn't test your intelligence, it's far from it, instead it puts your work ethic to the test, just giving you a little bit of what life has to offer.

If you had the perfect balance of learning how to work and being passionate about the different subjects the world has to offer. There is so much out there that we could be educated on, learn to love the universe and its many surprises, but they're held back and we are left unknowing whether we enjoy the things we are taught. Life is not all about the work, it's about the things we work for, the things that come from work and that, more than anything else, a passion for education is a most valuable trait.