There is something so spectacular in sports, especially athletics - that final lap: after the final whistle. The closing seconds determines the winner. World record holders are masters of these - lose or win moments: they call forth all their stamina with precision, tactic and focus.
Examination preparation especially K.C.P.E and K.C.S.E is like the long distance tracks and fields: calling an input of 8 and 4 years respectively. The whistle gets brown when one becomes a candidate.
Candidates study in preparation to seize excellence at the end of the course, but some usually fell into an academic mire of “I can’t make it, it’s too late for me, I wish I had …,” soon than later after the enthusiasm of being registered for the exams.
So many students drown in this mentality and their fear worsens with the gradual approach of the national exams. Some resign with, “let the exam come, I’ll write anything and score whichever grade,” while others console themselves, “I will repeat next year.” The desperate – escapist - views are proportional to the students who usually give up from running the academic race (even before stating) as poor performance registered every year testifies. But candidates can redeem this unfortunate syndrome by calling every minute into study and revision, putting aside all distracters, forgetting their past performance and embracing a new beginning every passing day in school or at home.
If there is a secret student can borrow from athletics gurus, it’s there masterly to capitalize on the remaining times at their hand just before closing the line. Every second is turned into a gem: so precious to go to a drain. Their various positions, whether first or last, from the beginning of the race to the moment of the last whistle never go to into their head, they run as those who have just began – focusing the finishing line. Indeed we have witnessed the first becoming the last and the last becoming the first!
Candidates need to persist in their intellectual race with focus and passion, confidence and devotion, even when things seem to be slipping from their hands. We have witnessed teams pulling themselves from defeat to glory by taking on the petite portion of time in their hands.
Some candidates have several reasons to blame themselves on the poor consistent performance, thus finding themselves in an intricate stance to face the exam with optimism of passing. Some squandered their study time in regrettable adventures in and out of school. But this should not be an excuse why they cannot redeem the future by learning from the past mistakes: forgetting the past and pressing forward to anchor in the vast present and a prosperous future. The past should be a lesson well learned: not a condemnation to give up. “Success is failure turned inside out,” a quote goes.
All success cases in the world are testimonies of men and women who used their mistakes and failures as stepping-stones to realize their dreams. Lateness or earliness was not allowed to dump them into oblivion. These success cases have mustered the clandestine of being focused regardless what comes on their way. A French Rope Artist amazed the world when he crossed the deepest fall in the world – Niagara in Canada. “I focus at the star I have positioned at the end of the rope,” he said. The roaring waters and the doubting voices of spectators failed to engross him: he made it, he proved it.
As poor – past performance in class has the potential of snubbing a candidate prospects to excel, past good performance that is not guarded with humility and reality can too be detrimental in last moments to exam. If such an excellent candidate becomes contended, careless, uncooperative to take teachers instructions – but let him or her self be driven by self assurance that he or she will always make it – that is self deception, with an innocent but sure ability to burying such a candidate in the grave of disappointment.
It’s vivid in the mind of the football funs, how a last minute butt from France football genius (Zinedine Zedane) robbed the team grandeur and the desirable world cup in their final game against Italy! This is what is what last minutes are made of, if careless choices are made the prize to be paid is beyond one’s wildest dreams.
These few days to step out of school cannot only improve one’s stake in national examination performance, rather be a healing antidote of any strained relationship amongst students and teachers. Wise students seek forgiveness from their fellow students and teachers from any mistake committed. This rejuvenates the victim and the giver is ennobled, turning revision for the exams into a light and joyous undertaking. Study towards the exam is oiled with vibrant study groups, with a common yearning to assist one another achieve his or her set goals, the teacher’s counsels becomes breezes in a desert: the entire school of candidates matching forward to take exams with aspiration and best wishes.
Candidates need to espouse the concept that it’s not where you are coming from that makes the difference, but where you are going. Our people have a say that a person who has gone to fetch water must be careful not to break the pot into pieces at the door step.
As one character in The Concubine by Alechi Amadi admitted that, “fear can defeat even the strongest.” Candidates must safeguard themselves from the temptation of any form of cheating in exams. They should not indulge in fear, as experienced persons have written: “one thing that must be feared is fear itself.” Rather face the exam with courage, “I too will make it,” as time affords them a chance to sow and reap their ambition in school.
Candidates should not treat exam as an end in itself. Any examination reveal a matrix of things in a candidate at any given time: character and integrity, yes they become a process of acquiring right attitude towards taking challenges to meld with other components of life for success beyond various class rooms when they are tackled with honesty following the set rules and regulations.
One Tanzania athlete called the attention of reporters in Olympics completion as he struggled to the finishing line notwithstanding he was death last in position. “I was not sent from my country to drop on the way, but to finish the race,” he told the journalist. What an excellent spirit to be aped by all candidates.
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