Cracking Examinations and Looking Beyond

Children in general do not look forward to exams and understandably so. Once they succeed and do well in exams they think they can handle them easily thereby looking forward to them. Not all do well in exams. It is not rare to find knowledgeable children unable to secure outstanding grades. Cracking examinations is considered a knack but there is a great deal of psychology behind writing exams. There are those who plod and are unable to secure the grades that they want. There are those who crack exams through an intuitive streak. Although not much is understood about this phenomenon there is a subtle insight which helps them deal with examinations. Very often others are alarmed by this ability of theirs. Building on this unusual ability it has been observed that such learners mostly do not attach undue significance to exams. They are intrigued by problems and apply their out of the box thinking towards solving them. This accounts also for why some learners struggle to crack exams despite having tremendous knowledge. One reason could be that they get put off by the notion of exams and the undue importance attached to competition. They abhor exams. They look beyond examinations constantly. As long as they are happy with their approach and their objectives in academics are clear it is just a matter of choice ruling out specific problems such as exam fear. One needs to look beyond exams so that dealing with problems case by case becomes easier. Teachers and tutors need to understand approaches of different students towards examinations so that they can mentor and guide them accordingly. The first time ever when students appear for exams they adopt an approach which could either be fight or flight/indifference or signification. Signification materializes when significance is given to something which in this case is examinations. Correcting an approach that has been adopted first is challenging for a teacher and not many attend to this outlook even when students face trouble with exams. It has to be attended to whenever there are difficulties so that young learners do not carry them along through adulthood. Then it becomes difficult because as the saying goes ‘old habits die hard’. The intuitive leaps which some children make can be considered as the outcome of looking beyond examinations. Even they need to be made aware of their approach so that they can continue even when times are rough. This calls for mentoring and tutors in the new age have to develop these add-on skills so that they can inspire students to crack examinations and look beyond.