Last minute exam tensions grip students

New Delhi: The board examinations have begun and the tension gripping the tens of thousands of students taking it is all too palpable.

 

The stress is more among those Class 10 students who began their Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) exams on Saturday with IT, an optional paper.

 

It leaves them with just two days to cram for the social studies paper on Monday - which has five books in history, geography, political science, disaster management and economics, totalling a whopping 30 chapters.

 

Though most students have studied in advance for the social studies paper, nevertheless two days leaves students very little time to revise for this "epic course", as the father of Class 10 student Shubajit Ghosh put it.

 

"The course is so vast, it doesn't seem to end. The social studies course is like an epic," said his father Indrajit Ghosh.

 

Madhu Gupta has been wringing her hands in despair, watching helplessly as her son banged and kicked doors to show his frustration after finding that he couldn't recall large chunks from the political science and geography books.

 

"I wish I could help him, he has been studying for days and making notes. Now he screams that he has forgotten everything and is going to fail," Madhu says of her son, Saurabh Gupta, a bright student.

 

In such cases, if parents calm down their wards by patting their backs and telling them that it doesn't really matter how they fare, because they have studied hard and will surely recall the lessons during the exam could help calm down the student.

 

"Deep breathing every morning for five minutes is a good way to relax the brain. One could sit in the padmasana posture and practise it, it really helps," says Bindu Prasad, senior counsellor with Sardar Patel Vidyalaya.

 

Ruchi Sharma feels like sobbing. The Class 10 student has studied hard during the preparatory holidays but finds she is not scoring well in the sample practise papers she has been attempting at home. She is losing her confidence to do well.

 

"It is very important to tell a child in such a situation that there is enough time, even if the exam is the next day, and help the student find out where he or she is going wrong in attempting the paper. Maybe, it is just silly mistakes, or reading the question wrong. Sitting and talking soothingly to the child really helps," Ruchi Kapoor, a counsellor with the senior school in Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, told IANS.