With the approaching marriage season and chilling winters another thing which can give a cold blast to students is approaching exam season. It’s time for half yearly’s in schools and also a peak time for last minutes preparations, timetables, late night study, problem solving at coaching and classroom and long test series.

This time of year is a also a final time for the preparation of entrance exams like IIT, IIT-JEE, PMT etc. for science stream and entrance exams for graduation colleges for commerce stream for class XII. The reason as the month of March is approaching near they will be concentrating more on their board exams. The increasing pressure and competition on the students and parents have created tension and stress in the air.

School exams and together with preparing for competitive exams put students under great pressure to perform better and succeed.

India has the second largest population in the world. Therefore it is quite obvious that there is high completion in almost all the fields. Better qualification and good graduation colleges give added advantage to perform better in the job market.

Rahul’s neighbor scored 91% in 12^th board exam last year. And that is why Rahul is under great pressure as his parents are also expecting him to perform a lot better than his neighbor.

This hypothetical situation can be experienced many times by many of us and this is quite true also. Parents and family have lot of expectations for their children to succeed and do well in their life. In their desire and dream to see their child succeed they forget that every child has different talents and capabilities and scoring good marks is not the only criteria for being successful.

Peer pressure is also another reason for stress among children. The students generally compare themselves a lot with friends, seniors and sometimes also neighbors. Researches have also proved that during exams students keep in regular touch with their peers through phone calls, messages or chats just to see that they don’t lag behind their friends. It is also assumed by them that if they fail to perform better, they will be subjected to mockery and laugh by their counterparts.

Our education system earlier gave lot of importance to marks. But now slowly and gradually this concept of marks is changing. CBSE has now revived the marking system and has implemented grading system since session 2009-2010. This step was taken because of the increasing stress levels, cases of depression and suicides among students.

The increasing pressure from school, parents, peer groups and society takes away the innocence and youthfulness of a child. Children and students also have a risk of various health hazards like fatigue, body ache, eye weakness, stress and in a very serve cases depression. Failure in examination also forces many children to take the extreme step of suicide. India is the suicidal capital of the world. Out of very three cases of suicide reported in India in every 3 min., one is committed by a youth between the age group of 15 to 29. http://kraran.com/child-and-teen-suicides-india-i-want-to-kill-myself/

One thing is very clear that we don’t need competition and success at the cost of losing precious lives. Healthy competition to a certain level is good for students and their success. But over burdening them with too much aspiration and expectation can ruin their childhood.

This exams time there are certain steps to easy and fight stress. They are:

1. Prepare a time table and work accordingly. Revise and repeat what you have already studied.

2. Time out and take regular breaks. Don’t over exert yourself. Your body and mind needs relaxation and regular sleep.

3. Manage expectations: Do your best. Take it as a compliment, your friends and family want you to do well and they know that you are capable for doing it. Exams are just a measure to test how good you present what the examiner wants to know and not how good or bad you are as a person.

4. Have number of future options. Remember scoring good marks is not the end of the road. Be positive and accept another offer.

5. Look after yourself and accept help if needed. Take proper diet and sleep. If you are feeling too stressed and low please talk to your family, teacher or ask for counselor if needed. Accept their support and help, they always think about your good.

So students please don’t feel tensed and pressurized by exams. Sit back and relax and do your best. Every darkest night has a dawning day and success will follow after failures. Education, exams, and competition are for polishing and improving you, not to dishearten and disturb you. Remember

Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day.  ~Anonymous

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