I’m a Bad Test Taker…you mean you’re stupid?
I have a very poor record at multiple choice questions.
I've never understood cheating, probably because I never cared much about my grades. I instinctively knew that the grades didn't measure anything meaningful - usually just my ability to quickly memorize information I'd just as quickly forget.
I always wanted to be a professional cricketer, which meant I didn't work as much as I should have done at exams. But, happily, it came off.
One of the great failings of our education system is that we tend to focus on those who are succeeding in exams, and there are plenty of them. But what we should also be looking at, and a lot more urgently, is those who fail.
Let's be honest, some people are better suited to exams than others in the same way that some of us are more sporty or arty.
There's a common problem: if a kid is not good at exams, they often think they are not skilled. Yet many of them do have the skills employers are looking for - but often we don't show them that, or teach them how to develop them, or celebrate them.
I was lucky enough to be fairly quick at understanding what was taught, but unlucky enough not to be really interested in it, so I always got my exams but never had the scholar's love of learning for its own sake.
So I think it's like the night before the exam. Obviously, you stress. But when you have done your job well, then you need to go down, relax and enjoy.
I was a very naughty child, on the verge of getting expelled, but I wasn't a bad child; everything I did was for my own entertainment. But when I went into an exam, I did really well.
I am a really bad test taker. I can get straight As in school, but I get nervous on test.
Tests are special, the format closest to my heart.
If a teacher goes, 'Do you guys want an easy test?' You're going to say, 'Heck, yeah.' The less you've got to study, I'm going ace this test.
The crucial question one comes back to is the examination; without that experience is meaningless. And I think it's true that society is becoming more and more passive, less and less fired up with enthusiasm, in many spheres.
Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought.
Traditional education is based on facts and figures and passing tests - not on a comprehension of the material and its application to your life.
Someone with 4As at A-level from Eton may look good on paper and come across as very smooth, but push a bit more, and often you get the impression they have learned to pass exams rather than think for themselves.
Don't worry too much if you don't pass exams, so long as you feel you have understood the subject. It's amazing what you can get by the ability to reason things out by conventional methods, getting down to the basics of what is happening.
All of us just go to college and waste our time and to pass our exams. So just learning journalism does not mean I'm good at it or any of the journalists are, either. There is no difference; it's just class, and it's just college.
Getting straight A's for having lots of tests is not the same as getting A's on the tests. Weighing a malnourished dog every day doesn't make him any better.
I used to really panic about finals. I didn't understand the concept of how you could have one test that encompasses the entire semester.
I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations
