WHAT IF I FAIL MY GRADUATION EXAM?

Have you ever felt afraid of failing your exams?

When facing such an important exam season that can tremendously affect your whole student life and academic level, will you be nervous and worried?

Honestly, I will also feel the same. However, my nervousness and eeriness would not be that high, not because I am overly confident about my abilities, but is more because I believe that if I accidentally fail certain things, there are still chances for me to redo it again in different ways. I still remember how during my graduation exam period, I was lucky enough to have both my father and sister as my “ultimate” support, and encouragement, who had helped me to overcome that extreme anxiety and fear of failing the papers. 

It is a very nice coincidence that when I first wrote the first few lines for this article, I suddenly realised that the high school students back in my hometown will also soon enter one of the most important exams in their life in less than a month – the high school graduation exam.

The training and education system in Australia and many other Western countries is totally different from that of the Asian countries, especially Vietnam. The high school graduation exam in many Asian countries is not only the first stage of one’s journey to adulthood that prepares them to enter the university lecture hall, but it is also a milestone to help the child realise that they have to start taking responsibility for the choices they will soon have to make in life. In Vietnam, high school graduation exams and university entrance exams are always a rather unhealthy “obsession” for a lot of high school students.

In the past, passing the high school entrance exam and passing the university entrance exam were regarded to be the must-do things or the obligations for those who attended high school back in Vietnam. In certain areas, having one or two people who passed the university entrance exam would be equivalent to achieving a prideful accomplishment and dignity for the family, and even for the entire village that one came from. This also means that kids at this age are being put under a lot of pressure, and it is funny how their families, especially their parents, suffer from even more pressure and impatience than them. If a family has a child who fails to graduate from high school or does not pass the entrance exam, that child will eventually become an “embarrassment” for the whole family, making them suffer even more.

However, thankfully, that story seems to only belong to the past generations that I come from. Even though to these days, there are still families who attach high school exams and university entrance exams with the highest stakes of importance, there are also parents who know how to reduce the pressure and anxiety on their child as they understand how passing or failing an “important” exam is not the one and only criterion to evaluate the child’s whole life journey.

“What if I fail my graduation exam?” This is a very interesting question that I received from a teenager who is getting ready for his upcoming exam season.

He had come to me one day to seek more advice, encouragement and sharing during this difficult time. His parents are just ordinary workers in the suburbs of a city with a family of three children, and he will be the first to enter the high school exam. He thinks of himself as a boy with not very good academic performance, and even in the first semester, he only achieved the title of an average student, and only ranked 30th out of 45 students in his class. However, he also told me that last semester, he had tried his best to accelerate to achieve the title of an excellent student, rising to the top 5 in his class. At the end of the school year, he successfully achieved a good degree and ranked 17th in the class.

He told me how everything had made his parents very happy and proud. Although he did not achieve good academic results for the whole year, it still shows that as long as he works hard, he is always able to achieve satisfactory results. Sadly, this did not give him any more confidence about the upcoming important exam. He said that he was full of anxiety and fear because of his parents’ expectations of him, yet he did not dare to voice it out for fear of making his parents sad.

My dear friend,

If this teenager were your child, and you found out that he had been keeping all of these from you, would you want to embrace and protect him?

For me, even though he is just a very young customer, it still makes me feel very sorry for everything he has been through. He is just 18 years old and has never had any experiences out in the real world, yet he is already struggling with each and every assignment given by his teachers at school. One thing I have to admit is that he is a very understanding boy.

Having passed many stages of exams in my student life and many years of working experiences, I somehow can be assured that the exams you have in school are actually the easiest things to pass. The most challenging and difficult “tests” that you need to pass are those that life gives you!

However, when we are 18 years old, we only need to pass those “examinations” and challenges solely with the words and numbers we have learned in class. However, for some, that is enough to make them feel nervous and start to overthink about everything, am I right?

We – mature adults who have experienced enough failures and “bitter fruits” in our life – should be the ones who best understand and sympathise more with what the soon-to-be adults are about to face.

If your child or anyone in your family unfortunately failed the graduation exam, just gently come and tell them that “It is okay! You can still register for the exam next time!”

We all have the opportunity to “correct” our exams or academic results on the next occasions. All you need to do is put in a little more time and effort to master the subjects’ knowledge and practise all the exam papers thoroughly. Your teachers will still be happy to continue to teach and help you achieve your highest goals, and as for you, just try it one more time with all your seriousness and efforts to get what you have missed.

Graduating from high school or even from university has never been the only path to determine if one has succeeded or failed in their life. It is just that it would be easier for us to acquire many more things if we had more education.

Therefore, what we adults need to do when our child or any youngsters we know are preparing for their upcoming exams is to give our best spiritual encouragement and side-by-side cheering for them to be more confident in their abilities.

If the result is good, we can celebrate together; but if the results are just not as good, they are still wholeheartedly loved and cherished by us. The child will then succeed and live a happy life in a different way, as it is not because of this only failure that they do not deserve other happiness in life!

Each person has a different journey of experiencing success and failure. What is important is how you learn and experience the life lessons along the way, as well as how well you better yourself through every up and down in your life. Everything in life always happens for an “arranged” reason – maybe sometimes that arrangement is not what you want, but it will certainly take you to another profound and meaningful experience that you have yet to discover.

Remember, if you were somehow so unlucky that you failed the graduation exam, that would still be okay! You can always do it again. You are still your parents’ beloved child, you are still a good citizen, a good friend, a kindhearted person who is always worthy of love. You are still you!

Much love,

Truly Inspired