The examinational period

By Murigi Ndung’u

As the year wanes away, the past accumulates. What we know now supersedes what we knew yesterday, or maybe the day before that. Similarly we develop from one level to another. That is the cognitive person, the mind and the body. To decide on our eligibility to the next level, an examination has to be set.

To many students this is a dispensation marked by suppressed tension and fears. Tension is one factor that catapults failure. Exams could be symbolic giants in our lives, haunting the very steps that we intend to make and taunting what we believed was success.

This is a disheartening string of the character traits that describe examinations. On the plus, you as the student, having gone through the academic system, are turbocharged to overcome whatever is presented at your platter with the ease of a giant slayer.

Students from New Dawn Secondary celebrating last years KCSE results

In life we may get ourselves deeper into activities that mean quite a lot to us, only to discover it was never meant to be. A case in study is the school life, co-curricular activities as well as other off-the school activities could be well reinvigorating and encouraging, but only the super talented in such live to benefit. That is to say, besides other daily operations, the best thing is to focus on the main agenda back at school, everything else comes as a by the way.

Exams are also set to differentiate between the different capacities of people or groups of people. In case you fail in an examination, it is wise to forget that and invest in the future. Unfortunately, when a door is closed for us, we often waste a lot of time on the closed door blinded by the sheer oblivion of another door that has been opened for us. Life is very fair, on closing one door, it opens another.

It may be a bolt from the blue to get what you really expect from what expect from, but do not be so blind as to get it from where you did not expect it. When an examination presents a challenge to you, present the same challenge to the examiners by getting them wary of the fact that they belittled your abilities, show them you are capable of far much great flair, because that  is what the truth is, your repertoire is far much greater!

Wish all Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) candidates success as they prepare to start their examination. May their hard work be rewarded with good results. God bless.