Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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.
To drive a semi-truck, a driver needs a commercial driver's license. While formal training isn't required, most drivers enroll in a program to help prepare them for the written and practical exams in their states.
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.
When I went to do law, I kind of drifted through that and thought, 'I can pass these exams.' And I didn't - I failed three times, and each time I did worse and failed by a bigger margin. And that taught me so much.
I did not like prizes at school. I didn't like tests or exams, or the 11+, or O-levels. Later I hated B.A.s and M.A.s. The reason I hated them is that I don't like being tested, failed or falsely praised by anyone.
To be honest, I was not very good in studies; I was an average student. I used to work hard, whether it was for wrestling or studies, as I considered myself not that talented. I used to mug up everything during exams.
At the combine we went through medical exams from every team, the most extensive physicals I've ever had: blood tests, MRIs, heart monitors, everything. Because of my injury teams really paid attention to my lower body.
Actually, it wasn't a kid dream, because my father was a cosmonaut, and I was able to see all pros and cons of this job, and when I was a kid, it was more minuses than plusses: always busy, studying all day long, exams.
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.
The idea of going back to school and revising for exams would be hellish. As an actor, my form of revising is learning scenes, but to start going through biology, chemistry, and all of those sciences would be just a nightmare.
All my family has very good mathematical abilities - like, so dorky. I was the dork then in school - on any maths exams I'd get 100%. I just knew how to do maths and most people would hate it, but for some reason it just came.
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.
I was probably more scared of my high school exams than I was of the Oscars. At the time you think it's everything and if you don't do well, your life's over. Opportunities are gone. So the more you do it, the less the fear is present.
I remember when the results of the All India Engineering exams came out. I ranked 7th. I even got a scholarship. But it was during the sixth semester of my engineering course that I decided to call it quits and pursue acting seriously.
After university, I was desperate to be an ambassador. It went back to geography: I loved the idea of living in exotic and exciting countries, but still driving a Land Rover and having tea. I failed the Foreign Office exams three times.
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.
Exams are not very hard. People find them hard because they don't work - it's just a matter of labour. Once you actually start doing it, it's like cracking eggs. You don't need to be smart. As everything is in life, it's about concentration.
And in addition to overhauling exams, I'd also like to see every school in England with a fully qualified counsellor on the staff, whose responsibility it is to work with the pupils and staff who suffer from mental health and wellbeing issues.
I read books for exams at school, but only because I had to read them, and really didn't enjoy it one little bit! The only time I did enjoy it was when I was asked to read out loud in front of the class, as I then used it as an acting exercise!
I think sometimes parents and teachers can push children away from reading by telling them it's something they must do, the same way they must eat their greens and must pass their exams in school. Poppycock! Read or don't read - that's your call.
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 still young when I missed Beijing. I was favourite to win a medal but I knew I had time. My coach advised me to stay at school and finish my exams. Even if I had gone and won the Olympics, I might not have handled the pressure. So I moved on.
I've finished 12th standard from Poddar International and enrolled for B.A. in political science in Cambridge University, London. It's a correspondence course, and I'll go to London for my exams once a year. That way, I can devote more time to films.
My nana ji has a shop in Bapu Bazaar. Every summer, after my final exams, my mother would pack me off to my grandparents' home in Jaipur where we would visit nana ji's shop and I would roam around the market, holding his finger, wearing those cute Jaipuri lehengas.
If a student believes that taking too many exams is hard or skipping advanced courses for a lighter load is a better deal, just wait until he or she goes to college and needs to prepare for finals or has to figure out complex work problems in a stressful environment.
Some advice: keep the flame of curiosity and wonderment alive, even when studying for boring exams. That is the well from which we scientists draw our nourishment and energy. And also, learn the math. Math is the language of nature, so we have to learn this language.
Preventative medicine has to be the direction we go in. For example, if colon cancer is detected early - because a person knew he had a genetic risk and was having frequent exams - the surgery is relatively inexpensive and average survival is far greater than 10 years.
I studied at Cathedral School, where a lot of kids go abroad after Class XII. But I was clear that I wanted to be an actress, and thus, even though I got 92% in my board exams, I applied only to Jai Hind College for Mass Communication and got in and completed my graduation.
All I'm saying is, is God the god who we look to for comfort during tragedies? Is he the god who can control all those things, or is he the god that we don't even trust with our daily lives... As long as there's prayer and exams, as long as there's games, there will be prayers.
I don't know anybody who said, 'I love that teacher, he or she gave a really good homework set,' or 'Boy, that was the best class I ever took because those exams were awesome.' That's not what people want to talk about. It's not what influences people in one profession or another.
Unfortunately, the real achievements of children on the ground became debased and devalued because Labor education secretaries sounded like Soviet commissars praising the tractor production figures when we know that those exams were not the rock-solid measures of achievement that children deserve.
I got expelled from high school, and then did my exams from home. I decided, through that experience, that I was going to expediate my plan and didn't go to university. Instead, I went to a community college and studied the theory and history of film with the idea that I wanted to write and direct.
I liked science very much. A science teacher in high school inspired me, and because of him, I began studying science at the university. But when I got there... well, the subject still attracted me a lot, but I had to do all these exams, and it was just like working in an office. I couldn't stand that.
My parents spent an awful lot of money sending me to the best possible schools, and I came out of my exams and thought, 'I don't really want to do a degree.' I did philosophy with the Jesuits for about a year, and then I joined a bank. While I was there, I saw an ad in an Irish paper for radio announcers.
I am a passionate reader, having been tutored very early by my mother. I avidly devoured all books on chemistry that I could find. Formal chemistry at school seemed boring by comparison, and my performance was routine. In contrast, I did spectacularly well in mathematics and sailed through classes and exams with ease.
As the final weeks of my schooling draw to a close and exams loom, I find myself reflecting on the past six years of my secondary education only to realise that many questions are still unanswered. How have I been shaped by my learning experiences? What skills have I developed that are valuable and transferable in the workplace?
Stress is part of life. It is something we all experience from time to time. Sometimes it reflects our own busy lifestyles or key moments such as exams, moving house, organising an event, or coping with a bereavement. Often it is associated with work: meeting a deadline, dealing with difficult people, or meeting stretching targets.
