Academic Difficulties

There is one very familiar quip coming from my students that I don't get to miss hearing before every exams... "Sir mahirap ba yong test?" Of course I have a ready reply to questions like this. I tell the unsuspecting student that the degree of difficulty of the test is directly related to the level of effort exerted in preparing for it. But going by the same logic, the surest way therefore to gauge the difficulty of a test (relative to the student) is to check at the end of the test whether the student failed or not. This of course does not give reliable results most of the time, hence the fallacy of the claim.

Students this time around (a week after the exams week) are perhaps doubly wary or panicky of uncertain prospects about their performance for the quarter. The week that was and the coming week will take on a mystified animation. Is the mark under the tree (three)? At Berea, a good marking performance stops counting at three. Already, tears have welled from the eyes that have just stayed the night out during the exams... But the quarterly gradings can no longer be undone... Hopes are now anchored on the prospect of getting a mark under the tree (three).

I asked my students... "What do you make of the Third Quarter?" Then a litany of self-deprecating but remorseful recollections and explications germinated out of gloom's horizon. I understand... There's much to be done in the final quarter. And the life of the brain must be nourished still...