Column: final exam time!

One minute you're taking them to kindergarten for the first time, the next they're entering their final year of secondary education. He who was once our big little man and is now an almost grown man, will start his final exams in a good month. Slowly the tension in this house begins to increase. That June 22, the first day of the exams, is suddenly approaching very quickly.

My final exam

Final exams. I remember that period very well. A year of strong pressure on the kettle. Teachers who delicately reminded us from time to time that this last year was important. That we still had a lot to do. Reading books for lists. To write reports. workpieces. Make school surveys. Every grade, every result you got counted towards that Final Exam. That started with oral exams for every subject you had. Followed by those last days of hard blocking for the written exams in an attempt to understand something of what remained abracadabra. Hoping that that topic would not appear in the Exam. Finally, with the relief because that period of tension was over and there was nothing you could do about it.

His exam preparation

But my memories and experiences don't help my son much. He grows up in a very different school reality than I do. I know that after all these years. But it's just now a strange sensation that there are so many differences and I don't know exactly what to expect. Of course, Italian teachers also increase the pressure in that final year. But my son seems to remain astonishingly serene along with his classmates.

Explains to me several times that the less good grades for his tests at the beginning of the school year really only count for his first report. Starts blocking harder and making longer days in February. Not because the grades on his new report count in the final exam result. This is because this second and final report determines whether you will be admitted to those exams. Where you enter blank, without numbers. Except for credits that you can collect with all kinds of extracurricular activities. But by no means all points and only if your teachers agree. And then it is important to score as well as possible. If I understood his explanation correctly.

His final exam

And then the real final exams? He does not take it in every subject he has until the last day of school. There is a national exam for Italian. A nationally administered exam for the most important subject of your school. A third written exam with questions on four different subjects, which is compiled by each school itself. And finally an oral exam on a self-chosen subject in which different school subjects have to be combined.

Fortunately, emotions are universal

His mother and her graduation memories are therefore of little use to him when it comes to the practical exam approach. Am I then completely empty-handed? Do I have to watch from the sidelines? Just hope for the best? No, luckily not quite. Because there is another side to taking the exam. One where it doesn't matter what the procedures are, what language your teachers speak and the way in which you have to take your exam. I am convinced that my experiences in managing the universal exam stress and the associated emotions as best as possible will come in handy in the coming month!

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