Exams Quotes

PICARD: Did you read that book I gave you? (Wesley reacts, barely concealing a grimace as he recalls.)
WESLEY: Some of it.
PICARD: That's reassuring.
WESLEY: I just don't have much time.
PICARD: (re the book in his hand) There is no greater challenge than the study of philosophy. (Wesley glances over at Picard's book)
WESLEY: William James sure won't be on my Starfleet exams.
PICARD: The important things never will be. Anyone can be trained to deal with technology, and the mechanics of piloting a starship.
WESLEY: But Starfleet Academy--
PICARD: It takes more than just that. Open your mind to the past... to history, art, philosophy. And then... (re: the stars) ...this will mean something.
(Wesley considers this, almost embarrassed as he realizes Picard does truly care about him.)
Then: PICARD (continuing) Just consider James' wisdom: "Philosophy... is not a technical matter... it is our sense of what life honestly means... our individual way of feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos."
(then) That's what I want for you.

From:
STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
"Samaritan Snare" #40272-143
Written by Robert L. McCullough ~ Jean-Luc Picard

I don't like exams. I don't like giving exams, and I don't like meetings. ~ Mark W. Moffett

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. ~ Hugh Jackman

The wave of pure outrage blindsided me. I shouldn't be here, I thought. This is utterly fucked up. I should have been sitting in a garden down the road, barefoot with a drink in my hand, swapping the day's work stories with Peter and Jamie. I had never thought about this before, and it almost knocked me over: all the things we should have had. We should have stayed up all night together studying and stressing out before exams, Peter and I should have argued over who got to bring Jamie to our first dance and slagged her about how she looked in her dress. We should have come weaving home together, singing and laughing and inconsiderate, after drunken college nights. We could have shared a flat, taken off Interrailing around Europe, gone arm-in-arm through dodgy fashion phases and low-rent gigs and high-drama love affairs. Two of us might have been married by now, given the other one a godchild. I had been robbed blind. ~ Tana French

If a student commits suicide because they couldn't bear the pressure of education, it's not a sign of their weakness, but that of the system of education. ~ Abhijit Naskar

For years I heeded the warning: Do monthly breast self-exams. Like most women, I did them on a 'sort of' basis. Every few months I'd sort of do a quick feel, but never as thoroughly as the doctors urged. I didn't want to go looking for trouble. If you look for it, you might find it. Looking for cancer is unsettling. Thank God I looked. ~ Regina Brett

Knowledge is a beautiful thing that can fill us with happiness. Let's just think about our students who answered brilliantly to questions on various exams. ~ Eraldo Banovac

My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding from secondary school to University but of passing from one stage of independence to a higher, by means of their own activity and effort of will. ~ Maria Montessori

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. ~ Rebel Wilson

When I [first] went to university, I was doing foreign languages, because I had done them since I was 13 years old. I had done French and German. I picked up Italian, just sort of blasted through the exams, [and then] took off overseas, because I wanted to be an actor. I thought, "I'm just not academic." I'm not very competitive, in terms of acting. But since going back to university, I've realized, I am highly competitive. ~ Nick Offerman

Imagine you were asked in a maths paper at junior school, 'Which would you prefer, a shilling or two sixpences?' and you answered, 'Two sixpences,' because thinking of the two tiny silver coins jingling together in your pocket made you feel good and you loved those cute little sixpences. But when the test paper was returned you saw a big red cross through your answer, and that night your mother explained to you that it was a trick question, two sixpences and a shilling were worth the same amount – which you knew, but you'd still prefer two sixpences. It wasn't that you were stupid, you just saw things from a different angle. Sixpences had character, shillings didn't. And you felt richer with two sixpences because there were two coins, not just one. But despite all these explanations, you were still wrong and you kept getting tripped up by these trick questions over and over again, in exams, in relationships, friendships, jobs and interviews. In fact, these misreadings of situations happened so often that you started to view the world as a tricksy and untruthful place. Then you noticed that the people who saw the tricks behind the questions were popular and always at the top of the class. Baffled by life and its unseen rules, you began to doubt everything around you. You felt you had to approach all of life as a trick, just to get it right a few times. ~ Viv Albertine

If I ever ran for President,
It would be a school for scandal.
Champagne for all served before exams. ~ Sahndra Fon Dufe

I was no stranger to bar fights. You'd think they'd be rare in a place like the University, but liquor is the great leveler. After six or seven solid drinks, there is very little difference between a miller on the outs with his wife and a young alchemist who's done poorly on his exams. They're both equally eager to skin their knuckles on someone else's teeth. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

I think I might drum up the hardest end-of-term exams in the history of the world. I want to be remembered for something." "George, you'll be remembered. Who could forget you?" "Hopefully not you!" He kissed her forehead. ~ Robyn Carr

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. ~ Michio Kaku

Wouldn't it be good if we could let teachers do what they do best - teach. Not judge each child on a series of standardized exams. Let schools embrace, not exclude, those like me with a different way of thinking.
Stop praising literacy with one hand and closing libraries with the other. Let librarians be free to do what they do best: encourage a lifelong love of reading in every child, even the ones without a hope of ever getting an A star. ~ Sally Gardner

N.B. – Do not on any account attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once. ~ W.C. Sellar

These works are handed down from teacher to pupil, from parent to child, almost without question, like DNA. They are memorized, recited, discussed in book reports, included in university entrance exams, and once the student is grown up, they become a source for quotation. They are made into movies again and again, they are parodied, and inevitably they become the object of ambitious young writers' revolt and contempt. ~ Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Getting lost in the ocean was a sure way to get yourself killed. Back in the academy, they'd spent weeks teaching us the formulae, tips and tricks. The exams had been a special sort of hell that accounted for almost as many drop outs as the first lungful of Oxyquid. And now, out in the endless expanse of the ocean, I used a computer program that did it all for me. Education; never a waste of time. ~ G.R. Matthews

It's mind control, see. You have to go to school, get those exams, get to university or college, get a job, get married, don't miss the boat, do it now or you'll shoot your life down the drain. Yeah. They got you as soon as you were born. They never risked a second of your life. When you have kids they'll be telling them they have to wear a plastic mask and put a penny in the slot about their nose before they can breathe in. ~ Melvin Burgess

Final exams,huh? It seems pointless to think about real life again."
"I find test taking relaxing," she said.
"I'm not surprised. You probably study. ~ Kimberly Karalius

Exams make the students tired and exam-duties make the teachers exhausted. So, there should be an official vacation for at least 15 days after the end of mid-term & final exams in private universities so that the students and teachers can relax and freshen themselves up! ~ Md. Ziaul Haque

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. ~ Michael Gove

Empathy is always perched precariously between gift and invasion ... Empathy isn't just remembering to say 'that must be really hard'
it's figuring out how to bring difficulty into the light so it can be seen at all. Empathy isn't just listening, it's asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination ... Empathy means realizing trauma has no discreet edges.p7 ~ Leslie Jamison

For example, I came to my exams very well prepared, but if the professor were suddenly to ask me, "Do you know from what works I derive the authority on the basis of which I teach this subject in this university?" I wouldn't know what to answer. But the others knew. So I moved among them fearful of saying and doing the wrong things. ~ Elena Ferrante

In a British University, a final exam question on Business was:
"Define what risk is".
The shortest answer ever at one word was :
"This."
The student handed the essay in and got 100%. ~ Anonymous

And if you look at society, the way it works, they are creating, from cradle to grave, left-brain prisoners. To advance in this society, you have to be good at passing exams in school, which are taking in left-brain information overwhelmingly. Then you go to the next level, and so on so that by the time you reach any level of significant influence in society or the institutions of society, you are fundamentally locked into your left brain. Or at least the majority of people are. ~ David Icke

Vocational guidance officers speak about scores necessary to get into university, how to calculate them, what band might be needed to get into various institutions, what countries they can offer information on, what courses are available.
The post-school future they outline is entirely about getting into a university. There is nothing on alternative futures. The parents around me seem fine with this. Presumably they have academically successful children and have bought into the notion that raising a child is primarily
about getting them to pass exams to enable them to be an economically productive unit in society.
All those claims of building better humans, of being the best you can be, of following your passion, of learning to be inclusive and that everyone has something to offer, are all lies. It is simply about being a banker, IT or human resource person, sales manager, accountant, or a supportive spouse. ~ Linda Collins

During the holidays, everyone needs a break from studying for exams and Christmas shopping. I wanted to put together a diverse tour that rocks in many musical directions but always points to Christ. ~ TobyMac

They Harry Potters still enormously outnumber the likes of Petunia and Vernon Dursley in society, who just don't hold with such nonsense, perhaps reflecting how modern life seems more out of control than ever. Most people do indeed believe in magic of one sort or another, whether the thespian who shouts "break a leg" at a colleague, the student who always wears the same outfit for exams, the blushing bride who crosses her fingers for good luck or those who jump with joy when they find a four-leaf clover. Why is our belief in magic so deeply ingrained? Indeed, why do we believe in anything at all? ~ Roger Highfield

frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair - it just won't behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. I must not sleep with it wet. I must not sleep with it wet. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt, once more, to bring it under control with the brush. I roll my eyes in exasperation and gaze at the pale, brown-haired girl with blue eyes too big for her face staring back at me, and give up. My only option is to restrain my wayward ~ E.L. James

Simpler smaller stages: Breakdown all your plans into simpler smaller stages and you shall be able to achieve them. Don't just have a holistic plan; break them down into daily targets, weekly targets and monthly targets. For example, a student should not just have "I want to pass my accountancy exams by 75% in June sitting". Break this down into stages like "I shall study 2 hours at dawn, 3 days in a week and study 5 hours on weekends". ~ Siegfried Silverman

A man goes to the doctor for a check, and the doctor exams him and says I've got bad news, you've got cancer and alzheimers. The man goes Thank god I don't have cancer. ~ Gilbert Gottfried

All I can say is, 'Damn the exam! ~ William Shawcross

Hence [through No Child Left Behind] the state has been given power...to fire all teachers and principles. So here we have an unusual case in which the students are engaged in the performances, but the high stakes have been displaced onto the teachers who are preparing their charges for the exams. ~ James M. Lang

Come to think of it, I do know one preacher who tried something like that - from the pulpit of a cathedral in a major city, no less. I do not remember what the subject of her sermon was, only the response to it. She must have suggested that the Christian way was one among many ways to God (a wave and not the ocean), because afterward a man came up to her and said, 'If God isn't partial to Christianity, then what am I doing here?'

I wish ordinary Christians took exams, so I could put that question on the final. As natural as it may be to want to play on the winning team, the wish to secure divine favoritism strikes me as the worst possible reason to practice any religion. If the man who asked that question could not think of a dozen better reasons to be a Christian than that, indeed, was he doing there? ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

Prepare well! Take two inks; you may never know when one pen will stop writing! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

As a boy, he'd always had some elaborate project that had nothing to do with school. On Summit Avenue, alone in his aerie, he drew the stately homes across the street and numbered the many windows and doors, compiling a detailed log of his neighbors' activities. In sixth grade, simultaneously, he kept a diary concerning the girls he liked and a ledger chronicling every penny he made and spent. These secret fascinations led nowhere in the end, were left mysteriously incomplete like the detective novel he patterned after Sherlock Holmes, to be replaced by his next obsession. At Princeton, when he was supposed to be cramming for exams, he wrote a musical. In the army it was a novel. Nothing had changed. He was still that boy, happiest pursuing some goose chase of his own making, and lost without one. ~ Stewart O'Nan

President Obama still places far too much emphasis on relentless testing with standardized exams. ~ Jonathan Kozol

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. ~ Darren Shan

I was originally going to train as a journalist, passing a series of exams that winnowed ten thousand applicants down to one hundred places on a National Union of Journalists course. ~ Warren Ellis

I tried to bunked classes, I skipped lectures, I cheated in exams, I lied to my teachers and some stuff were taken for granted when I was a student before. I am not proud about it. Of course, I learned from that experience. I learned that everyone has a chance to change. It doesn't mean that if I am dumbass before and you call me the same thing now. Because now, I work hard, play the game well and strive for excellence. This is me now, a guy with a strong grit in my heart. ~ Nathaniel E. Quimada

He interrupted me more frequently and summarized my complaints in an increasingly optimistic light. I couldn't see or feel these changes myself, but Dr. Fish was confident, and I half believed him. The truth is that I participated in the deception. I was studying for my oral exams then, and I was desperate for the treatments to work. ~ Siri Hustvedt

School exams are memory tests, in real-world no one is going to stop you from referring a book to solve a problem. ~ Amit Kalantri

Fighting corruption is not restricted to naming and shaming a few corrupt officials. If we think it is okay to cheat in exams, lie to a ticket collector in the train about our kids' ages and pay a bit of money to avoid a big traffic fine, then at some level we clearly don't care about eliminating corruption all that much. At best, we hate the politician who gets to steal (while we don't!). ~ Chetan Bhagat

...he had also acquired a peculiar academic quirk. During exams, he knew all the answers but wasn't able to successfully map his answers to the right questions. So as soon as an exam started, he simply started putting his answers in the order in which he remembered them. Every time he moved to a new class, his parents made the new teachers aware of this snag. The teachers acknowledged it and reassured the parents that they'd match his answers against the appropriate questions. ~ Pawan Mishra

Dear Brave People,

I realise that it appears I'm fearless. I can make that presentation with ease, I can stand near the edge of the cliff and look down, and I can befriend that spider in the bathroom. (He's called Steve).
But recently I've realised that's not what makes people brave. Brave has a different meaning.
I'm afraid of people leaving. After I watched my best friend become someone else's and I was forced into befriending my childhood bully, I realised I don't want to let myself go through this again. I see my fear come through when questioning my boyfriend;s affections. I see it when I distance myself from my friends who are going to leave for university. Isee it in my overanalysis of my parents' relationship and paranoia over a possible divorce.
I don't want to be alone.
I'm afraid of failure. I aced my exams and the bar has moved up again. I have those high expectations along with everyone else, but I know now that maybe the tower is just too tall, and I should've built stronger foundations. I act like I know what I'm doing, but really I'm drifting away from the shore faster and faster.
I don't want to let anyone down.
I'm afraid of change. I don't know where I lie anymore. I thought I knew what to do in my future, but I can't bear to think that I'm now not so sure. I thought I was completely straight, but now it's internal agony as I'm not so sure. Turns out I thought a lot of things.
I don't want my life to ~ Emily Trunko

One of the things I find strangest and hardest is that we were having such conversations. We should have been talking about discos and electronic mail and exams and bands. How could this have been happening to us? How could we have been huddled in the dark bush, cold and hungry and terrified, talking about who we should kill? We had no preparation for this, no background, no knowledge. We didn't know if we were doing the right thing, ever. We didn't know anything. We were just ordinary teenagers, so ordinary we were boring. Overnight they'd pulled the roof off our lives. And after they'd pulled off the roof they'd come in and torn down the curtains, ripped up the furniture, burnt the house and thrown us into the night, where we'd been forced to run and hide and live like wild animals. We had no foundations, and we had no secure walls around our lives any more. We were living in a strange long nightmare, where we had to make our own rules, invent new values, stumble around blindly, hoping we weren't making too many mistakes. We clung to what we knew and what we thought was right, but all the time those things too were being stripped from us. I didn't know if we'd be left with nothing, or if we'd left with a new set of rules and attitudes and behaviours, so that we weren't able to recognise ourselves any more. We could end up as new, distorted, deformed creatures, with only a few physical resemblances to the people we once were. ~ John Marsden

A great professor considers his student's success as a reflection of his own. He will not remain indifferent in the case of continuous poor exam results, but will do as much as possible to overcome such a situation. ~ Eraldo Banovac

During the engineering exams we only need ink in our pen, nothing else is needed to answer the question paper. ~ Prashant Gupta

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. ~ Theo Jansen

When Gabrielle brought the antique candelabra to the fire and lit the candles, their gentle glow filled the room, and Kat could see the earl's daughter pressed against Hale's side.
She was not a possessive person. She'd never been prone to jealousy. No. Kat was more prone to simply making sure the very fancy college that Lady Georgette was going to be attending found out that the girl had had "help" with her entrance exams. ~ Ally Carter

I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand different matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair-cut and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Looking back I find it hard to believe that I could forge a career in anything other than football but I didn't do too badly in my final exams and there were a few business-related courses that interested me. ~ Kenny Cunningham

I crammed my exams in London and did fine. ~ Rhona Mitra

examination is over," Harry corked his sample flask feeling that he might not have achieved a good grade but that he had, with luck, avoided a fail. "Only four exams left," said Parvati Patil wearily as they headed back to Gryffindor common room. "Only!" said Hermione snappishly. "I've got Arithmancy and ~ J.K. Rowling

Chris accompanied me to most of the exams as we got ready to have the baby. At one critical point, the doctor offered to do a test that would screen for developmental problems. People sometimes use the result of that test to decide whether to go ahead with the birth.
We looked at each other as she said that.
"Do you want to know?" I asked Chris. "I mean, what difference would it make if something was wrong with the baby?"
"It won't change anything. I'm going to love the baby, one way or another."
"Me, too. That's our baby, no matter how it comes out."
We decided not to do the test, leaving the outcome to God.
But we weren't willing to leave everything unknown, or at least Chris didn't: he wanted to know whether it was a boy or girl. A few checkups later, the sonogram proclaimed loudly, "It's a boy!"
I can still see myself lying on my back, belly covered with jelly, and Chris beaming next to me. He'd been sure the baby would be a girl-so many other Team guys were having girls that it seemed to be some sort of military requirement.
I was very excited-and a little nervous. I hadn't had a brother growing up. (Ten male cousins don't count in this equation. Even if I love them all." Talking to his mother, I mentioned that I had no idea what to expect with a boy. She, after all, was an expert-she'd had two, both of whom turned into fine young men.
"I don't know what to do with a boy," I confessed.
"You just chase them," she replied. ~ Taya Kyle

Much of the education doctors get in their four years of medical school and subsequent years of apprenticeship training is focused on teaching this skill of identifying and shaping those aspects of a patient's life and symptoms, exams and investigations that contribute to the creation of a version of the patient's story that makes a diagnosis possible. Indeed, the ability to create this spare and impersonal version of the patient's story is THE essential skill in diagnosis.

It's also one of the aspects of medicine that can seem the most dehumanizing. ~ Lisa Sanders

we exceeded expectations just by turning up for the exams." - George Weasly ~ J.K. Rowling

Still, life carries on. Exams to be examined. Serious things to be thingied. ~ Louise Rennison

Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams mean everything, but when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don't seem half so important. ~ L.M. Montgomery

When students cheat on exams it's because our school system values grades more than students value learning. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

For me, all those systematic Bureaucracies of traditional schools jaded me. For me, I still couldn't understand why we have to have a factory style education for children living in the 21st century. Why hold them in place, asking them to read and repeat and giving them a number of tasks to finish? I still have no idea how exams and objective assessments could measure human behavior or intelligence. Is it some kind of barcoding human aptitude? Is it ethical anyway? ~ Neda Aria

We do not compete in our careers with people who lack the requisite intelligence to enter and stay in our field - but rather against the much smaller group of those who have managed to jump the hurdles of schooling, entry exams, and other cognitive challenges to get into the field in the first place. ~ Daniel Goleman

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! ~ Rachel Tucker

So top grade's O for 'Outstanding,'" Hermione was saying, "and then there's A-"
"No, E," George corrected her, "E for 'Exceeds Expectations.' And I've always thought Fred and I should've got E in everything, because we exceeded expectations just by turning up for the exams. ~ J.K. Rowling

Most women don't do regular breast self examinations, mainly because they are either intimidated by what they might find, or they're confused as to how to do the self exam correctly. 'Liv Aid' eliminates all of these concerns because it makes breast self exams easy to perform. ~ Olivia Newton-John

I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage. ~ Edith Evans

Albert [Einstein] was reading Kant and attending occasional lectures at the University of Pavia: for pleasure, without being registered there or having to think about exams. It is thus that serious scientists are made. ~ Carlo Rovelli

The din of loud voices and the clatter of cutlery on plates echoed from out of the double doors to the Great Hall. It seemed incredible to Harry that twenty feet away were people who were enjoying dinner, celebrating the end of exams, not a care in the world... p. 751 ~ J.K. Rowling

We usually appreciate only half the cycle of impermanence. We can accept birth but not death, gain but not loss, or the end of exams but not the beginning. True liberation comes from appreciating the whole cycle and not grasping onto those things we find agreeable. ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

Comparing and contrasting is a valuable human skill - and not just during high school English exams. Our ability to rank-order things is invaluable in making choices and setting priorities. ~ Martha Beck

The survivor movements were also challenging the notion of a dysfunctional family as the cause and culture of abuse, rather than being one of the many places where abuse nested. This notion, which in the 1990s and early 1980s was the dominant understanding of professionals characterised the sex abuser as a pathetic person who had been denied sex and warmth by his wife, who in turn denied warmth to her daughters. Out of this dysfunctional triad grew the far-too-cosy incest dyad. Simply diagnosed, relying on the signs: alcoholic father, cold distant mother, provocative daughter. Simply resolved, because everyone would want to stop, to return to the functioning family where mum and dad had sex and daughter concentrated on her exams. Professionals really believed for a while that sex offenders would want to stop what they were doing. They thought if abuse were decriminalised, abusers would seek help. The survivors knew different. P5 ~ Beatrix Campbell

The bar exam's a mother. I mean, for me it was. I failed it the first two times, but I guess it's like losing your virginity, third time's the charm. ~ Jimmy McGill

To be better equipped for the tests that the year will bring - read a textbook. To prepare for the tests that life will bring - read a book. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

By the time the average person finishes college, he or she will have taken over 2,600 tests, quizzes, and exams. The right answer approach becomes deeply ingrained in our thinking. This may be fine for some mathematical problems where there is in fact only one right answer. The difficulty is that most of life isn't this way. Life is ambiguous; there are many right answers- all depending on what you're looking for. But if you think there is only one right answer, then you'll stop looking as soon as you find one. ~ Roger Von Oech

Please, God,' Ruth would pray, 'don't let me be competitive. Let me realize what a privilege it is to study. Let me remember that knowledge must be pursued for its own sake and please, please stop me wanting to beat Verena Plackett in the exams.'
She prayed hard and she meant what she said. But God was busy that autumn as the International Brigade came back, defeated, from Spain, Hitler's bestialities increased, and sparrows everywhere continued to fall. ~ Eva Ibbotson

His cell-phone rang. Dominic fumbled for it on the nightstand next to the couch, the dim lights not helping his endeavour. He had piercing, generic, banal fluorescent lights on his face all the time at work and at University, it was so bad it made him loathe even natural sunlight. Lucky this apartment's living room light had a dimmer. He flipped open his phone and said hello. 'Hey Dom, how you doin'?' a voice boomed. It was Ben. They proceeded to talk about the upcoming exams, which were deceptively close as it was week 10 at the moment. Yes, they would be alright. Yes, they would meet up afterwards. No, he hadn't studied more than Ben had. As he clapped the phone closed after the genial conversation reached its natural nadir, he had forgotten most of what had been said ~ T.P. Grish

You know, exams are like war
the birth rate of ideas goes up. Anything to keep from this dismal regimen, says poor mind, and hopefully tosses up another distraction. ~ James Tiptree Jr.

Everything was just going perfect, then exam comes... ~ Atlas Gondal

Not everyone who takes extra paper during exams write extra sense ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Yearly mammograms have turned into the essential strategy for breast cancer screening. In any case, different exams including MRIs and hereditary testing are taken relying upon a lady's individual and family history. ~ Cancercenter

I would outlaw literature exams entirely; I would also eschew the twin barbarities of 'attendance' and 'participation' as grading criteria, necessitated by workload increase. ~ Julie Schumacher

Until when will the poor youngsters be obliged to listen or to repeat all day long? When will they be given some time to reflect on this accumulation of knowledge, to be able to coordinate [find a pattern in] this endless multitude of propositions, in these unrelated calculations?...Students are less interested in learning than passing their exams. ~ Evariste Galois

Go ahead and eat your bread, a time will come when it shall get to you breath. Go ahead and leave your pen, exams will come when you shall remember the pen! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Glancing at the paper, I see once again how much exams have changed these days. For example. Old Fashioned Question: 'What is 5x3?' (1 Mark) Modern question: 'How would you feel if you were a number 5 and two new number 5s came to join you from somewhere else? Would you make friends with them, because they are the same as you, or would you feel that they were not as good as you because you had been here longer? Do you think other number 5s would treat them differently? Can you think of any similar situation in the world today?' (25 Marks). ~ Frank Chalk

He was infamous, even at her school. You wanted something to get you through your exams, he had it. You wanted a fake license, he could get it. You wanted something to hurt you, he was it. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

If you want to understand what a year of life means, ask a student who just flunked his end-of-the-year exams. Or a month of life: speak to a mother who has just given birth to a premature baby and is waiting for him to be taken out of the incubator before she can hold him safe and sound in her arms. Or a week: interview a man who works in a factory or a mine to feed his family. Or a day: ask two people madly in love who are waiting for their next rendezvous. Or an hour: talk to a claustrophobia sufferer stuck in a broken-down elevator. Or a second: look at the expression on the face of a man who has just escaped from a car wreck. Or one-thousandth of a second: ask the athlete who just won the silver medal at the Olympic Games, and not the gold he trained for all his life. Life is magic, Arthur, and I know what I'm saying because since my accident I appreciate the value of every instant. So I beg you, let's make the most of all the seconds that we have left. ~ Marc Levy

For exams, I swotted so hard because I couldn't bear the thought of not coming first. ~ Lily James

Approaching the Start of Civil Exams

Perhaps I was once a young Chinese scholar
approaching the start of civil exams,
my mind grown weary and sad from seclusion
with books on syntax and poetic style.

All that I knew were the mist-covered mountains
and sweet white blossoms of mountain apples
that grew in the valleys of my province.

But I had been gone over six years
busy with studies in the Heavenly City
empty and thin despite my work.

I showed my verses to an older poet
who told me a truth I longed to believe:
all knowledge is futile and barren
which does not open the love of your friends. ~ Jim Chapson

I don't want to learn in a classroom anymore. I want to travel and talk to people and learn that way. I want to learn as I go,gathering knowledge and not being rigorously tested on it. I don't want to lose passion in the things I like because of the worry of exams. I want to be fuelled by snippets of knowledge I gain from people and be inquisitive. School has stolen my passion for the things I'm interested in and I hate it for that. ~ Anonymous

Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't these the same questions as last year's [physics] final exam?
Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different. ~ Albert Einstein

A reading major, that's what he wants. No response papers, no exams, no analysis, just the reading. ~ Erin Morgenstern

Do I think I'm under-educated? Academically, absolutely. I never took any exams, no O- or A-levels. ~ Hayley Mills

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? ~ Alexandra Adornetto

One time an employee brought cakes to the office to celebrate her daughter's passing the exam, whereas another coincidentally fell "sick" when her child repeatedly failed the entrance exams. ~ Felix Abt

Having neurons wire together can be a good thing. A positive experience with a math teacher can lead to neural connections that link math with pleasure, accomplishment, and feeling good about yourself as a student. But the opposite is equally true. Negative experiences with a harsh instructor or a timed test and the anxiety that accompanies it can form connections in the brain that create a serious obstacle to the enjoyment not only of math and numbers, but exams and even school in general. ~ Daniel J. Siegel

First Aid and Home Nursing classes were popular during 1913, and at the beginning of 1914. We all went to these, bandaged each other's legs and arms, and even attempted to do neat head-bandaging: much more difficult. We passed our exams, and got a small printed card to prove our success. So great was female enthusiasm at this time that if any man had an accident he was in mortal terror of ministering women closing in on him.
'Don't let those First Aiders come near me!' The cry would rise. 'Don't touch me, girls. Don't touch me! ~ Agatha Christie

Do you condemn the kids for not having been blessed with I.Q.s of 120? Can you condemn the kids? Can you condemn anyone? Can you condemn the colleges that give all you need to pass a board of education examination? Do you condemn the board of education for not making the exams stiffer, for not boosting the requirements, for not raising salaries, for not trying to attract better teachers, for not making sure their teachers are better equipped to teach?
Or do you condemn the meatheads all over the world who drift into the teaching profession drift into it because it offers a certain amount of paycheck every month security ,vacation-every summer luxury, or a certain amount of power , or a certain easy road when the other more difficult roads are full of ruts?
Oh he'd seen the meatheads, all right; he'd seen them in every education class he'd ever attended. The simpering female idiots who smiled and agreed with the instructor, who imparted vast knowledge gleaned from profound observations made while sitting at the back of the classroom in some ideal high school in some ideal neighborhood while an ideal teacher taught ideal students.
Or the men who were perhaps the worst, the men who sometimes seemed a little embarrassed, over having chosen the easy road, the road the security, the men who sometimes made a joke about the women not realizing they themselves were poured from the same streaming cauldron of horse manure. Had Rick been one of these men? He did not belie ~ Evan Hunter

Our brain is a circuit board with neurons and terminals ready to be wired. We are born free, then programmed to obey our parents, to tell the truth, pass exams, pursue and achieve, love and propagate, age and fade unfulfilled and uncertain what it has all been for. We swallow the operating system with our mother's milk and sleepwalk into the forest of consumer illusion craving shoes, houses, cars, magazines, experiences that endorse our preconceived dreams and opinions. We grow into our parents. We becomes clones, robots, matchstick men thinking and saying the same, feeling the same, behaving the same, appreciating in books and films and art shows those things we already recognize and understand. ~ Chloe Thurlow