Month: February 2015

Exams are very hard and most people don’t like it and would prefer coursework. Exams are the most stressful part of education. You have to spend week after week studying over everything you’ve learnt so far, not missing anything because it might be on the test, absolutely stressed out, only for you to have a stressed-induced blank out on the day and screw it up horribly. Sure, some students can study a bit a day before the exam and come out with an A, but not everyone works like that. This isn’t reflecting a student’s knowledge, it’s gambling their grades on how well their memory holds up under pressure.

In the UK, you need a pass in English and maths GCSE to get a job. But the government have made it so hard to get a pass a lot of people are unable to get jobs and the government say people are wasting their lives just sitting at home or doing crimes and other illegal things. However, the government doesn’t understand that it’s their fault for making us do exams. Exams are extremely stressful and it has been said on the news that many people suffer from mental illnesses because of the stress and pressure from exams.

Callum, aged 16, now in sixth form was doing his GCSE’s last year. He said he really struggled with memorising all the maths formulas, all the English techniques and science. He felt like giving up and didn’t want to do any of his GCSE’s anymore, so he had to go to a place where they work on calming people and work on people that are stressed. This did help him quite a bit but he still was stressed and still felt like giving up because his parents kept saying if he doesn’t get a B-A* grade in all his GCSE’s. They said they will not accept a C grade. Here is what Cullum said to me, “GCSE’s where extremely hard, I felt like giving up, it was as if I was having some kind of mental breakdown, I didn’t know what to do. My whole family was expecting me to get better grades than my older brother. I felt much stressed. The pressure was just too much. I needed help so I went to a place where they gave me help. I worked on calming down when I was stressed and it did help me a lot, but it still didn’t stop my parents from pressuring me.

With coursework, you get time to work on it and you get a few lessons to write it up and you can also use notes when you write up the coursework. Whereas exams are completely different. In exams all you have is your memory. You have to remember everything you have learnt since you started school. Exams are ridiculous. Some people have better memory than others so exams are unfair on people that have bad memory. Some people also have illnesses or disabilities so there should be a way they can be tested the same as everyone else so it is fair and everyone does the same test and everyone’s treated fairly.

Overall, I think exams should be banned and we should be tested another way and not tested on our memory. We could have a separate memory test. There are many more people in the world that are just like Cullum and we need to do something about it or their lives will be ruined without good grades. As I said, it is almost impossible to get a job in the UK without GCSE’s. These exams need to be banned.

It is a glum and gloomy night. Rain patters against the windows, and wind hisses through the gaps. The long hospital hallway is empty. The tapping of the busy shoes of nurses and doctors echoed from another side of the building. Not a single living thing is in sight. All I can hear is the gale whistling through the windows. All the rooms and wards are full of sleeping ill people. Abruptly the dark green curtain of the emergency room rises to a gust of the wind. It reveals two bodies – one a police sergeant who met his fate at the hands of armed robbers , the other of a gymnast who had a broken neck .Both these men were alive just a few minutes ago when they were brought in. Now they are lifeless with their eyes open as if they were trying to fend off an invisible force to prevent it from taking their souls.

Then along comes the sound of familiar footsteps, for it is time for the nurses to make their rounds, and to proceed immediately to the emergency room but are stunned. Personnel and equipment are scrambled immediately in hopes of reviving them. With the defibrillator they exhaust all means; but their efforts are in vain, for the patients are dead.

Two nurses are about to cover the dead bodies with blankets when the nurse sees that the window of the room is open. A bloodied scythe is lying on the floor. She approaches it with caution. Suddenly she sees a blurry vision. The picture slowly clears. She sees blood splattered on the corridor walls. As soon as she turns the corner, she sees a shadow that’s as black as night and whose face is hidden by a hood. The being has body-like figures beside it, and in the nurse’s eyes she sees that which seemed to be their souls wailing out from their once-alive bodies into the being’s hand. Moans and laughter can be heard. Suddenly, fear strangles the nurse. she has a cold feeling rush through her body. goosebumps engolfed her from head to toe, but the blood within her veins was boiling hot. Everything is now silent. The nurse drops to the ground with a thud which echoed through the corridor.

She then wakes up to the slamming of a door. she is surrounded by silence and fear. Slowly, the door opens. I can now see a disgusting scene in my presence, just like the other two patients. The scythe is swept up from the floor by a black figure in a hood, who gazes out the window to see souls marching towards a black whirlpool: the policeman and the gymnast are now beside him, and with an evil laugh they slowly vanish into thin air.