Exam-attack!

Panic gripped the student body today. It is exam period at my high school and every teenager who knows what’s good for them is stressed to breaking point. In the depths of winter, girls in round rimmed glasses mop the sweat from their foreheads. Boys develop nervous twitches and teachers have private tutorials booked around the clock. One cannot walk down the corridor without hearing the sound of hyperventilating or quiet sobs. This is how it goes in a culture where one feels that they have shamed their family by playing a wrong note on their clarinet during concert recital. Once, after I failed an inept student on a communication test, she slumped down on the desk and cried for the rest of the lesson. The test was worth 10 % of her final grade.

Amid this whirlpool of pressure, Mr. M once again surfaces in our narration. A gaggle of befuddled school girls cornered him in his office and asked if the English exam would include an ‘either or’ question; the hardest thing we’ve studied this year. Mr. M paused for a moment, and then said “mmmmmmm....” and shook his head. The girls breathed a sigh of relief and ran off to tell the rest of the class. For the next two weeks, they studied all the relevant sections of the English course, calling each other on the phone between cups of coffee and practising their street directions till the early hours in the morning.

As it turned out, Mr. M had got it completely wrong and the ‘either or’ question was the main part of the exam. As a result, only four students passed and a lot of them drifted through the corridor to my office post-exam, too tired and exhausted to cry. When he found about the dire mix up, Mr. Y yelled at Mr. M, who didn’t say anything and pouted quietly in the corner.

There may be no more terrifying moment in life than turning over an exam paper only to find a question you have no clue how to answer. The heart stops beating for approximately ten seconds and then starts moving at triple speed. Things start to blur and you realize that you have three hours to plead your case before you hit the liquor store for that critical bottle of vodka. And so, I pledge you all to have a little sympathy for these kids of mine, who cannot drink and who may well have their futures severely dented by the most useless teacher in Japan.

On another note, Mr. M did tell me I looked like Tom Cruise last week. I smiled shyly and batted my eyelids. To be honest, I am not sure whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. I think I will take the former; it would probably the first compliment I’ve ever got in this country.