The 50% Rule & Other Exam Shenanigans

“Except for my marks, I think my teachers will say nice things about me,” my 13-year-old pronounced days before our parent-teacher meeting. The pandemic had been a blur of forgotten homework and online classes where cameras mysteriously switched off because, apparently, our house had ‘very bad internet'. Since then, we had been struggling a bit to get back on track.

But my teen was right. The teachers said she submitted assignments on time and was attentive in class. She was comprehending concepts, they said. Some added that they couldn't understand why her marks weren't reflecting these points. I explained that her life was a blur of sports and music extracurriculars, leaving her barely any time to study. When I listed her weekly schedule, one of her teachers replied, “In that case, she's doing great!” Another teacher, whose feedback she had been dreading, sent our teenager out of the room and used the time to catch up with us.

I'm sharing this story because as parents we must all navigate the tricky paths of success, failure, stress and mental illness. 

At the time of our meeting, the midterm was three weeks away. My teen was sharply focused on the important event coming up, and it was not the exam. It was an annual concert of the Bangalore Chorus, a group she had been a member of since she was three years old. The practices were gruelling, going up to five hours, cutting in to precious study time. She came back with aching feet and a joyous mood. For the first time, she was a dancer in four songs. The math exam was the morning after the final show. If she didn't study, I was convinced, my child was going to fail her exams. This worry was so strong it was giving me stomach cramps. 

I tried to understand my anxiety. I know I don't care about marks and ranks. But the idea of my teenage daughter failing an exam felt alien to me. Why should she fail when she had access to her own room to study and enthusiastic parents who were ready to immerse themselves in Machiavelli and Meteorology with her? 

Plus there was the fact that I had never had any real brush with academic failure. It didn't help that the husband was intimately acquainted with the same and couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. Midterms are no big deal, he kept saying in front of our daughter. This sentiment was echoed by my daughter's choir director who asked, “Do you remember your term exams? I can't remember them at all—or getting stressed about them.” How to explain to them that the world had changed since they went to school. And that my mind was racing ahead of this particular exam … to the challenges that would lie ahead. 

I didn't want my child to fail because I didn't want her to feel left behind. The after of academic failure is often hard to negotiate. Some 13,039 students died of suicide in India in 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. This number was higher than 2020, a year that saw more student suicides than in the last 25 years. Failing exams contributes to these scary numbers, and though I knew my child was strong enough to deal with possible failure, I still worried. 

Faced with this anxiety, I did what every smart parent should. I withdrew for a week. Literally, left home and went on a pending trip. When I returned, I tried to hold on to my smile, however tentative, whenever I spoke to her. I can confirm that I didn't always succeed. 

In a country drowning in exam stress, we told our child that 50% was her target score. And that she should study as much as time permitted and try not to fail. She felt it was a manageable goal for her. 

I gave myself daily motivational talks—and called friends who listed all the people they knew who had failed in school and college and were now doing well in life. The world is full of incredible stories of failure and success, and I looked for inspiration in them. 

Thomas Edison had thousands of failures on the road to success. “I have not failed 10,000 times—I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work,” he is reported to have said. 

One online publication has a series titled Failing to Succeed, illustrating the widely held idea that failure can teach you key life lessons that will help you along the way. Another study analysed why some people succeed after failing while others find it hard to bounce back. How you fail determines whether you will eventually succeed, researchers found. 

Meanwhile at home, as I was slowly learning to temper my anxiety and smoothen my furrowed brow, my child was also learning to handle me better. If she had been upset with my stress earlier, now she replied casually: “Just chill. I'm okay.”

PS: The exams have just begun, and my child is focusing hard—on her upcoming, big show. 

Priya Ramani is a Bengaluru-based journalist and is on the editorial board of Article-14.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BQ Prime or its editorial team.

Essential Business Intelligence, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice, Daily Fuel, Gold and Silver Prices and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.