All Due to the Lack of Confidence – an autobiographical extract
Everyone makes mistakes in life, and I was no better. If only I had not let myself be carried
away with the notion that my classmate was better than me, I would not have had to redo
one of my most important exams in Year 8, nor would I have had to face the tunes of my
parents for failing the exam.
Maths wasn’t one of my favourite subjects. It was the 7th of May 1984. My whole class was
lined up outside the exam hall. A few on my classmates were spending their last few moments
before the test going through their work, trying to recall what they had learned earlier. I felt
tired and afraid – tired because I had spent the whole of the last evening till late night reading
and rereading my lessons, trying to prepare for my exams, and afraid because all my
classmates seemed to have studied so much more than I did.
Once seated in the exam hall with only our calculators, pens and pencils on our tables, our
exam question papers were given to us. There was absolute silence. I began answering the
questions and seemed to go through them very quickly. In a short while, I had completed my
work. I looked around and noticed that everyone else was still frantically writing. I felt
nervous. Had I done all my work properly? Were my answers correct? The student in front
of me was scribbling superfast on his paper. Bending to the side, I could clearly see his work.
I noticed that the answer I had for a question that he had also answered was not the same as
his. Maybe I was wrong. Not having the confidence to trust my own thinking and work, I
started to copy what he had written. I crossed out what I had written and started to copy
what the student in front of me had written on his paper. All of a sudden, I felt happy and
content. Soon I was copying most of his work. At the end of the exam, I passed up my paper
and went out of the exam hall a happy person.
A week later, the results were announced. I was confident that I would get a very high score.
Unfortunately, when I waited for my name, it was announced that I had failed the exam. I
almost burst out in tears. What was I going to tell my parents? How was I going to face my
classmates? For the first time in my life as a student, I had failed an exam!
The teacher called me to his desk side and asked me what had happened. He then pointed
out to the crossed out parts of my paper and asked me why I had done that, since all the work
that I had crossed out was perfectly correct. I felt stupid! I had copied the work of someone
else, all along thinking that his work was correct, while in reality, it was all wrong. I had made
a fool of myself and was now paying the price.
My parents weren’t happy with the results, and I was punished accordingly. I still remember
having to spend all those evenings with my books for two whole weeks while my brothers
went out to play (one of them even mocking me).
A lesson well learned – if only I had been confident in myself and my work, I would have
succeeded and not have got into trouble. It was all a mistake…a terrible mistake!