THINK PAD

Summers that once used to be a period of leisure, ease and freedom are now lined with crippling anxiety, fear of failure and sleepless nights for students taking their university entrance exams. All the childhood memories of playing in the golden sun of summer afternoon hours and licking ice pops, with not a single thing to worry about have faded. Now, it is the time for books, prep notes, past papers and what not, scattered all around the room. The study table, the bed and the bookshelves all equipped and rigged up, portraying a trying picture of hard work and countless hours of labour.

Every year, hundreds and thousands of students appear in entrance exams of different national and international universities, studying their days and nights away, putting their health and mental wellness at stake. Once the test is over, there is the nerve-racking waiting period for the merit lists to be posted that all students have to endure.

Some students manage to get into their dream universities, in their dream degree programmes, and some don’t. Some decide to hold onto the hope for a little longer and opt for a gap year. Whereas, others try to get into any university that might offer them just any degree programme. Both scenarios have their own pros and cons.

Students, who usually take entrance exams are mostly teenagers with little to no knowledge about how the real world works. They usually hold a stereotypical approach towards medical and engineering fields as the most rewarding ones; hence, they spend every minute of their time studying non-stop just to be able to acquire a spot in their desired medical college or in the engineering department of a prestigious university. Only a very small percentage of students is encouraged to explore their niche and interests.

The universities, as a result, are swamped with students who are either unable to navigate their goals in the life ahead or the ones who simply feel uneasy as they cannot comprehend and overcome the identity crisis that the imposter syndrome brings along.

Both situations can be dealt with careful learning and relearning of what the future is supposed to be like, once the havoc of entrance exams is over, once and for all. Students are then encouraged to accept everything for what it is and set up goals for themselves, just so they don’t feel like absolute failures. A few students who cannot bear the pressure, drop out and embark on their life journey, anew.

The need of the hour is to provide free counselling sessions to all the students without any discrimination, once they are done with intermediate level of education. This will not only allow them to explore their interests and opt for the field that is best for them, but will also help them keep an eye on what their future would look like, and set up their objectives and goals accordingly.

This can be done easily by counsellors by providing suggestions regarding the entrance test students should opt for. Also, schools should deliver preparation guidance which will help students to work to their optimal capabilities whilst taking care of their physical and mental health. Knowing what they want and how to achieve it will help students to manage their time as well as the study material in the best way possible.

Once students are done with their part, they should be encouraged to consider the waiting-for-the-results-period as their time of rest and relaxation. Sitting back and trusting the process should be the norm.

Imposter syndrome is the internal psychological experience of feeling like a phony in some area of your life, despite any success that you have achieved in that area.

You might have imposter syndrome if you find yourself consistently experiencing self-doubt, even in areas where you typically excel. Imposter syndrome may feel like restlessness and nervousness, and it may manifest as negative self-talk. Symptoms of anxiety and depression often accompany imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome is not a diagnosable mental illness. Instead, the term is usually narrowly applied to intelligence and achievement, although it also has links to perfectionism and the social context. Psychologists Suzanna Imes and Pauline Rose Clance first used this term in the 1970s.

The BSEB Bihar board released the results for the class 12th board exams today i.e., March 21, 2023. The exams were conducted in February 2023, and the results are eagerly awaited by students, teachers, and parents. The board has a reputation for conducting fair and transparent examinations, and students can check their results on the official website or through SMS or mobile app.

The Pentagon is planning a change that will allow applicants to use calculators on the military's entrance test -- a timed test that gauges academic aptitude and dictates what jobs in the military, if any, they are qualified for, three defense officials told Military.com.

The change in the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, could help relieve an ongoing recruiting slump, which is attributed to many young Americans not scoring high enough to qualify for enlistment. It would also put the ASVAB on par with how test-taking has evolved in the past decade, with calculators being widely used in math classes and on college entrance exams such as the ACT and SAT.

"We are taking a systematic approach, which will assess the impact of calculator use, and we are developing a way forward for calculator inclusion," one Pentagon official told Military.com.

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The Army, Navy and Air Force expect recruiting shortfalls this year, marking two years in a row that the services have failed to bring in what they consider are enough new recruits. The Marine Corps and Space Force are more isolated from recruiting woes, given the small size of those services.

The shortfalls are due to an amalgamation of issues -- but at the forefront is a shrinking pool of qualified young Americans, 17- to 24-year-olds, who are eligible to enlist. Many of those applicants are being turned away due to poor performance on the military's aptitude exam.

Last year, the Army launched its Future Soldier Preparatory Course, a two-track camp for applicants who came just shy of the service's standards for academic performance or body fat.

There, soldiers have 90 days to come into compliance. The Army can graduate about 12,000 soldiers from that course into basic training, making up much of the recruiting deficit it saw last year with enlistees who otherwise wouldn't have qualified for service.

The academic track -- applicants who struggle to hit education standards necessary for entrance -- makes up the lion's share of that course.

So far, the Army has graduated 9,216 students into basic training. Of that, 7,045 went through the academic track and 2,171 did the fitness course. During the academic portion, students raised their military test scores an average of 18.5 points, according to data from the service.

It's unclear when calculators will be allowed to be used during the ASVAB. The internal debate in the Pentagon revolves around updating the ASVAB, a test that has stayed relatively stagnant for decades, as the ways young Americans learn and are tested in schools has continued to evolve. Part of that evolution has been wider use of calculators and other technology.

However, the move to allow calculators could result in some public backlash. One Defense Department official said some of the difficulty in crafting a policy allowing calculators has been a fear over whether lawmakers will characterize the Pentagon as lowering standards.

Republican lawmakers and some partisan commentators have increasingly bludgeoned the services as "woke" over its efforts to be more inclusive and cater to a wider demographic of service members, such as updated maternity uniforms for pregnant female troops.

Meanwhile, academic performance in U.S. public schools has steadily declined in the past decade, with the pandemic accelerating that decline, particularly in studying and math, and among students from low-income families.

Even with calculators, potential recruits could still face difficulties.

In the class of 2022, the ACT test performance -- the testing results used by colleges for admissions -- fell to its lowest levels in 30 years, with the average score being a 19.8 out of a possible 36. Less than a quarter of ACT test takers last year met all four subject area benchmarks, which are minimal thresholds that assess whether someone is ready for college.

Nearly half failed to hit a single benchmark in reading, math, science or English.

"These declines are not simply a byproduct of the pandemic," Janet Godwin, the CEO of ACT, said in a statement last year. "They are further evidence of longtime systemic failures that were exacerbated by the pandemic."

-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.

Related: A New Medal and Revised Marketing Tactics Part of Army's Fight Against Recruiting Slump

© 2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Students headed to nearly 200 testing sites on Nov. 27 across Tokyo to take the first English speaking test with the results forming part of the entrance exams for metropolitan high schools.

The aim of the test conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education is to measure proficiency in speaking English and to lead to better instruction.

The speaking test comprised eight questions, including studying English sentences aloud and expressing opinions on familiar topics.

Examinees listened to audio through earphones, looked at illustrations, and then spoke into a microphone to answer the questions. Their voices were recorded on a tablet device.

Benesse Corp., a major correspondent education company commissioned by the board, jointly administered the test.

The recorded students’ voices will be sent to the Philippines, where staff from a Benesse affiliate will grade them in pairs.

The results will be converted to a score of 20, which is included in the overall score of 1,020 in the spring’s entrance exams for Tokyo metropolitan high schools.

Around 76,000 students, or 95 percent of the third-year students at public junior high schools in the capital, applied to take the test.

About 69,000 students took the test at 197 locations in Tokyo, including at metropolitan high schools.

The speaking test was conducted by dividing the students in the same venue into two groups. The first group answered the questions on the test, then, a little later, the second group answered the same questions.

Despite doubts whether the test could be smoothly conducted, the education board said after the test that “no major problems have been confirmed.”

The board said it had confirmed some problems, however, such as that the telephone lines for receiving a notice of absence were temporarily difficult to connect to and that multiple students arrived late because they went to the wrong venue.

After the test, one comment was also posted on social media in which a student, presumably a test taker, claimed to have heard the voices of students answering questions in the classroom next door.

However, the education board said it has not received any such reports.

Academics of test theory have questioned the fairness of the method of scoring the nearly 80,000 answers, along with the validity of how the scores of absentees will be determined.

For those who missed the test, their scores will be calculated by averaging the speaking test results of students who get the same level as the absentee’s English score on the achievement test.

(This article was written by Yuka Honda and Soichi Tsuchidate.)