A Story By Vanessa
After a year of preparing it was finally time to write the dreaded common entrance exam. The weeks leading up to it were horrible. Everyone was stressed, and I was making all kinds of crazy deals in my head with God if I passed this blasted test.
Our teacher asked the class to raise our hands if we thought we would pass. I was surprised how many people did not raise their hand. It came as no surprise that so many of them wrote the separate exams to get in to each of the local secondary schools. If anything, it was practice, and if you bombed on the common entrance maybe you did alright on the others. I raised my hand but really had no idea. She gave us a talk on being self-confident, but we all knew confidence could only get you so far! It was already decided that we would attend the Bequia Anglican Secondary School, so there was no point taking the test for the Adventist school. The other kids thought we were crazy, what if we bombed the common entrance? What if we didn’t get in to the Anglican school?
I remember having terrible nightmares leading up to the exam. To be honest I cared very little about marks or learning in general. If I could choose we would only ever write compositions, because that was the only thing I enjoyed. But I cared about this test because names of those that had passed would be printed in the newspaper, and I would be publicly shamed if mine did not appear. Even worse, I would have to repeat the year, or advance to the class where children waited out primary school because they had failed and were too old to retake the exam and too young to leave school. It was just awful. The kids in that class were so much older than the other kids and were bullies. You learned fast to not go near them, as even walking by would get your skirt flipped up with a stick, or a mirror on a shoe shoved under you. I would do anything not to have to be near those kids. Even study.
The 2 secondary schools were next to the primary school, so we saw the older kids at lunch and after school. They would call out to us and scare us about what was to come if we went to their school next year. There were threats of heads in toilets, and being made into slaves to write out notes neatly for lazy students. Even boys who said if you came to their school you had to be their girlfriend. Passing the common entrance wasn’t looking any better than failing!
A lot of us went to church the Sunday before, I tellin’ you! A list of requirements was sent out, one of which was hair ribbons for the girls in blue or white. I did not wear hair ribbons but did not want to take the chance of being sent home and missing the exam because of a missing hair ribbon! So ribbons were bought for this one occasion, and only to be worn again on the last day of secondary school. Another item was the 2b pencil. Heaven forbid you walk with the wrong pencil and your test be unmarkable!
I don’t remember much about the exam itself. I remember being extra extra early because I was paranoid, and getting a ride rather walking. I remember seeing a classmate walking home from his morning sea bath and thinking ‘he mad or wha?! Test starts in less than 2 hours and he only now bathe?!’ It was so traumatic I blocked it out entirely.
When it was done I breathed a sigh of relief. I had no idea if I had passed or failed but there was nothing to be done. School could go back to being a social place. The results soon came out and I was so relieved. Passed! Now that the objective was achieved we didn’t have to go to school or lessons anymore. We skipped the rest of term and went to the beach. There was probably a graduation of some sort, but I didn’t care. Life could once again return to carefree days spent on the beach and algebra could shove it!