Anxiety in young adults is progressively becoming more of an issue especially around exam times. This intensifies the fact that each year exams become increasingly more challenging and eat further into any student’s free time in order to attain high grades. To further explore the impact of exam induced stress I interviewed several fellow students such as 16 year old Elena Morris who expressed that “(exam) stress is something everyone has and nobody knows how to prevent it” in reference to the often vague and useless advice offered to maintain mental wellbeing during exams, the widespread nature of academically originated anxiety is often dismissed as a mandatory part of adolescence however this attitude should be reconsidered as it could drive 17 year old Abi Levy to “Shovel out (her) own head”.
All joking aside if the so-called best years of our lives are also meant to be plagued with a consistent underlying apprehension that is often normalised then it there is not much optimism brought about for adulthood and full time employment. We are often advised that plenty of exercise and regular breaks minimise the effects of exam pressure which is immediately contradicted by the minimum of twelve hours of focused revision outside of college or school hours every A level student should supposedly be doing. This begs the question how a series of long, difficult exams in a compressed time period - generally a couple of weeks - can be interpreted as a useful tool to measure a student’s worth and intellectual potential.
