The Day the Results Came Back

On Monday morning, Mika walked into her classroom with a heavy feeling in her stomach. Today was the day her teacher would return the results of the practice exam the class had taken two weeks before. Mika had studied hard for it, especially for English, but she still felt anxious about the results. What if all her effort had been for nothing?

During first period, she could not focus on anything the teacher said. She kept looking at the clock and tapping her pen on her desk. Her best friend, Rina, who sat next to her, noticed this and smiled. "You've asked me 'What if I did badly?' five times this morning," Rina whispered. "You studied so hard. You'll be fine." Mika knew her friend was right, but her anxiety did not go away.

Finally, after lunch, the teacher walked in with a thick pile of envelopes. The room became quiet. One by one, the students went to the front to receive their results. When Mika heard her name, she stood up slowly. She was anxious to know her score, and at the same time she wanted to run away. She took the envelope, returned to her seat, and opened it anxiously.

She looked at the numbers twice to make sure she was not dreaming. Her English score had gone up by more than twenty points. Her math score had dropped a little, but now she knew exactly which kinds of problems she needed to practice. Rina leaned over and read the paper. "See? I told you," she said.

That evening, Mika wrote a few lines in her notebook. She realized that she had spent so much energy feeling anxious that she had almost forgotten why she had taken the exam in the first place. A practice exam is not a final judgment. It is a map that shows where you are now and which way to go next. With that in mind, she opened her math workbook and started to study again.