Top 15 Reasons why Students Fail During Examination

Here are the top 15 reasons why students fail exam:

1. Laziness: One of the biggest reasons why students fail examination is laziness. A lecturer once said “we don’t have dumb students, but lazy students.” When a student is lazy, he finds it difficult to read, attend classes, do homework, and make researches and other things that can ensure examination success. How is it possible to successfully sit for an exam you virtually know nothing of? Exam success doesn’t work like magic, it involves hard work and diligence.

“we don’t have dumb students, but lazy students.”

2. Over-Confidence: Some students are too confident of themselves that they overlook those tiny things that count. Over-confidence could lead to under performance. Nobody said a little self-confidence in your abilities is wrong but being Over-Confident could be dangerous. Just because you have an idea in a topic does not mean you should go sit for the exam believing that reading such topic would be a waste of time. No matter how simple or small something or somebody may appear, don’t be too sure that you don’t need them. Over-confidence kills.

3. Bad Reading Habits: Most students don’t know how to read and the conditions that best suit their body system. It baffles me how students who haven’t read throughout the semester would want to cover every topic in just one week prior exam. How will that sink in? (You could read 10 Most Effective Study Habits For Students, it will help)

4. Lack of Interest: One of the reasons why students fail exams is lack of interest. It would be an uphill task to pass a subject you don’t have interest in. A computer science student whose interest lays so much in photography will find it difficult to read and pass CSC101.

5. Mind-set: Many people don’t really know what the mind-set is one of the reasons why students fail exam. Everything in life lies in the mind. “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right” (Henry Ford). If you have the mind-set that you will fail, no matter the effort you put in it, you will end up failing.

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right” — Henry Ford

6. Too Engaged: Some students are just too engaged in one activity or the other that they have no time to figure out why they are too engaged. They have virtually joined all the organizations on campus in such a way that today’s lecture collides with rehearsal class. On returning from the rehearsal, he or she is too tired to study for tomorrow’s text — Failure starts.

7. Friends: If you keep friends who don’t mind failing, then you are not far from failing. These friends would make sure they discourage you from studying hard for exams, see to it that you join them in skipping classes and change your orientation that you can never pass. Since you can’t beat them, you join them. (You could also read 15 Kinds of Friends Every Student Will Meet on Campus

8. Finance: One of the reasons why students fail exams is their financial power. Poor financial status can hinder students from buying materials that would enhance exam success. They find it hard to get good meals, resourceful materials for studying, and gadgets to make their research works and assignments easier. Paying for excursion to different educational places would also be pretty difficult. A student with very low financial power would be forced to look out for alternatives which are a distraction to their academics.

9. Bad Teachers: Bad teachers make bad students. Some lecturers are just out and out terrible. These set of teachers need to go back to school to begin learning from the scratch. Some teachers have taught their students errors and these students are suffering for it in their respective colleges and institutions. Some campus lecturers are rude, sadists and cruel to students and this has made the students to lose interest in their subjects.

10. Procrastination: Procrastination is the thief of time, another big reason why students fail. “I will do it later! I will do it later!” You end up not doing it. “Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.” Do that reading or assignment today; do not push it till the next day.

Did you know that what you eat can affect you on the day of exam?

Examination Day

11. Lateness: Not only does late coming to the exam hall make you disorganized, it makes you feel like you have missed out on some very vital things. Imagine you having a 2hour exam by 8:00am, you arrived the exam hall by 8:45am, you have the following to do: Explain yourself to the supervisor the reasons for coming late, locate your seat, collect your question paper and answer sheet and try to put yourself in one piece. You have just wasted more minutes. Now your brain have to do two things at a time: answer the question and calm your nerves. You end up writing poorly under a very short time.

12. Incomplete Materials: Incomplete materials in the exam hall are also one of the reasons why students fail exam. A student going for a calculation based exam without a calculator or a technical drawing exam without a pencil or ruler. How will he or she pass?

13. Not Heeding Instructions: Failure to follow instructions in an examination hall would be your own undoing. Don’t start when you are not asked to, shade properly where necessary, stop when you are asked to, read the instructions given carefully and answer according to the number of questions you are asked to answer, submit at the appropriate time and place.

14. Time Wasting: If you have 60 minutes to answer 60 questions and you spend 2 minutes on each question. Mathematically, you will only answer just 30 questions and that spells failure.

15. Exam Malpractice: Even if this looks like a shortcut to success, if you are caught in the act, your papers would be canceled and you can also end up behind bars. If you attempt cheating in an exam hall and in one way or the other, you didn’t succeed; then you won’t be able to write your papers successfully because you already cast your hope on cheating and it never worked out.