By Faten Omar

KUWAIT: As high school exams come to an end, hundreds of students in Kuwait are preparing for their graduation ceremonies mentally and psychologically to bid farewell to their books and stationery. But this was not the case for students graduating from the literary section, as the hashtag #history_exam topped Twitter. Thousands of students complained on Wednesday about the difficulty of the history exam and its impact on their psyche and their academic grades. Alaa Al-Enezi said the exam was very difficult.

"I intended to improve my score, but now this exam will be the reason for making my success harder. The questions of the exam were twisted, incapacitating and indirect," she charged. Maryam Al-Hindi expressed her dissatisfaction with the history exam, directing her statement to the minister of education: "Are you testing our capabilities as students or teachers specializing in history? Did you see the level of the exam? We demand an official circular sent to all teachers and supervisors to go easy on our answers in this exam.

Otherwise, you will see all students failing and repeating the exam in the second half.” Meanwhile, Alia stressed most students unanimously agreed the test was more difficult than the level of their abilities, even for the most diligent ones. “Reassure us that we will not be distracted mentally from the rest of the exams and be gentle with our aspirations and dreams," she called on the authorities. "I am sure (the Zionist entity) supported this test," Noura Hadi said sarcastically, asking students of the scientific section to celebrate their last day in silence because there are those around them who are in pain.

Ahmed Al-Hassan commented: "To those who set these questions — do you think it is an exam for master's students? I do not know why the history exam was like this. There is not one clear question. All the questions are difficult, and the student must read the question more than once to understand it." Hajar Al-Tamimi addressed her message to those who set the questions. "Are you okay? Because I think this is a kind of revenge. From the shock of the history exam, I slept on the paper, even though I had studied well. I lost time and effort. My mood is bad," she said.

"Where are the questions that were in the guidance book the teachers gave us? Or even questions from previous tests? I studied them twice, but not a single question was in today’s exam. Most students were crying in the hall,” she added. “Even the author of the history book would fail the exam if he took it. Whoever set the exam paper did not fear God. He set it in order to lower our grades. All exams are at the level of students, but the final exam is difficult and meant to waste students’ future," Hamad Al-Fadil said. “Since the beginning of the course, I have been studying history and got full marks in the first semester.

Grades are important to every student. Either you fail or you succeed. They played us!” Abeer Al-Mutairi expressed her sorrow, saying although her grades were perfect in history during the previous year, in this exam she left the last three pages blank, guaranteeing failure. "The management fired the good expat teachers! They were the ones who used to set questions for us and make the topics easier to understand. Why are you ruining students' joy of graduating with such final exams?" she cried.