Exam Season 2021

Albula administrate Donna rajim Bismillah R. Rahman hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala COVID Mursaleen st no Muhammad Ali. He was so happy he married my beloved brothers and sisters Sadam Ali Kemal rahmatullah wa barakato

and hamdulillah horrible Alameen wa Praise to Allah subhanaw taala and I should have Allah Allah, Allah witnesses and unworthy of worship besides Allah, and we send our greetings and salutations so beloved Nabi Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to his pious, his pure family to his companions and others to follow his sunnah until the end of time. May Allah subhanaw taala bless us to be amongst them. Meanwhile, hamdulillah Al Hamdulillah hope you all well, I'm the light is a long weekend, and always good. If you didn't know that Monday is a public holiday and Hamdulillah I give you the good news, the glad tidings of voting day, but inshallah also there is an important duty for

all of us to do on Monday, so inshallah do your duty. It is a scary time of year. And I'm not talking about Halloween, I'm talking about a lot scarier than that. And it is exam time of year. And while most of the GEMA Looks like you haven't written the exam in a very very long time, this panel I don't see many of you have been long since you've written the exam. We all know that when the kids are writing exam the entire house is in exam mode and the matriculants they've started mama granddam Tofik in success it's a very difficult time for them they have you know COVID And load shedding spinal on top of all the other normal stresses so I'm I'm gonna make it easy for them and all our

kids.

And so today inshallah we talking a little bit about something relevant, practical, I hope in all your houses, what can we do? What can Islam guide us in this exam season to make the most of it? The first point to point out the first thing that I'd like to mention in sort of Iraq, Allah says, the baraka Libya deal, All Praise be to Allah in His hand is all of creation, or while acquisition God did and he controls everything, Allah, the Holocaust, melter will hire 30, I believe, you can ask and what Amala, he is the one that gave created death and life. So as a test, who of you will do your best. So the bad news is,

get used to this, get used to it, one exam is going to be replaced with another. And even though many of us he has not formally written maybe an exam in some years, Allah subhanaw taala is always going to test us. And life the purpose of it is with tests by implication, it's difficult, it's hard, it's not nice. But Allah says to see who of you do the best. Allah is the only one that judges on intention, and effort, another dollar doesn't look at the results. Whether you fail the past is not important, so long as you did your part, and you put the effort in that is what is important to Allah subhanaw taala. And so for the youngsters that are already tired of this, get used to it, you

have many, many tastes, and life in itself is a taste. And so for us as Muslims, we can't wish away the tastes, we can't, you know, become angry with it, the best thing we can do is accept it. And as Allah says, Allah, who will of us is going to approach it in the best way possible, specifically to this exam season and the difficult time that is for our kids. And I said by extension parents, as a parent that my kids are still quite young, so they this little speck in winches, but I can tell you, it is still quite tense in the household. And I can imagine for those of you who have kids that are in high school University, the entire household is going through that test. And most of course, our

learners themselves.

The first point in how we approach a test, whether it's an exam of school, or the test of life,

with everything in them and amodal Binya, begin with that sincere near and very few of us actually do that. Did we do that? Why am I writing this exam, I'm just doing it because if I don't do any writing, but that was why we wrote our exams, but perhaps our younger generation can be better. And they can sit for this exam and sit during while they're sitting in the studying. And you can tell yourself, this is an act of worship. While I am sitting here studying my Maths, English, whatever it is, Allah is pleased with me, because I intend to do something positive with us. The exam is not the destination, it's only an obstacle, the real destination is that insha Allah one day I will have

some skill, and I will do something good in this dunya that I will leave the world a little bit better than the way I found it. And Allah says vainly actions will be judged by your intention, Allah will reward you based on that Nia. So take a moment before you studying before you write that exam before you open that book, that why am I doing this that for us we have a higher purpose in life. And perhaps the most beautiful

act of worship you can do is the acquisition of knowledge. And we don't acquire knowledge just for the sake of having a degree just for the sake of having a good job. So we can go on international holidays. Those are external hamdulillah not know nothing wrong, one of those things, but we want knowledge that is beneficial in the dunya and the era. And so for our young learners, if you want the blessing of Allah, then make Allah part of your journey.

If it's just about me passing an exam and earning a good living and hamdulillah nothing wrong with that, but if you have this conversation with Allah before you open that book so your Allah, I'm doing this for you, I'm doing this to please you you're Allah, so assist me and help me. Then you've made Allah a partner in your in your studies, and therefore in sha Allah, there is the blessing and the baraka in it. Number two, Allah subhanho wa Taala designed a world with cause and effect, that if you want something, you have to do something to get something. And if you are sick, you must take the medication. If you want to pass and you want to succeed, and you want to have prosperity in this

life, Allah subhanho wa Taala has shown the path to get there. Now when it comes to knowledge, I've said this many times before, that Allah is very generous when it comes to giving blessings. Allah gives wealth for free. Allah gives your life your health for free. Allah gives even kingdoms for free people up one princess Amin, ated kingdoms, but he does not give knowledge for free. Allah does not ever, ever give a piece of knowledge for free. This is a law with Allah subhanaw taala he can give you the dunya for free, because in the sight of Allah, these things are insignificant. But learning one sentence, learning one I have the Quran learning one math problem. This is truly

valuable in the sight of Allah. And so if you want it, you must trade something for it. You must give something back for it, you must work for it. And that is why whenever you see when you hear the Hadith about Bollywood students, we call them students in Arabic. It's a Bollywood invalidates the seeker, the searcher the one who's looking, searching for knowledge, but one the the metalhead Jouvet means to struggle means like jihad, jihad, it comes from struggle, effort, the muda them which then hit is the ILM who comes up with new laws. Why? Because he must struggle. So what knowledge unfortunately, for the acquisition of knowledge, they will be effort, they will be

sacrifice, they will require long hours and practice. And there's no shortcuts. Unfortunately, you can shortcut anything in the dunya you can even shortcut to be the President's Bartonella but you can't shortcut your way to knowledge. That is how Allah subhanaw taala has made it and that is why Subhan Allah, this is very famous saying that the the ink of the scholar is more valuable in the blood of the martyr and the efforts of learning. Our young brothers and sisters as you're studying in this time. It's an act of jihad Subhanallah you are in the service of Allah visa vie de la, of course if the NIA is is sincere, and so with that sacrifice, you're giving up your free time, you're

giving up your enjoyment, you're giving up sleep, your comforts, in acquisition of knowledge, and there is nothing more Blizzard than that. We know the first lesson we learned the first lesson Allah taught in every item, that even though you are made of dirt of clay, if you have knowledge, even Gibreel makes it do to you because that is how Allah values knowledge. The one who knows in the sight of Allah is elevated above that the one who does not know and your opportunity in learning and studying and going through the exams. Is you elevating yourself in the sight of Allah subhanaw taala

in terms of practical steps, how do I approach this exam from the Sunnah we're doing a little series called moments with an abuse of Solomon will continue Inshallah, on Monday and on Mondays and Thursdays, I think every day was about much for me and for everyone else. People said I can't so heartless will do points a week in sha Allah. But if you look at the visa Salam, even though he's Nia was, of course sincere, and he had the support of Allah and Allah, he put his trust in Allah, you have to be practical, and you have to strategize. How did you strategize when it came to very, very difficult problems? How do you strategize your exam,

you need to know what you know, and what you don't know, perhaps the most difficult part of studying. And this is from somebody that Alhamdulillah I've been at three different universities, I've had my fair share of exams Alhamdulillah I've had some difficult times some easy taste some exams I didn't do so well in Hamdulillah. The most difficult part of studying is when you begin, you know, if you can't even see the mountain, you know, I don't even know when you say come on. Like, if the guy shows you this is what I mean, then you know, okay, this is what I'm in for. And most of our learners, I find that we struggle between knowing what you know, and knowing what you don't know,

because it's the unknown that tells you I have so many chapters 10 chapters, 2030 chapters, how many chapters I need to study. And so take a moment to go through your syllabus. Go through your syllabus and say or your textbook, which chapters sit with your teacher or that person that is always getting full marks in class, ask them what was I studied for the exam? Which chapters which pages, then you know, okay, this is this is the elephant. This is what the elephant looks like. Now we're going to eat an elephant

One bite at a time.

You then plot your timetable for your exams, you know, okay, I'm writing maps in five days, I've got 20 chapters. So, you know, everything being equal. I've got four chapters a day, four chapters, how many pages, okay, that's 30 pages a day is Pinilla. That's what I need. That's what's up. That's what I'm up against. And so I have a timetable with your exam. Now, you know, long before you guys were doing COVID, I was stuck in Saudi Arabia Alhamdulillah, the only person in the Middle East studying a certain degree online with UniSA. So I've been learning online, almost 15 years before online became in fashion. And with UniSA. It's not like UCT if you bunk a class, okay, you're not

learning, that's bad haram, but you have a friend that can pull you through you have your tasks and assignments that can save you UniSA you don't study, you're not studying anything, you're not going to know anything. So you need to face your own self, you need to work out from day one, to get to the end, how much must I do every single day, every single night. So that I don't have a problem to which the end. And this is the discipline. So brilliance that gets you over the line, it's discipline. This is the trick to learning is discipline. So I have a study timetable. Look at what you need to do and how much time you have. And of course, there's the common thing is thought the

best advice is start early. Start early. Every day you lose out everyday you miss out, you just adding another batch of chapters to that list. And in prioritized. Now, for those of us who, and I'm also one in that boat, you begin to realize that look, I'm never going to do 10 chapters a day, this is not going to happen. So I need to choose the big ones. And make dua for the small ones that I leave out.

That's just how it is. And that's like Subhanallah that's how life works, that you're not going to get everything 100% And Hamdulillah. You aim for 100% but we'll we'll be happy with 75 80% and we just make dua we get past 50%. So prioritize the big things. And this is from the Sunnah that ivisa Salam looked at the problems that he had many, many problems. And even the Sharia looked at all the problems, from small things to big things. We start with the big things, the priorities, let me get these things right, at least I guarantee the boss, then we move forward from there. And as you find from an Elisa Lam, very famous Hadith. The deeds Allah loves the most are those that are small, but

consistent, be consistent, and do little bits at a time. Don't do all nighters, you know, it's not sustainable, it's not sustainable. So break it down into manageable pieces each day to three hours, this time to three hours, often to three hours in the evening. Hamdulillah, six hours was more manageable when sitting from 12 o'clock to Fudger. Trying to do six hours of work.

Part of of the Sunnah is that you should never be extreme meaning even extreme Ibadah you must take breaks and you must pace yourself. And maybe it's the sum of some of you take too much breaks, you always want to break at five minutes of work half an hour break. And there are others who are stressing for that extra fact that lost 95% is not good enough. As the saying goes even a bus I believe said this, The rider who does not give his animal, a drink of water will not get to the destination. If you push yourself, you're going to break yourself. And that's the last thing you want to see. Worse than failing worse than not doing well is the person that breaks down during this

exam period. The end of the day. This is not life and death. It's not life and death. But it is important. And so give yourself the time. Give your heart to your body. Give your heart your mental well being and take your break and put your trust in your systems in those around you and remain positive of course remain positive all the time. Even if you realize Subhanallah you woke up the moment before the day before the exam and you realize oh my goodness, I didn't study anything. Now with Allah subhanho Alhamdulillah if you die, and you woke up five minutes before you died, Allah will accept and forgive you with Nila. The teachers won't do that maybe, but at least remain

positive that I'm going to give them the best I have now Okay, look. I'm not going to do this 30 chapters in one day, but let me take the five big ones and Bismillah I'm going to do my best I'm gonna do my best so remain positive, remain optimistic because that is the Sunnah we know that beautiful Hadith. What are the numbers on says if Kiana was upon you, and you had that plant in your hand planted, even though you know there's no way this thing is going to grow because Qiyamah is now but we are uma optimism Allah rewards the near but there is a will the three becomes a three or not that's in the hands of Allah, I do my part. So that's part of studying before the time and again

from someone that has written Alhamdulillah many, many exams, doing two degrees at the same time. You have to write quite a number of papers. I think I was writing like every semester like almost 20 exams in university level to one side and the other side.

A big part of it is

You can never cover everything, you can't cover everything. It's just you're not practically it's not possible. It's about having a technique in the exam. And you see it that people who understand how to write exams do better than those who are better prepared in the exam. There's a way of gypo image gypo in the exam, but a way in which you approach the exam.

Number one, your mindset before the exam is very important. If you're panicking, you will never make good decisions, you're not able to think the blood isn't in your head, your heart is racing. So take a moment to calm down. And the best way for a Muslim to calm down is again that little conversation, do Ah, yes, but more maybe personal is have that conversation with Allah. Now when you're sitting the and the teachers were the examiner examiner says, you know, five minutes before the exam, you cannot say to Allah, Allah, I've done what I could do.

I've done my part yet Allah, I can't do anything now. Now it's purely in your hand. And I put my faith and trust in you, yeah, Allah, I could I did what I could control, but the rest is in your control. So make it easy for me, and I put my trust in you Bismillah, we're going to go forward, begin with the name of Allah. And that will give you a sense of calmness. When you get that exam, my young brothers and sisters read that whole paper. I know the teachers tell you this, and sometimes you don't listen to them. I'm telling you read that exam. Before you start. I know you want to start with that first question, because you wanted to run, start by reading the entire exam, cover to

cover, spend about whatever time there is to read and get to know the questions. And a very, very important skill that people let is time management in your exam time management.

Students and I teach as well. And we have exams, many of them fail not because they don't know the answer. But because they fixate on the first question, the second question, and they lose out the rest of the marks, you must be able to allocate. If I have an hour, 60 minutes, and the exam is 100, put 100 marks, then you have less than a minute for every mark. So if the if the equation is 10 minutes, you can't spend 10 minutes on that question, you must say I'm only going to spend seven minutes, do my best. And then I'm gonna move on, I'm gonna move on. Every question has its own time allocation. And it's important for you to have that discipline when you look at that exam. In fact,

what you should do next to every question is a mock allocation. Put down how much time I have, I only have five minutes, I need to move on to the next one. I'll get back to it. If you didn't complete it, circle it, I'm going to come back to it. Time allocation is very, very important. The saddest thing is you see a person who answered the first half of the question beautifully, they got full marks in all this, but in half the exam is left blank, because they never got the that's the problem.

So allocate time to your to your questions. As I said, Read carefully. And when you on say that even the second time, the most important exam, I wrote my board exams is the most important exam for my professional career. I was also pumped and I went and I wrote and I spent half an hour writing like an essay, or text or something. When I look back and revise, I realized I must read that question. Completely wrong. I'm getting notes for it. And you feel that blood rushing to your brain and you feel really into panic.

took a minute to calm down, put a line through the whole thing. Okay, what does this question want from me? Start? Don't panic, just put the best you can on that paper. Like I've saved myself a lot of pain. If I just had to read the question. quickly read the question quickly. So read every question a second time before you answer.

After you've read the paper, you get to understand you get to know the environment, you get to know what's these difficult ones easy ones, start with the ones you know, knock off the easy ones first, and link every question to a chapter. So you remember when I studied there was a chapter on XYZ, this question is that chapter and then you sort of read jogging your memory, link them together to your studies, they're not going to ask you something outside of your textbook.

Now, I've transitioned Alhamdulillah from student to giving the exams now and two weeks ago our our we have a class on foot on where we you know, other adults come to learn something can't see it and, and smile. I must say this to all the adults. These exams are for you. I mean, the alpha con students, no one's going to you're not going to get a certificate to your matric exams. It's purely self development. But the adults were panicking like they were school children for the exam. Everyone when you write that exam, you know that feeling of panic. And when you sit down and they give the exam, they wrote it now I'm sitting back. The worst thing in life is marking an exam. When

you're sitting 10 o'clock at night and you have a stack of papers to mock the examiner you

Like your students, when you have that paper, you really don't want to go through that marking, make the life easier because will be for your interest, right clearly. Write neatly, point by point easy, it's easier to have five bullet points with keywords than one big

paragraph sitting there.

examiners are not going to give you marks if they feel they have to struggle through your through your, your your handwriting. So write clearly and be very when you plan an answer, I need to put these five points down. Someone asked you what are the pillars of Islam? Don't write the whole paragraph. The Gibreel came to the masjid. I mean, there'll be some honesty, What is Islam? Right down the pillars of Islam, I want to see Calima, Salah, Zakka, fasting Hajj, those things I need to put there, I just have sentences around it. That is the key to making the examiners life easy. And for you to get more marks.

Attempt every question. Sometimes I don't know if it's just Islamic studies, but people are too shy to maybe for Islam. I don't want to speak for them without knowledge. So Islamic knowledge exams they don't answer. But if beyond that, but even new Islamic Studies exams, you have the license to answer even if you don't know. So if you get to a question where you say to Subhanallah, I never saw this in my studies at all this is I don't know which chapter this relates to put an answer down the write whatever you want to write in the at least unless you get negative negative marks. I learned that at UCT. This is where you actually lose marks for wrong answer then okay, but I don't think we

have negative marks in high school. Put down an answer. Even if you get note, don't be shy. Don't be shy, just put an answer down. But don't leave any question unanswered, then you must do a second check. You have to do a second check. I know people, many students, you see they jump up to half an hour before the exam is over. There's nothing you can do really, that half an hour, you sometimes you even have to sit in class, you just want to get there. You know, I want to get out of this exam as soon as possible. Use every minute to review and read through that question paper. Make sure you didn't forget something, make sure you can add to something. And that's the best you can do. Insha

Allah, how do you manage exam stress?

What this comes to this, because no matter how much effort you put in, and how much work you do, and how much preparation you have, and in fact, sometimes the ones who stressed the most are the ones who prepared the most you know your ACE students, they always stressing about the extra one or two. It's a different kind of sickness, you have the procrastinators, and you have those the perfectionist, both of it, you need to find somewhere in the middle. For the procrastinator you need to take own responsibility, do your part, and then Allah will do his part. As for the perfectionist, you can only do your part and don't worry about that which belongs to Allah. Don't stress about

things you cannot control. What if this happens? What is that that belongs to Allah subhanaw taala. And this is what Tawakkol is, you tie your camel, and then you don't worry about that camel every five minutes and check on it every five minutes. Allah says well might get our call Allah and if you put your trust in Allah, but what Hasbrook then he will be enough for you, Allah will be enough for you. So now it's enough you've studied, put your trust in Allah. Another important point in managing stress, manage your parents, because they are the source of a lot of stress. And for parents, remember, you will also the you know what it's like. And I think a lot of the stress that parents

have is your own fears, what if they don't pass what's gonna happen, or whatever they pass, I'm gonna have to pay this university fees next year, it's another kind of stress.

You need to take the lead and talk to them beforehand. You need to have this conversation I'm having with your kids, telling them that look, this is important. You need to give your best, but it's not life and death either. Either.

Life, there are second chances. And you if you have if you haven't been studying throughout the year, do the best you can with what you have now is no point in us having a conversation but a new study, why don't you go to the extra classes, that's not going to help the situation. We just do the best work we have now. And you know your child the best. Some children, they need you to micromanage them. And for the others, given the space, you know that they have their own system it works, you know by now which ones you need to put pressure and which ones you need to give them flexibility for the child that procrastinates encourage them and give them those small, achievable milestones. Ask

them today. Okay, what are you studying today? The English Okay, how many chapters do you have five. So, I'm going to check up each two, three hours that you finish the chapter that you feel that you just have a conversation so that they are encouraged to meet those little milestones. Don't compete. Don't ever compare. No one likes to be compete. Don't compare your child to another child because each one has his own abilities and their own pressures.

Parents, this is the time where you make your kids comfortable. The choice can be parked for now. Park the choice will now make them the things that they enjoy. make them as comfortable as they can get there.

Through the exam together, and don't put your stress and fears on them. And at the end of the day, as I mentioned, after the exam, they might panic Tom, it's okay. Whatever happens, you make dua now, and then we'll deal with it when we get there. These are two I'd like to end for anxiety. And it's something that perhaps you should memorize some of these and recite when you go through these difficulties, both parents and kids. The problem says whatever he cites this and Allah removes that anxiety, Allahu Mudassar Allah, Oh Allah, there is nothing made easy in the Husa Allah except that which you make easy, or antigen has an ID. And if you please, you will take away the anxiety and the

sorrow and replace it with ease. May Allah grant us peace and freeness of anxiety. May Allah grant our youngsters all the best in the exams, may they be our future and they build a wonderful basis and inshallah may they bring forward great success in this dunya in the market. I mean, got a few announcements. First one is Pamela as you can see, the projector is not available. projector was here before when I started so it's in that Eli Rogers project that checked out now we are looking to purchase a new one. If anyone knows about projectors, you can contact me who would like to contribute these things about 30,000 I understand very expensive, but Alhamdulillah it served more

than 10 years and inshallah we would like to be part of that selectable geria you can assist in contribute. We also

two announcements we congratulate Muhammad Thrun, about who's on our who's the vice chairman of the Bronto. Committee. He was appointed the sidewalk CI in the Western Cape. So we asked them Mohammed, all the success in his endeavors and to increase the quota for all of us. We don't want to go on camera with Muhammad and with the use of Al Hamdulillah. As I mentioned, he went for his operation last week and what to do as Al Hamdulillah was a success 70% eyesight returned well hamdulillah Masha Allah We then also make dua for Auntie Kia across the road from Bucha use of was in hospital she's quite sick she's got water on her lungs was allotted granted Shiva. The dose of the Jama as we

said this was the jab mela granted full Shiva and return her to help and we make the offer and the other we're early with the customers wife who passed away to this day, one year ago. Allah Granta high place in Jana Rolla grog mercy upon a grantor in the company of the Saudi Hain am Allah make it easy for potassium to tears and his family or look around him sober immigrant seems to be united in Jana. mean just like Allah who was ALLAH said no Mohammed will be sending cinematic Mutharika