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Can someone motivate me to study for a stupid exam?

I don't want to fail, but I simply don't believe what the Religious Education book says. I don't know how things are in other countries, but here it focuses only on Christianity. I am not a Christian, and I have to tire myself and my mind with memorizing its myths and tales - which I've read like a billion times in past classes and years - for a pointless exam. Can somebody at least somehow motivate me? I'm not in danger of failing the class or anything but I don't want an F either.

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  • Anonymous
    3 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    This is good practice for life in general. When you finish your education and get a job, there's a pretty decent chance that you will be told to do things you consider pointless or even stupid. However, if you don't do them, you don't get paid, and you may even get fired.

    Think of it this way : let's say your best subject is math and that you want to be a mathematician or some kind of job in which math is needed. You're going to study for the math test because you know you're good at it and you know that you'll use it one day.

    However, let's say you are not good at history. You don't care about the past. Does that mean you're going to blow off the history test? Of course not. You have to pass it if you want to get places.

    R.E. is the same. You might consider it all BS, but passing it is part of the whole school deal.

    If you need motivation, let me give you a clue from one of America's most iconoclastic musicians, Frank Zappa. He wrote in his autobiography that when he was studying music, his teacher made him listen to and study a certain set of chords or something like that. "I hated them", wrote Zappa. But then he wrote "if you hate something, you should still study it so that you know how to avoid it in the future". Something like that, anyway. I'm doing this from memory and I haven't read the book in years.

    The point is, turn the learning into a challenge. One day someone might come to your door and try and convert you. If you've paid attention in R.E. class, you may have more ammunition to fire back at them (figuratively speaking of course). You have to look past the exam itself and think "what can I do with this, or what MIGHT I be able to do with this, in years to come".

  • 3 years ago

    There are several methods to motivate:

    1/ focus on the positive, negative motivation (punishment) usually fails. In your case focus on how it helps you finish with that aspect of school.

    2/ use a wish board: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b&ei=...

    I must admit, I hate the term 'wish board', I prefer the term 'motivation board', however, I am just a backward Brit.

  • Anonymous
    3 years ago

    Each person needs to be self motivated. Nobody can do it for you. Either study or don't study. God gave you free will. However it seems to me if you've read the Bible so many times, there is no need for you to study, unless you have a problem with comprehension.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    3 years ago

    The stories are, of course, nonsense. Just treat them as you would other mythologies such as those of the Greeks or Romans. You don't have to believe such guff to study it. Anyway, the more you know about it the better equipped you are to see how silly and empty it is.

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