Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/74

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which are always made before the actual work of the operation begins. There is the movable tray standing ready by the operating table with its array of instruments all laid out in the most careful order. There are sponges, and needles, and all sorts of thread, and detractors, and forceps all in their places, and so arranged that whatever may be needed in the emergency that is likely to occur will be ready for use. It is some such preparation as this that a boy should make who is getting ready for an examination. He does not know what is going to be called for, but if he has his information in logical order he is ready for any call.

An examination, or at least the preparation which any sensible boy will make in getting ready for an examination, is an excellent training in judgment. The boy, as he goes over the material he has studied, must determine what is fundamental, what is important, and what without danger may be discarded. This requires thought, discrimination, and care. It is not so difficult to pick out each day the important facts of a lesson as it is at the close of a year's or a half year's study to select what one should carry with him from the mass of facts that has been considered. Knowing that he will be required to do this, a boy will study with a very different purpose than he would show if he were convinced that when a day's lesson is learned, he is through with it for all time.

Examinations are meant to test a student's resource-