fail safe Have you ever failed at one of your favourite subjects at school? What did your parents and teachers say;and did any of your friends make jokes to tease you? After all of my heavy revision and preparation for my final examinations this year, the results finally came out last week. There are a mixture of grades in each subject that were good. They showed my understanding and knowledge to the teachers. Sometimes I felt as if all of my effort was somehow meaningless because some students who hadn't revised or paid attention in class still scored similar results or higher then me. I don't understand why this is - perhaps I was too stressed before taking the tests. Teera Siribunsuk,Bangkok. I think that everybody has failed to live up to their own expectation a time or two during their lives, Teera. You really shouldn't waste too much time worrying about what's happened in the past,just learn lessons from your experiences and move forward. To me, it sounds like you're more concerned that others did just as well as you did without working as hard as you felt you did. That's something you need to stop doing. You can only control your own actions and outcomes. You studied hard and did well. Some other people didn't study as hard and still did well. Why should that bother you? Don't worry so much about what other people are or one not doing. Just concentrate on what you have to do to do your best .-Editor