[originaltext] At this moment some 170, 000 young people throughout Britain

At this moment some 170, 000 young people throughout Britain are suffering what is potentially the most tense and anxious time of their lives. That is the number of students currently preparing to sit for their A-levels -- examinations which will decide whether a student proceeds smoothly on to the next level of the academic ladder or whether six years of work at secondary- school level will end in the bitter disappointment of failure.
    In the medical "stress-charts", examinations rank somewhere behind a death in the family, a divorce or even the loss of a job; but the symptoms of anxiety are all the more weakening because they are before the event rather than after it, but many in themselves are enough to bring about the student’s worst fears -- failing.
    The most crucial point about pre-examination stress is that it is something the student catches from other people. He or she is not, after all, the only person with an interest in the examination result. The pride of parents is risky, and of teachers who may see the results as measure of their own professional worth. The line between well-intentioned encouragement and harmful pressure can be a fine one, and easily crossed.