As a second year secondary(high) school student, I have learnt so far that many students fail some subjects not because their teachers are not doing enough but because the students are not given the opportunity to leave their comfort zones by going for extra curricular activities such as field trips, spelling bees, mathematics competition, practicals etc to boost their academic performance and of course their self esteem.
Yes, many students fail competitions due to the fact that it's their first time, and the fear of loosing pop's up in their minds. This causes tension, stage freight and most of the time, you find out that these questions are questions that they can ordinarily answer even in their sleep. Unfortunately, you see them being disqualified, and this happened to me in my second year of junior secondary school and the difference between my experience and some others is that I was given another opportunity to go for a mathematics competition and I gladly jumped at it. Some others who failed as first timers are either too depressed to try again or not given a second opportunity because of the first experience, which still boils down to the fact that students should be engaged in competitions and other extra curricular activities as often as possible to boost their self confidence.
@farida