museman

18/04/05

Additionally yours.

Its been quite a long time since i have written exams at leisure. I love this format of writing exams and taking a break of a week or so before writing the next exam. Why didnt we have this time gap before? Anywayz, the fact still remains that i hate exams. And if it all i hve to give the most stringent punishments to the worst of my enemy, i will make him write exams day in and day out.

Why do i hate exams? I presume there is a two-fold reason for it.

1)The preparation part. The moment we prepare for an exam, the very objective of education,learning, is lost. We prepare to get marks in the exams. We don't learn. I mean, we prepare to get good marks/pass the exam(depending on who is reading this article,a nerd/someone-like-me). Even when we(the regular roomies)sit for a group discussion the day before the exam, and someone asks a why(it is usually M, he is very inquisitive)he gets a cold reply,"listen buddy, we are not here to understand the whys and hows of the subject,just remember it.We have an exam in 6 hours".And all of us have a hearty laugh.Or someone else would quip,the why's and how's are supposed to be asked in the very starting of the sem.Not now.

Also,sometimes, we get to read the most obnoxious of text-books. I mean, look at Embedded systems. Mr.Raj kamal jha is one big geek. I wish that we cud make him write an exam and give him no other material to learn from than the book written by him. I tell you, he will flunk the exam majorly.I wish i could quote some of the sentences from the textbook. They are far more cryptic than the clues given in "The Hindu"s daily crossword.I wish i hadn't bundled 'Embedded systems' to koti bookstalls. It would have served as an excellent relic.

2)The writing exams part. Somewhere around 4-1 i realised that i had completely forgotten the art of writing exams. Even if i wanted to get good marks, i was not able to get them after putting in all the efforts. Kya hua?untill around 2-2, the only thing that i used to carry to examinaiton theatre, was the hall-ticket.From 3-1,i also made it a point to take a pen along with me.Now, i take a pen(only reynolds racer,gel pen)a spare pen, a pencil, a spare pencil(In 4-1, i also used to take an eraser with me,but later realised that i was not finding any use for it. No diagrams to draw, nothing to erase). Things havent improved though.

I was discussing this issue of writing exams with a friend.And we were amazed at how we both have a very same pattern of writing exams. From 10:30(that is when we get in)till 1, we have five sessions of half-an hour each in which we write one long answer per session. The short answers are written when we are feeling very bored or frustrated to fill the pages for those long answers.

Most of the half an hour is spent in brooding over the paper or looking at each other or just peeping into the nearby classmates answer sheet.Its hell personified boss. May be the reason is we are left with no energy after a hard nights study. I mean, imagine this,studying frm 9 in the night to 9 in the morning and then taking an auto to panjagutta and get inside to write the exam! And the last food intake being at 4 in the morning at the friendly tiffin centre beside the local theatre(i tell u, he makes delicious vadas)

For 8 thru 9 is the most precious time of going thru what we have already gone thru, we cant afford to waste time eating something,anything at all.All the energy is sapped and we are no more energetic than a long distant runner after a 32km marathon.

For those of u who have been patient enough to have read untill this point, first of all, i thankyou and please do carry on because the most interesting segment of the modm starts now. Our room was changed for distributed systems.One positive and one negative. The negative first(iam an optimist u see, i save the best to the last).

My fool-proof plan of cheating which i had designed with a coupla classmates was shattered. I found myself sitting in the first bench and i told myself,there go ur extra five marks buddy.

The postive.

This class was far bigger and accomadated more ppl.A wider audience to amuse me while i tried to go thru the dull motions of writing the exam.The drawing chairs, are always convenient to write the exam. U dont have to lean forward. Instead u can drag those drawing boards backwards,making a hell lot of noice while doing so, and hence disturbing that studu fellow who has been writing like hell for the last half an hour as if his life depended on it. Even as i entered the room at around 10:30,one particular gentleman was running towards the invigilators chair and i was worried that something was seriously wrong. My worries aggaravated when i realised what was happening. This gentleman was running to get some additonals. He took four additionals and went(sorry,ran) back to his chair. And all this at 10:30.(i have to admit i was exagerrating a bit. All this happened around 10:45)

Another gentlemen from another branch ,took 8 additionals in all. Now what was the logic? More the additonals,more the marks?hey?

Sadly,thats the truth. More the additionals,more the marks. A majority of the students end up filling additionals because they know this sad truth. To beat the system, we have to do such nonsensical things. I too have my own way of filling in additonals. I sometimes leave white sheets in between and fill it with a straight diagonal line. You see, i apparantly skipped that page unintentionally. On the last sheet of the main booklet, i write with big font,ROUGH,although thats the only thing that is ever written on that page.Now when i reflect, i understand, its my own idiotic dumb way of beating the system. Idiotic it is,it never fetched me good marks. After the exam, i asked a chummy,the only question i ever ask,"how many additionals?"and he tells me,"none,

the main booklet was enuff". And i thought, here was a thorough gentleman. Some of the roomies took one additional. And i took two,thanks to those blank sheets in between.

Maybe ppl would retort back and say this, listen buddy,we took veryfew additionals and yet got good marks,if thats the case,please do get back to me, i wud love to learn the art of writing exams from you.Or it is that your paper went in to hands of a true examiner,(a rare commodity he is)

Untill the next modm,this is museman signing off.

Yours additionally,

Museman.

PS.Let me contradict myself. Its not that i hate exams. If not for these exams, i would never have written the longest modm till date. If not for the exams, i wud never have had backlogs,if not for the backlogs i wud never hve learnt the subject twice.hahahaha

Long live exams and let there be a short supply of additional sheets. I wud love that.