It’s that time of the
year again. When students fear for their life (and careers!). The midnight oil
is steadily burnt; firstly for ghastly journal/ assignment submission and then
in the vain attempt to memorize an entire semester’s worth of syllabus in one
night. That’s right ladies and gentlemen. Exam season is upon us.
I always feel like exams bring out
the worst in us. We snarl at close friends, we hoard notes like greedy misers,
we starve ourselves (I’ll have dinner
soon, I swear! Just let me finish one more paragraph), sleep is abandoned
in favor of “by-hearting” textbooks heavy enough to belong to the workout
repertoire of The Great Khali… shall I go on? (On a side note, this phrase
amuses me. By-hearting. It’s such a typically Indian-English word. Does
Samosapedia have an entry for by-hearting yet?)
But the bottom line is, no matter
how we study, for how long we study, what we study, how many lifetimes’ worth
of souls we’ve sold to the devil, everything boils down to that nefarious piece
of paper known as the question paper. Doesn’t matter what proportion of mannat we’ve promised God. Our fate is
written on the black and white of the paper which is the start and end of any
exam.
Wait. Let me correct myself.
Everyone who has passed the state board exams is aware of the Law of
Transitivity in Math aren’t they? So, if I apply the law of Transitivity here,
our fate is not in the hands of the question paper; its in the hands of the
teachers who have set the question paper. TEACHERS. Those beings who stand at
the front of a class and babble? They change by the hour? We’re incredibly glad
to see them go? We have to kiss their asses for the last half mark they’re
willing to give us? Sound familiar? Yes, those people. Those are the people who
determine if we can throw a party for scraping a 50% pass or if we should write
a letter to Cadbury, asking to star in the next ‘Pappu pass ho gaya’ commercial (heck, if you can’t pass in real life, why
not give reel a shot?)
So! Since it is exam season, and I
would rather do anything else than study, I decided to draw up a list of the
top 5 types of question papers we’ve weathered. Everyone’s experienced a few of
the ones given below-
1. The
False Positive- Well, if I’m
being brutally honest, this is actually the fault of the student rather than
the teacher. How many times have we been under the impression that we’ve had an
utterly FABULOUS paper, only to have the illusion shatter when we discuss it
with someone else? Too many times to count, for me at least. Blame it on
carelessness, blame it on less amount of time allotted, but all of us have had
these moments. The thing that irks me the most is when sadistic teachers
collect the paper after everyone’s done writing and DISCUSS it in the
examination hall. Nothing could be a worse buzz kill than that. I mean, dude,
come on, let me cherish my foolish daydream till result day! Not cool.
2.
The
Anticlimax- I swear there is
nothing more frustrating than a teacher who insinuates that the paper will be
fiendishly tough, 90% of the class will fail, blah blah blah, and then… The
paper is so simple, a 5 year old down with a fever could have solved it. Maybe
it’s a conspiracy to get us to study. The only saving grace of this kind of
paper is that everyone gets awesome marks.
3.
The
Blind Snake- I have decided to
name this paper in honor of something I once read in a book. ‘You may take pity
on a blind snake, but it won’t stop it from biting you’. This kind of question
paper is like the antithesis of the Anticlimax. The teacher tells us in voice
sweeter than sugar that we have absolutely nothing to worry about and then BAM!
A paper so tough, maybe a post-grad level candidate could have a half-decent
chance of scoring in it.
4.
The
Leaked Paper- Believe it or
not, in my 21 years, I haven’t had a single chance to write a leaked paper. So
I’m going to assume how writing one feels like. I bet there’s the excitement
the night before when the paper is leaked. The frantic riffling of pages to
find the answer. The smug feeling when you actually show up for the paper. The
agony of fudging up a few answers intentionally because you don’t want the
world to know you already knew what was coming your way. *sigh*
5.
The
Apocalypse-This is the
nuclear mushroom cloud of papers. You know you’ve done your revision
impeccably. You know the subject matter like the back of your hand. Hell, you
could have written the paper in your sleep, when you’re hungover, when you’re
sick, you name it. But when you read the first question, you’re lost. You read
the second, you’re even more befuddled. By the time you turn the page, you’re
in the midst of a full on panic attack. This question paper is a bouncer. You
could have knowledge on the subject from A-Z and yet the questions look like
they’ve come from the dark side of the moon. Everyone, without exception, does
poorly in this paper. The gang-rape or clusterfuck of papers.
Needless to say, if you’re a student in India, you’ve DEFINITELY
had to answer one or more of these papers. Well, for what its worth, for every
apocalypse, I hope you’ve had a kindergartner’s IQ level’s paper to compensate!
~ I
Nailed it ;)
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