Exams Exams !!!

Let me first give you a heads up that what follows is not my view on the recent controversy over the Exams “Should board exams be banned?” I am not inclined to revamp the education system that is prevalent today. Kapil Sibal is there to take care of it. I am here just to vent my feelings on the “EXAMS”, the devastating effects of it and the course of trauma incidental to that.

For the past one week I am in a state of introspection, mulling over few questions “What bothers me so much?” “Why do I look like a deflated tyre losing all charisma and charm?” I am afraid I am shedding my serenity and moving to the profanity zone. And now I am back with the discovery of the genesis of my present state. Hurray! I found where it all started. The recent mid semester exams have taken away the smile in me. The chronic illness characterized by nausea, fatigue, mental imbalance, head ache, the temporary blues of depression is called the Exam fever. I am a victim of it. It has left me in utter shambles. What I am now is the debris remains of a fiasco called Exam.

Exams ruin the lives of many, if not the entire life, atleast a few constructive man hours of lives. Yours truly is no exception. I am not a goody goody to talk only on the topics that suits my calibre, a profession where you talk on business, strategies, tactics, ethics and what not. Nothing would deter me from articulating my feelings.

I start feeling the symptoms of exam fever a week before the exams. I am a bundle of nerves on the day of the exams. I see my fellow classmates cramming with the goal of getting good marks and to have a cut above others. There is so much hype and hoopla about the questions that stand a high chance of being asked. I fall a prey to it. After all my hard study, last minute cramming and burning the midnight oil, when I walk into the exam hall my mind goes blank. I feel that the brain stopped working all of a sudden. The worst part of the story comes now...When I read the question, a callout appears ,with a thinking bubble “hey, was it not the question I answered for yesterday’s test?..Oh my god!”. And finally I manage to complete the paper with a cocktail kind of stuff, a mix and match of all the subjects.

The aftermath of giving exams is even more terrible. It sucks my blood. Reaps my soul. I move into a state of paranoia, feeling that everybody (professors who set the paper) hates me. The feeling that I have not prepared enough hurts. It hurts more when I am not able to present what I have prepared well. Sixteen years of formal education didn't teach me enough how to get rid of the phobia.

I hate to belabor on the simple issue of exams but the excruciating pain that I underwent recently made me rant on it so that I could let off a bit of steam from my head. But now I am back to my resilience mode to meet the hurdles of life. There is a ray of positive hope. So hope to be back with a cheerful post.