SEM(V) Revised

Here is probably what is going through your head during the semester exams.

10:03 am

You walk into the examination hall exactly three minutes later as you were revising the last diagram in your textbook for the eneth time. As such out of six modules, you’ve happily skipped two. The four you do know, you’ve skipped out all the parts you deemed irrelevant(nearly 60% of it). In the moring you get a mass forward from some smart ass- something not exactly meant to lift  your spirits during exams. Something about how university papers setters have a gift for sniffing out what you have not learnt nad thus set the paper based on topics that you’ve skipped. You try to put the thought aside. You slept poorly the previous night and the bad coffee at the cafeteria is not helping much. You are exhausted climbing the three flights of steps and you make it o the hall three minutes late.

10:15 am

Anyway, you’ve looked at the question paper. Out of 100 marks, you try and calculate about how much you need to attempt to make it to forty. Every module consists of two parts, one from the module(s) you’d prepared and one from the module you did not.  You start writing and simultaneously ticking off questions you’ve attempted. During the frequent yet inevitable event in which you come across a question you cannot answer, you confidently improvise and cleverly leave spaces in between, not to mention the fact that your handwriting suddenly looks bigger and clearer. You decide to make up with presentation, what you lack in terms of content.  Extending sentences comes naturally to you now that you are in your third year:

“Therefore, in the event of such an anomaly occuring, it is imperative to use a cone clutch which is preferred to its counterpart, the disc clutch, owing to the higher force required for disengaging.”

You are interrupted by the examiner who’s come to sign your answer sheet, pen and attendance sheet ready. You turn the page and show your hall ticket. He looks at the passport sized picture that you took ages ago(braces and glasses et al) and that even you admit is not very flattering. He smirks to himself and walks away.

11:00 am

You’ve crossed the forty mark barrier. You stop to take a look around. Your glance falls on Rakesh’s paper (in case you are in electrical, then it would be Vibhav, and if you are in civil, you cannot afford to stop to take a look around and you keep writing franctically), his bench is in the adjacent row. And you wonder ,”Am I even taking the same exam?” because from a distance all you can fathom is that he has sprinkled his answers with graphs and sketches. You examine the question paper again. Yes, it is still your question paper, dated correctly. Other disturbing questions regarding your capability throng to haunt you. You wonder still as to why the guy behind you hasn’t poked you for answers yet. Has he too realised in time that you usually know little. It almost seems like a slight that he hasn’t asked you anything yet.

12:21 pm

Whatever you could write, remembered or improvised, has been written. No number of revisions of the paper can satisfy you. You stop to look around again and wonder, “Why is everyone still writing?”. And time goes by so slowly. The annnoying song you heard on the radio in the morning begins to ring in your head. If you’re taking your papers now, the song is probably ‘Sheela’. Its annoying and irksome and its BLOODY CATCHY.

12:56 pm

oh just take the goddamned paper and lemme go

01:03

You shut your ears and run out. You don’t want to hear anyone discussing the paper any more. And the song is STILL ringing in your head. and pounding.

Good luck for your papers everyone