Examinee (Part III)

I remember that the first A I got in a major examination during my pre-university days was for something called the General Paper (GP). It's a simple thing, an essay and a comprehension passage for analysis, normally based on current affairs and general knowledge. My mode of operation for this paper was I suppose an odd one, since my classmates used to tell me odd things about what I used to do during the examination.

This is how it used to be.

I used to get the comprehension passage done first. This would take half an hour to read and answer. It's basically a test of language understanding and rephrasing, so there is nothing unusual, and I used to treat it the way one would treat some sort of food that was not very tasty, but essential for life: get it over as quickly as possible.

Then came the challenging part. I used to play a little game with myself. The typical GP essay is an answer to one of about ten different questions. It's your choice which one you answer, and I used to pick the least interesting-looking one and try to make it interesting. The essay covers about three sheets of writing paper, and is all about structuring an argument and the use of language. I would cover the first two sheets (about four pages) and make sure that the last sentence was complete at the end of the last page of this section. I would then write the third sheet, starting a new paragraph at the top of the sheet.

At this point, I was really done. I would snooze for about 30 minutes in case of inspiration, then wake up and write a fourth sheet. The game was to design this fourth sheet so that it would could be seamlessly inserted between the last sentence of Sheet 2 and the first paragraph of Sheet 3. This made the essay unbalanced unless you were very careful. However, when done right, you could insert a third perspective or go off (but not too far off) on an interesting tangent that could be shown to relate to the other material.

I would then read through both versions, the one with the extra sheet and the way it looked without. Normally, I kept the extra sheet; it's amazing what good ideas you can come up with after a bit of sleep.

My classmate Ruth, who used to sit behind me during exams and was (and is) a very nice lady, used to say that it was somewhat disconcerting to watch me doze off and then suddenly come to life again. She once said the worst part was having examiners converge on our area just in case something was wrong with me. But she got used to it, and we're still friends.

Nevertheless, those days of playing games during exams came to an end. GP was the only paper for which I scored an A1 that year, and as I headed towards my army service, I told myself, "Whoops. Ought to work a bit harder in future."