Examinee (Part IV)
A curious gap in my academic career appears between high school and university life. This was because I enlisted in December 1985 and found myself, after basic training, in some walled-up compound where they taught us about information and how to disseminate, confuse, control and protect it. I took exams there too, and passed them all. At the end of it, I was tasked to look after a small cluster of information systems. And that is all you will learn about it here.
After that was done with, I went back to university life. The main problem was that examinations were deadly things, set at the whim of the lecturers, with a syllabus far more mutable and perverse than any previous examination I had endured before. A somewhat less than sterling performance ensued, with a constellation of Bs, Cs and Ds lighting up the night rather dimly. I digressed into astronomy (NOT astrology) and relearnt my OBAFGKMN main sequence (which is easily remembered by the rather dubious and amusing mnemonic "Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me Now!") which describes the fate of stars.
But of course, the fault is not in the stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
I learned a few interesting things in those years. One is that when proselytized on campus, you should pretend to be a Buddhist, not an atheist. It's safer. More importantly, one should stay calm during examinations and relax in the library. The fact that everyone is studying makes you either a) want to study more, or b) think of a morgue. Either way, the atmosphere is pleasant if you can stop imagining the stress other people are going through.
I also found that the kind of study habits that can get you through exams at the rate of a day or two per subject are just not good enough in the university. I was a terrible undergraduate, and several veiled ultimati were launched in my general direction. Each time I sat down in the bone-chillingly cold exam hall, I would remind myself, "This too shall pass, even if I don't. I had better pass though, else I shall develop arthritis before I am done."
Exam technique then devolved towards attending the last few lectures in every sequence just to figure out what the lecturer's pet topics were, then scrounging questions from your seniors (some of who were in themselves interesting distractions) about those topics. That got me a consistent B in pure chemistry. At which point I must digress and talk about the semi-fatal pull of one's convictions.
When sitting for English Literature examinations in my youth, I was firmly convinced that nothing good could come out of studying 'Africa' novels like Cry, The Beloved Country. The problem with novels of the Third World was that they were uniformly depressing and, while probably somewhat accurate in their descriptions of poverty and pain, seemed to have been chosen as a form of moral education. I therefore gravitated towards the poetry of Hopkins and Auden, and plays such as King Lear and Macbeth, since I figured I might as well have some entertainment with my moral education.
My Literature teacher told me, "You will not pass unless you study the novel, since 40% of the marks comes from two questions on the novel." Well, I got 55% in the preliminary exams, and then freed of the burden of having to follow the school syllabus, got myself an A1 in the finals. In neither case did I answer any questions to do with the novel(s).
This habit was only partly sustainable in my university life. I was not so hot on physical or analytical chemistry, but enjoyed inorganic chemistry and revelled in organic chemistry. I settled for a brief career in organometallic chemistry — at which point I realised that analytical technique, at the very least, was a useful thing to have. And so, it was back to studying hard enough to map it down on paper at the rate of 30 minutes per question. Fortunately, analytical chemistry was easy if you had been paying attention during practicals; while I was a terrible lecture attendee, I was a 100% practical worker.
And so I passed, passed on, passed out. I was now ready for... further examinations in faraway places.
After that was done with, I went back to university life. The main problem was that examinations were deadly things, set at the whim of the lecturers, with a syllabus far more mutable and perverse than any previous examination I had endured before. A somewhat less than sterling performance ensued, with a constellation of Bs, Cs and Ds lighting up the night rather dimly. I digressed into astronomy (NOT astrology) and relearnt my OBAFGKMN main sequence (which is easily remembered by the rather dubious and amusing mnemonic "Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me Now!") which describes the fate of stars.
But of course, the fault is not in the stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
I learned a few interesting things in those years. One is that when proselytized on campus, you should pretend to be a Buddhist, not an atheist. It's safer. More importantly, one should stay calm during examinations and relax in the library. The fact that everyone is studying makes you either a) want to study more, or b) think of a morgue. Either way, the atmosphere is pleasant if you can stop imagining the stress other people are going through.
I also found that the kind of study habits that can get you through exams at the rate of a day or two per subject are just not good enough in the university. I was a terrible undergraduate, and several veiled ultimati were launched in my general direction. Each time I sat down in the bone-chillingly cold exam hall, I would remind myself, "This too shall pass, even if I don't. I had better pass though, else I shall develop arthritis before I am done."
Exam technique then devolved towards attending the last few lectures in every sequence just to figure out what the lecturer's pet topics were, then scrounging questions from your seniors (some of who were in themselves interesting distractions) about those topics. That got me a consistent B in pure chemistry. At which point I must digress and talk about the semi-fatal pull of one's convictions.
When sitting for English Literature examinations in my youth, I was firmly convinced that nothing good could come out of studying 'Africa' novels like Cry, The Beloved Country. The problem with novels of the Third World was that they were uniformly depressing and, while probably somewhat accurate in their descriptions of poverty and pain, seemed to have been chosen as a form of moral education. I therefore gravitated towards the poetry of Hopkins and Auden, and plays such as King Lear and Macbeth, since I figured I might as well have some entertainment with my moral education.
My Literature teacher told me, "You will not pass unless you study the novel, since 40% of the marks comes from two questions on the novel." Well, I got 55% in the preliminary exams, and then freed of the burden of having to follow the school syllabus, got myself an A1 in the finals. In neither case did I answer any questions to do with the novel(s).
This habit was only partly sustainable in my university life. I was not so hot on physical or analytical chemistry, but enjoyed inorganic chemistry and revelled in organic chemistry. I settled for a brief career in organometallic chemistry — at which point I realised that analytical technique, at the very least, was a useful thing to have. And so, it was back to studying hard enough to map it down on paper at the rate of 30 minutes per question. Fortunately, analytical chemistry was easy if you had been paying attention during practicals; while I was a terrible lecture attendee, I was a 100% practical worker.
And so I passed, passed on, passed out. I was now ready for... further examinations in faraway places.
Labels: Examinations, Literature, University Life
etched with acid at 8:24:00 am
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