Many instances in life when I ended up unsuccessful after rigorous attempts for simple things, I always wondered “Was that really simple, or did I underestimate it.” But for what happened today, I’m sure it is not the latter. I always thought exams at my college are to test the different abilities of students like understanding, interpreting, decision making, reasoning and whatever more –ings you can add here. But this one exam ended up proving the otherwise. It was just a menace of tons of simple and repetitive calculations which even a kid would be able to do, give him a calculator.
Going further, if you can imagine a Super Combo of Mr. Bean’s looks, Harischandra’s patience, but with a Yama’s cruel intent; that could probably describe this person who set this paper. What more evidence do you need to describe the kindness of this person, who expects only binary answers (even for open ended questions) in the classroom (YES or NO); sees lively guys in lifeless numbers; loves DRAGGING and FURTHER DRAGGING them (in excel) until he gets what he wants, and a lot more to go… Legends speak of His magnanimity for the simple reason that his quiz(zes) worth 10% are the easiest in which the entire class probably scores a cent. The rest 90% for the final exam is a nightmare for the entire class.
The moment I saw this final paper, I felt it was child’s play and sheer common sense. However, Three hours in the exam hall, making mundane multiplications, stupid subtractions, dirty divisions and abhorrent additions (of course, with very little brains behind), was really hel(L). The same, could have been done otherwise in seconds using excel. I generally hate globe (GLOBE is a jargon, also referred to as gas, faff, etc. in different places) but this was the day which made me feel globe is much better. Trust me, there are people scoring heavily even in such papers which makes me pray “God… Please save me”. And probably he has heard my prayers, which is why HE made me prefer globe to math, for my specialization.
P.S: This is just a piece of sarcasm to describe a certain incident that happened on 26th march 2010. The places and characters in this piece are just a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely intentional.
Nice.Well-written blog.Btw,you can scold them from rooftops.You are too modest,Shankar.
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