Tuesday, March 13, 2007

I don't think I did well with this post

Came across this entry in The Star Blog;

The Star Online: View Post

I don't think I did well with this post
Posted by: thejason
Are you a student who is always getting weird alphabets as your final grades?Do you think F stands for Fantastic?Are your marks always less than 0?Do you find it difficult to circle the correct answer on a multiple choice question paper?Do you find it difficult to circle?Do you want to get the best out of your edjukashun?

If you answered with an enthusiastic ‘Yes!’ to any of the above questions,then pay attention for this article will give you some hard,honest advice on how to really get the best out of exams.

Let’s face it,exams are tough.But if you are always finding yourself being stressed over exams and actually feel physical pain when an exam looms near,take a moment to be grateful.Grateful that at least you have the opportunity to actually HAVE exams.Be grateful that you are part of an education system that annually churns out redundant degree-holders in courses that were only relevant in the Stone Age.Be thankful that after many years of sweat,tears and studying,you will come out of this experience all geared up and ready to be retrenched during the next economic crisis.Do you want to be like those dropouts who never finished university,never had a degree to their name and were forced to call upon their creativity and resourcefulness and ventured into business or entrepreneurship and then making millions of ringgit?Do you?

I thought so.Now listen up.

Many a scholar do not know this,but to be truly successful,you have to adhere to a secret code of conduct when dealing with exams.Only the best and the brightest know of this mysterious mythical code and now,YOU will have access to it.It is a bunch of unspoken rules,each one draconian in nature but innately powerful in turning the tides of the cosmos to your favour.The sum of all the rules is called : -

The Law of the Exams

In preparation for the upcoming exams,you must of course,study your butt off until it actually develops a series of purple rashes on top of a series of red blisters.You must study as if the Devil is behind you, with a 6-ft pitchfork ready to sodomize you the instant you slack off.Sleep 2 hours a day.Abandon all social life,ye who art sitting for exams.Eat sparingly,for munching time takes up cramming time.Your books are extensions of your eyeballs.Your books cannot leave your eyes,in the same way your love handles and fat thighs cannot leave you.

But that is not the essence of The Law.You already know you have to study hard.The trick behind it is to never admit you are studying hard..That’s right.Students who score A ++++ in all their exams,major,minor or even monthly, will never ever say they are studying hard.Heck,they won’t even admit they are studying.Here is a typical application of this rule : -

Background – Ah Chong has been studying 17 hours a day for the past few weeks in preparation for an exam next week.He has covered all the relevant material 30 times over and just for kicks,he has even covered the irrelevant material “just in case”.He has flipped so many pages that facts and figures are imprinted on his fingernails.He has absorbed his textbooks so thoroughly that he can recite long paragraphs of information on cue.Backwards.In his sleep.On a few occasions,he has actually called up the authors of several textbooks and reprimanded them for slight mistakes in their presentation of the subject at hand.The constant rubbing of his elbows against his wooden table have produced two indentations which will soon become actual holes.He has giving up vital tasks like showering and defecating to free up more time to study.

Muthu – So Chong,how long you studied last night?

Chong – Aiyoh I didn’t study at all lar!I haven’t even started reading the first few chapters!

Muthu – Hah?Really ah?

Chong – Yalah…somemore I don’t understand all the concepts that Mrs. Goh thought us.

And when I try to study ah,everything also cannot masuk!!

Muthu – Eh don’t stress brother!Tell you what,let’s go mamak tonight.I belanja!

Chong – Errr..mamak ah?I er…cannot la…because the…

Muthu – Aiyah why so shy?You yourself say you never study what!

Chong – I know…but tomorrow night…cos…a bit too..

Muthu – Ah okaylah okaylah no need la.

They then part ways.Ah Chong returns to his books,and Muthu also returns to his books,for he too has been studying as hard as Ah Chong and played up the whole mamak routine to fish out information on his enemy…whoops,I mean…friend’s progress.Confident that his friend has been slacking,Muthu decides to actually bathe and sleep an extra hour,bringing the grand total of hours he will sleep tonight to : One.

This brings me to the next rule of war.Always ascertain the progress of fellow exam-sitters.This can be done simply and discreetly by proclaiming loudly that you can’t grasp a certain concept or that you are unable to memorize key elements of a chapter.Of course,at this point you are lying shamelessly,as you by now have not only grasped everything that is to grasp,but have crushed them into fine powder and can actually build a small sandcastle with all that powder.Be alert as to who offers you help,those are the ones that will be a threat.When a friend of yours offers competent help in answering all your fake queries and thoroughly satisfies all your fake academic inadequacies,thank him by patting his back with the sharp end of a knife or by offering him cyanide in the guise of some delicious soup.Have you heard about cases of school canteen poisoning?Yes,your daily newspaper can give you some good ideas too.

Thirdly,one must always guard oneself from practitioners of the second rule.You must not give your own progress away,for that will only embolden your friends to study harder and become better at the subject matter which you previously have understood so well.So,my young Padawan,the third rule is, Only offer help to weaker students.Why?Because weaker students don’t give a hoot if you do better than them,they are just thankful they are getting Cs and Ds.Weaker students will not affect your position in the official Top 10 ranking in your class if they score an extra mark here or there.But,if you commit the cardinal sin of helping your fellow Top 10 friends,then behold, out of your own effort, you will be demoted down the hierarchy of greatness in less time than it took you to help your friends.Do not voluntarily become academically inferior.Rest assured,your friends are working hard day,night and twilight to do exactly that.

The exam is approaching near,and with the impending inevitability,you must possess about you an aura of pathetic incompetency.To do this,always wail things like , “Aiyoh die la die la die la exam coming and I haven’t touched a single thing!!!” or the always classic , “ Oh my gawd no more time already!I played games too much,and now I cant finish this chapter and that chapter!”.Facial expressions and body language are of paramount importance.You can alternate between blankness to sheer depression leading to panic and fear.Feign an epileptic seizure or two.Faint every once in a while.This will make your act more convincing.Again,the idea behind this is to ensure that your friends lay down their guard and assume you won’t be a thorn in their side in this particular exam.So remember, always appear as if you dread the exams.

Then comes the actual exam.You sit the exam,you do your best,you say a small prayer and pass your exam paper to the invigilator.It’s all over.But WAIT!If you want to be a truly successful student,it does not stop at just writing down your essays exuberantly or circling the correct answers on a sheet.You may think now that your papers are passed up,theres nothing you can do to physically change your wrong answers or to improve your correct ones.

That is not the case.

This is perhaps the most crucial phase of exam-taking.The time when your exam lies in a plane of suspension,a state of limbo.You think your exam papers are sitting at your teachers’ desks,waiting to be corrected with red pens and computers?

That is not the case.

No one knows for sure where exactly your papers will be at this point.Some have speculated that they mysteriously disappear into the night and appear the next morning all marked and ready to be handed back.The teachers are already in the know,and they act as mere mediums to a higher power that governs your grades.We shall go with the most accepted theory that all exam papers are transported into the 4th Dimension,where they are arranged on a massive pile in front of a gigantic,universal concentration of endless energy.This is known as The Cosmic One and its purpose is to mark your paper.It is not an objective evaluation.Instead,several factors are weighed into consideration.

How does it do so?It works on a basis of cause and effect,karma,yin and yang,the delicate balace between morality and spirituality.For example,if a student upon completion of an exam states that he is confident he did well in the exam,he will upset the cosmic balance and piss The Cosmic One off.This will cause his exam results to be significantly lower than his confident expectations.It wont matter whether he actually felt confident of the exam or not,as long as he verbalizes it,the cosmic rule will be flagrantly broken.So,the rule here is this, you must NEVER admit that you think you will score well. Instead,you must always say that for this particular exam,you are definitely going to fail miserably.Research has shown that the more a student denies that he performed excellently,the higher his marks will be at the end.It does not MATTER if you actually know you are going to score 780%,you MUST NOT SAY IT OUT LOUD.Remember,the Cosmic One is very unforgiving.

You are by now well equipped to face the harsh uncertainties of exams.Go with peace,my friends.Study the rules and learn them by heart.Apply them daily.Do not merely understand the rules,but live through them as if they are organic,as if they have taken over you and are now part of your personality,your very existence.Do all the above,and you can finally say with absolute and utter confidence that you will do extremely well in your exams.

But for heaven sakes,don’t.

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