Close Calls

It had been the week for final exams for most schools. Undeniably, it would be around this time that cramming is at its peak, but with increasing levels of difficulty and wave after wave of daunting tasks, only the best can pull it off and win the high stakes involved: pass or fail. My advice therefore, although it might be late for this school year, is to not attempt cramming in the first place.

The final exams themselves are such fine examples of torment for students. I've narrated before of one such instance to comical effect. Indeed, in the end such stressful episodes of student life do end up as memories that surfaces to the office rat who's slaving away for a crucial presentation the next day. As for myself, I recall two glistening memories of final exams that have given me a real scare.

-oOo-

The first was my finals in Linear Algebra in my sophomore year. For this course, our batch of math majors was split into two classes. One class was under this brilliant young man, who unfortunately was disposed to utilize scare tactics like tough homework and recitation questions. Then there was his infamous set of conceptual statements which require some amount of mathematical proof for the students to determine its veracity. (An easier approach suggested by one of our sharpest minds was to formulate a counterexample.) The other class was under this gentle lady with a motherly demeanor. She was nevertheless just as skilled with the subject and her long experience had resulted in numerous contributions (which if I'm not mistaken, includes the correction filter for signals beamed from deep-space probes). Her theoretical constructs truly boggles the simple minds who were tasked to derive from them illustrative mathematical insights.

The students in the former class had been terrified of their instructor, and this has kept them on their toes. Thankfully, most of the more adept minds were also with them, and had assisted them quite ably in their studies. I was lucky enough to be in the latter class, yet the subject itself is very challenging, giving us no room to slack off considerably.

When the finals came, I was in a precarious situation grades-wise. In the two hundred points available from more than ten items in the two-hour exam, I had to get more than a hundred to pass the course with a grade of D. I needed twenty more to pull off the average C grade. Upon receipt of the questionnaire, the first to pop up were the dreaded statements that taunted for a "true" or "false" assessment. Since they required no display of a solution or proof and provided relatively low points, I brushed them aside and went for the rest. More than an hour later, with significantly large minutes wasted wrestling with the mind-boggling constructs, my estimates showed that I was still short of the passing score. Oh boy, it was like dangling at the edge of a cliff! There were two more items to be tackled; would they be enough? Interestingly, the answer for one came after small effort and the proof for the other was routine. I barely made it to passing. Slightly relaxed now, I answered the true-or-false part by basically deluding myself of having found a counterexample or a hint of proof.

Immediately after the end of the exam, a kindred friend and I whooped it up like we just stepped off a roller coaster ride of a lifetime. Others opted for a cigarette. Surprisingly, even those whom I never saw smoking before puffed wantonly like they had just climaxed from an intense and steamy act of lust.

When the report cards were distributed, I was expecting a passing grade of D. The mortality rate of the other class was real bad: a significant number of batch mates failed the subject. Behold my surprise when I got a C+! My classmates noticed that their grades did go one notch higher as if a statistical curving was implemented. But that still did not explain why mine went two notches higher.

It was only months later when I chanced upon a pile of exam papers for disposal at the Math Department that I got to explain my grades. It turned out that I actually scored enough in the finals to get a C. How? My answers (or should I say delusional guesses) in the True or False part actually delivered enough points to get me there. Oh bless my most unexpected luck! I kept that paper to remind me that even in the direst circumstances one could still prevail. Even if years later I no longer have a clue on the meaning of the equations and figures scribbled on it, I still remember its life lesson.

-oOo-

The second was the finals for Statistics in my junior year. This particular Stat class we had was supposed to be a masters' subject being taught to undergrads. Twisted, wasn't it. Anyway, we had for our professor a lively one who had a quirky and colorful fashion sense. Her teaching style could somehow be reminiscent of elementary school, but it does serve some purpose considering the inherent difficulty in the course. Indeed it was a struggle throughout the semester, and long test results were agonizing. The challenging part for me was the memorization of numerous steps in some procedures, so even if formulas and charts were allowed to be seen there was still something else to worry about. Then again, maybe I was just lacking in practice exercises.

On the night before the final exams, my plan was to review my notes from the beginning. Not the best way to go about it, admittedly, but it should get me somewhere, especially on the concepts and the procedures. All was going well until a few hours before midnight, then the lights went out. Normally, our in-campus dorm would have the power back on via generator, but it must have been the wirings themselves that had the problem, meaning the generator would be of no help. The technician would only be available by morning, so we had to bear it the entire night.

Surely, it could have been worse. At least I was merely reviewing my notes. Others were actually cramming a ten-page paper, a program or their thesis and who knew what could have gotten busted in their computers. The outage appeared to be limited to the dorm building only since the other school buildings were all lit up, so the solution, aside from studying under candlelight (which I've done before, so this should be no big deal), would be to go to those places. On the other hand, some were caught up with the novelty of the prolonged darkness and silence. These people opted to hang out for a while (equivalent to a few hours) and just had a chat with dorm mates. Of course, I was with them.

Later on I resumed my studies under candlelight (to keep the time I suppose, and I wanted to study alone since the other buildings had been filled up with dormers and tend to be distracting--excuses, excuses). It turned out to be an all-night endeavor, which I was not a stranger to anyway. I'd just take breakfast and have a bath later; the exam would still be at nine. Unfortunately, by six in the morning I was drowsy and went to bed.

By some providence, I jolted awake at nine o' clock. The test was starting! There was no time for bath and breakfast, and a dormer knew what to do with this kind of situation. After fifteen minutes I was in the examination room and was answering away. There were some final exams that bored me within the two hours that I had to complete them, but I don't think this was one of them

I got the barely passing mark in Statistics. A significant number of classmates were not so fortunate, so I should be thankful. It got me thinking of other outcomes if I did not wake up on time. Waking up on time had been a problem of mine up to this day, so it must have been something that I actually got to do it back then when it mattered. What were the odds?