Thursday, February 18, 2016

In The Name of Education (#TBT)


 
“You may begin.”
Three little words that can crush your soul.

My friend, R had just begun writing her Psychology 101 exam. It was supposed to be an easy course. No one in the history of the University (or the Universe) had ever failed Psych 101. In fact, it had been said that no one in North America had ever gotten anything lower than a B in Psych 101. But change was coming to America… R was sweating buckets full.

You have all been in that type of exam before. The one where you walk in, say your prayers, flip open the exam booklet and read the questions, then the first thing you do is confirm the date- Not April 1st… Hia! The next thing you do is verify the course code, course name, exam time and exam location… Just to make sure you are in the right place at the right time for the right thing. You just can not believe what is happening. You take your contacts out, rinse them, put them back in and re-read the questions. You have never seen or heard of most of the words in your life. You start praying in Yoruba even though you can’t speak it… Please don’t act like you can’t relate. I have been there, you have been there and my friend, R was there on this particular day.


It had been a particularly trying exam period for her. The week before, she had written her Art History final. Everyone had been going on about how people always ran out of time during the final. R explained to me how during the exam she could not understand why people had whined so much about the timing issue. It was a three hour exam with 2 questions and five subparts. It took her 50 minutes to do each question. So she finished more than an hour early and had ample time to review and re-review her work, and then baffle at how slow other people were. Then the proctor called time, she flipped her booklet over to write her name and was subsequently confronted with questions 3 to 12… along with each of their two million subparts…

Then she wrote Anthropology- it was 50 multiple choice questions. As she sat at her desk waiting for the proctor to walk up and pick up her scantron sheet, she noticed that none of the bubbles for number 18 had been darkened... And two bubbles had been darkened for number 42. As far as she was aware she had provided only one answer for every question, so whatever had happened there was definitely a mystery to her.

Then we both wrote our Philosophy final. The Prof. had told us that he would test us mostly on Chapter 8. R would not stop cussing the Professor for not putting even one question from Chapter 8 on there. I did not have the heart to tell her that everything had in fact been from Chapter 8…

R’s last exam was Sociology. She sat in the library committing her definitions and mnemonics to memory. Everything was flowing. This was definitely going to be that A plus course that would pull up her GPA for the entire semester. While she was studying, another Naija girl, who we will call S, and who was also in the class stopped to say Hi.

They chatted a bit about the exam. R asked S if she was ready.

“Yeah, I am. It’s so easy.”

“Really? Well, I don’t really understand Conflict Theory.”

“Oh, he is not going to test Conflict Theory.”

R looked at S confused, “He is not going to test it?”

S looked back at R and stated matter-of-factly, “Nope, he’s not.”

“How do you know?”

S lowered her voice like she was about to divulge Coca-Cola's secret formula for coke, “I have the exam...”

No. Freaking. Way.

Yeah, we all know the right thing to do in the circumstances. But R could not bring herself to ignore that vital information and just go back to studying.

“Umm, can I just look at it really quickly?”

“Well, I can show you for 100 bucks.” Na waya. Played like a true Naija girl.

“I only have 20 bucks.” Na real waya. Played like a VERY true Naija girl.

“Ok.”

I know what you are thinking. Such an easy and immediate reduction from 100 bucks to 20 bucks should have put R on notice that something just might not be right, right? But nope, not my friend. My girl could not wait to run to her wallet, count out her hard-earned 20 dollars and hand it over to S in exchange for the exam. Please- who wants to read nine chapters when you can read two pages?

R could not believe her sudden good fortune- Finally, a break. Of course, she didn’t bother to study anymore. Instead, she just memorized the answers to the questions on the list then went home early and watched three back to back episodes of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. After three hours of TV, R finally went to bed. She slept like a baby and woke up refreshed. She headed to the exam hall, confident and relaxed.

Then R sat down, opened the exam booklet and read the first question:

‘Question 1: There are four primary assumptions of Conflict Theory. Discuss.’

The shock and the horror. Yeah- surprise, surprise- there were five single spaced pages of questions R had never seen in her life before. There was weeping. There was wailing. And there was definitely gnashing of teeth.

R did not have a sweet clue how to answer even one of the questions. However, as I am sure you are well aware, there are quite a few strategies that one can employ in such a situation. R considered all of them:

1. Repitition. Identify the keywords within the text of the question and use them to make up your answer- The sole objective being to inject as many keywords from the question into your answer as you can... and repeat them as often as possible.

2. Ask and answer your own question. This approach is used where you really studied Topic A. You can regurgitate the three different definitions of Topic A- verbatim. You can list the 6 elements of Topic A in your sleep. You can draw and label all the 12 parts of Topic A with both hands tied behind your back. But of course and for sure, on the exam, the Prof only cares about Topic B. So… you pretend you are answering the question about Topic B, then you veer off into Topic A, write down your three definitions, list your 6 elements and draw and label your 12 parts- Nonsense…

3. When in doubt, choose C. This is self explanatory. Tried, Tested and True. It works for multiple choice exams only. But in very dire situations, some people have been known to use this approach for short answer and essay questions as well…

AND

4. Rough calculation. Emphasis on rough. This works in any exam where you have been given numbers. It’s very easy to execute- you just arrange the numbers, draw a couple of lines, cross out some of the numbers, carry some of the numbers, add randomly, subtract arbitrarily, multiply erratically, divide if it's a sunny day, throw in some decimal points and slap a final number on there. Maybe you get points, maybe you don’t. You might get an A for your efforts... You probably won’t. But at least, you, your Professor and your God will know that you tried.

Again, please don’t act like you never used any of these tactics before- because all that means is that you did not go to school.

In any event, none of these would have worked for R. She was at that level of screwed where she couldn’t even comprehend the question, so BSing the answer was not really a viable option. R looked around her- everyone else was writing madly, flipping pages, asking for more and more paper… It was a Sociology exam but people were doing calculations, drawing graphs and constructing pie charts. Wahala.

The most painful part? Even S that sold her the fake exam, was writing a textbook…

R closed her eyes hoping for a miracle but all she could remember was the color of the textbook. And Buffy and Angel's passionate kiss...

Fifteen minutes into the exam, R’s pen cap had been chewed into an unidentifiable mound of blue plastic. Her nails had been gnawed down to jagged cuticles. Her scalp had been scratched to oblivion. But her answer sheet remained blank.

Panic mode. Creative Thinking. Damage Control. She racked and racked her brain but there was nothing else to do. At that point, R looked to her left, looked to her right, threw caution to the wind and went for it.

She let out a loud gasp, bumped her head on her desk, flailed her arms wildly, twitched her body uncontrollably, fell out of her chair, rolled on to the floor, somersaulted a couple of times… and then played dead.


Yup… My girl sure “fainted.”

People started screaming. They carried R outside and poured cold water on her face. Her make-up came sliding down her face on to her brand new white designer t-shirt and her freshly done Milky Way paradise curl weave was reduced to a wet tangled mess, but R had bigger concerns... she kept up the dramatics, “My heart... My lungs... My kidney… My liver... I can’t see… I can’t breathe… I feel faint… My belle oh… My head oh…”

The Professor was beside himself… He told R that she could write the exam another day, which was all she really needed to hear. But he would not stop talking and would not leave her side. He kept asking if she was ok, and insisting on calling the paramedics. Since an ambulance ride is not free, of course R faintly but very sternly guaranteed him that it really honestly truly was not necessary. The Prof. insisted that she at least get a friend to come get her- So guess who had to get out of bed and drive to school to get R?

And when I got there… men… I have never seen anyone so vexed in my life. R demanded that we drive straight to S’s house and wait for her there. When S came home, R assured her that thunder would surely hammer her head and held the girl’s throat until she coughed up R’s twenty dollars.

Three weeks later, after R had studied, she wrote the exam- did her calculations, drew her graphs, did her pie charts… and got her A plus- like a normal person…

Today, R is a high rolling, shot calling, big balling Accountant with a top firm. We sat on the phone this weekend reminiscing about our undergraduate days and the things we have gone through- all in the name of education.

So amazing… So amusing…

#TBT, written in 2009

Good luck to all those studying for midterms, finals and  preparing papers and projects. Especially those who are reading this instead of studying :)

2 comments:

  1. Keep the stories coming! Those school days mehn...LOL

    ReplyDelete
  2. Keep the stories coming! Those school days mehn...LOL

    ReplyDelete