HSC Math Exam

I had to photocopy and attest all my certificates and mark sheets a few days back. I needed the documents for submitting with the MBA admission form. Due to this, my sister got a chance to look at my SSC and HSC scores. This was not a good thing for me at all, as my results were horrible for HSC. Especially the math exam--I managed to score only 49 out of 100. It was a narrow escape! Let me revisit that period today.

It was back in year 1998. Yes, I was over confident. Over confidence got me. I would always give myself a false feeling of safety that there will be enough time for gulping the readables. However, it didn't happen that way. I found myself in fear of failing two subjects just 3 months before the exam. Since then, I devoted most of my time in those subjects, so that I don't fail. This created an imbalance in my exam preparations. With two subjects taking up most of my time, I could not revise some other subjects properly. Math first paper being one of them.

The HSC exam taught me a good lesson in managing multiple projects (!) at the same time. Although at that time, I had no idea that someday I will actually be managing multiple projects. Am I ashamed of my poor HSC results? Not at all; they taught me a lot.

So as the HSC exams approached, I finally realized that I need to tough mathematics. But at that time, my brain got in to a kind of numbness whereby no matter how much I like to study, I ended up doing other stuff. And I had all these note books, where I had all the math problems solved and copied nicely. I thought these note books will be my savior--they gave me a false sense of protection.

How wrong I was. At the final hours, I force adopted a strategy of memorizing all the theories so that I can answer them instead of solving maths. Eventually, when the exam day drew nearer, I was done with memorizing the most probable theory question answers. Back then we had an option to either answer theoretical questions or solve maths. Most students would answer the maths, as they took less time and hereby they could get more time for revising and attempting all questions.

But me, being a short sighted fool, started off with answering two theoretical questions in a row. It took me about 90 minutes to finish writing these two answers, but they did not represent more than 30% of the whole script. Thus, I was left with 70% work to be completed with 50% time. I panicked, and started solving problems hastily. The result was disastrous; I failed to get the correct answers for 2 or 3 different math problems. This disheartened me, and by then I was dreading failure and extreme embarrassment.

Thanks to God, I soon recollected myself, and utilized the remaining time in solving some problems which eventually secured my passing. The passing number was 33, and I got 49. I think the examiner was a bit lenient and he gave me a few extra points.

I partly blame my Maths teacher at college for this dismal performance of mine. Why? Because he was the one who inserted the idea of answering theoretical questions in to my brain. He also lengthened the answers by adding his own stuff in it, which I actually memorized. His answers were nice to look at but too long for a 3 hour exam.

When I got out of the exam, I was confident that I will pass. I also knew that my marks will be really bad. This fear haunted me until the day I received my results. Surely, no one was happy to see me failing to achieve star marks. But no one realized that I was the one who was suffering the most—all my friends, my cousins and almost everyone I knew did better than me. I was the star kid in the BBA coaching centre. I, almost always, scored the highest marks in the tests. Well, after the results, things changed. People started giving me pitiful looks, and my confidence level was really shattering.

My family supported me, but I expected more support from them. Ah well, maybe they did the right thing. They reacted really badly, and I was almost always reminded how I disowned the family and what a disgrace I was. Sometimes I thought about putting an end to this torment, but I was too cowardly to commit suicide. So I had to bear with it, and I emerged as the winner.

But that's a different story.....