Recently have written about cheating in couple of exams in my blog posts The Great ERP Exam Mystery and Cheating: Lessons from the Last Bench. To continue setting an example of a model student for my daughter and to instill the values of dedication, planning, and smart preparation, I’m sharing another memorable exam-related incident from my student days.
This happened in the year 2001. I was in B.Com (Honors) Final Year, and the final exams were about to start.
After being regularly irregular in attending classes, being 'intoxicated'...on studies and managing to score pretty average marks in the first two years, my friends and I wanted to score big in the final year and come out of college on a high. Our group consisted of myself and my friends Vikash, Tushar, Amar, Sushant, and Amit.
Vikash and I had already cleared an extremely (not so) tough and competitive MBA entrance exam that we gave in a primary school in Kolkata. My large frame did not fit the benches meant for primary school kids, and only I know how I survived that exam. That story is for another time. So, Vikash and I needed to clear the final-year exam to start our MBA program. Vikash, the studious type, did not need any help. I, on the other hand, needed all the help in the world.
I prepared well for different subjects, which included Cost Accounting (CA), Management Accountancy (MAc), Tax Law & Accounting (TLA) and Business Studies & Management (BSM). While I was relatively confident about CA, MAc and BSM, TLA (we simply called it Income Tax) was my Achilles' heel.
Tushar, Amar, Sushant, and I, along with another dear friend, Ajit, and a classmate, Ashutosh, had also taken group tuition from a well-known Professor of Income Tax, hoping that he would play a role in setting the final exam question paper or at least know about the questions and would 'help' us with some 'important' questions.
Before the exams, Tushar, Amar, Sushant and I went to the Professor and asked him if he can point us to "some questions that we must practice". 😉
The Professor agreed, took out the course material, and started telling us which questions we should prepare. One by one, he told us 28 questions (!!!) that we must practice before the exam.
We told him that if we were such hardworking students, we would not require his help at all, and asked him to narrow it down. He refused and shooed us away!
We were confused about what to do next. The exam was three days away. We discussed various options. The option of going home and practicing those 28 questions was laughed at and struck off swiftly. That was not an option for students like us.
Suddenly, someone came up with a bright idea. It was pointed out that our professor is not the only reputed professor in the university. Every professor gave tuitions and, similar to our professor, other professors would also have suggested 'important' questions to their students. Since our Professor had given random questions from the book, it was unlikely that the other Professors would have given the same set of questions.
So, all we had to do was to get the 'important' questions from the students of other professors and find the common ones!!
This plan made sense to everyone and, like the hardworking students we were, we immediately put the plan into action. In a matter of few hours, we had the details from the tuition students of other key professors.
We compared the list and we realized that there were seven questions that were common across all the lists. The question paper for the final exam would include five questions of 20 marks each, and we were confident that those five questions would be among the list of seven questions that we had narrowed down.
We patted each other on the back and were happy with the teamwork and success.
Someone asked what if we were wrong and the final five questions were entirely different. Everyone was taken aback for couple of seconds and then this doubt was also laughed at and ignored.
What choice we had? We had no option but to completely trust our judgement.
(Be honest, at this stage, are you not thinking how our plan would fail?! 😀)
Then an actual issue was pointed out. A valid one. A big one.
We knew the seven questions, but we did not know the solutions!
That is when we thought of the missing friend, Vikash Kumar Singh. It was agreed that we would go to him and get him to solve each question.
Since good students do not waste time, we went to Vikash's house immediately and found him wasting his time....he was studying for the Income Tax exam! Such a nerd!
We told him that he did not need to, as we could tell him seven questions, out of which five are 'guaranteed' to come in the exam. All he had to do in exchange was to solve those questions. He was his doubts and had hundreds of questions, but like in case of the seven questions, we had no answers.
We politely asked him to shut up and get on to solving the questions.
He solved all seven questions and handed the answers to us. We looked at his answers. It was akin to a pianist looking at an industrial machinery to see if everything was alright. We had no clue!
But we trusted him. Again, there was no other option.
One of us ran to the nearest photocopier and got copies made for each of us. We took a copy each and left with victorious smiles.
(If not earlier, are you not confident now that our plan is definitely bound to fail?! 😀)
In the next two days, we 'mugged up' all the questions and their solutions. In the history of the TLA (or Income Tax) exam, no one would have mugged up solutions!
I practiced again and again. At the end of 2 days, I was so confident about the questions that I did not even need to read the entire question. If the question started with 'Ramesh works in a metro city...", I would start drawing lines and tables to compute Ramesh's income tax. The rest of the details were already known. Why waste time reading the questions at all?
On the day of the exam, we reached our examination center. We laughed at the nervous looks on the faces of other students. We did not even wish each other the best of luck. What could have gone wrong? It was a foolproof plan!
(I am 100% sure that you are thinking (and hoping) that the 5 questions in the question paper were entirely different!!)
There were around 60 students in my examination hall, but no one from my group was there. It would have been fun to give high-fives (in the air) to my friends after looking at the question paper.
The exam started. The question papers were handed out. I only read the first sentence of each question.
But after reading the first sentence of each of the five questions, I was SHOCKED!
The five questions in the question paper were indeed part of the seven that we had narrowed down and prepared for!!!
(You were not expecting that, were you??!!? 😀)
The two days of preparing for the seven questions had helped me develop muscle memory. I did not read the questions and simply went on to solving them. Like a well oiled machine, I solved all five questions.
I still had time left but, like a good student, I do not like wasting time. I wanted to get out of the examination hall as quickly as possible, celebrate with 'win' with my friends and then go home to prepare for the last exam.
When I reached the parking lot, I noticed that Tushar and Sushant were already sitting there. My slow writing had delayed me. But it did not matter, as it was not a race.
We laughed and gave each other high-fives.
Soon, Amar and Amit also came out. They were also welcomed with celebrations. We were laughing and were extremely proud of our examination strategy.
At last, Vikash came out of the building. He was running towards us with excitement. When he reached us, he complimented us for managing to get the seven questions and for the fact that four out of the five questions were identical to the ones on our list.
Wait....WHAT!!!
4 out of 5 questions were identical??
We looked at each other puzzled and said that he was wrong. All five questions were identical!
He said the fifth question was almost identical too, but it had one extra detail that had to be factored into the tax computation. We did not believe him.
He showed us the extra detail. It was a very simple entry and even we would have managed to get it right.
Only if we had read the question.
Except for Vikash, none of us had noticed it! The five of us had made the same mistake.
The plan was brilliant. The execution was almost brilliant. The overconfidence cost us slightly.
Yet, despite the minor setback, it was a major victory! 🏆
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चलो चार तो निकल गया - हाहाहाहाहा
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