Taming of Exams at REC Warangal
When you entered REC Warangal (now NIT Warangal), as I did in 1993, you had only one dream — to graduate either with a job or with an admission to an American university (although pursuing an MBA was another option). Both made you a highly valued stock in the marriage market — Warangal was in the former undivided state of Andhra Pradesh, where everyone dreamt of becoming an engineer to earn in dollars.
To achieve that dream, you had to overcome a series of exams stretching across eight semesters, each requiring the stamina, speed and skill of an Olympic hurdler. Most of the students who started the race eventually made it through, though each had their unique trajectory.
The top 25% of the class studied for the sake of learning — attended every lecture, sat for every exam and had the iron discipline of an Olympian. A sub-set of this category comprised those who aimed to do their masters in the US and were therefore swotting up for GRE right from the fifth semester! They wanted to get into the good books of the professors, from whom they would (hopefully) receive recommendation letters later on.
The middle 50% worked hard but gradually realized that they were never going to win any medals, so their sole mission was to score maximum grade with minimum effort.
The bottom 25% started like Olympians but got bored and strayed off track; by the final semester they just wanted to somehow reach the finish line with a job in hand. Meanwhile, they found an ingenious way to lighten the burden of exams.
I wonder which professor was first struck by the profound insight that continuously loading students with exams was the ideal way to ensure they learnt something during their four years in engineering. When I joined REC Warangal, I was aghast to learn that each semester of six months had two mid-term exams and one end-term exam. It meant answering 18 exams for six subjects, and barring holidays that worked out to an exam every week!
Now, it dawned on the bottom 25% that of the two mid-terms, only the higher score of the two was taken into account. I often wonder who the unknown genius was who first figured out that he might as well skip one mid-term altogether, since his score in the one exam he answered would still stand. I also wonder why academicians never thought of countering this strategy by calculating the average score of the two mid-terms!
Most treated the mid-term exam as a T20 match, with all the cigarette-and-chai fuelled mugging up done on the last day. Pulling an all-nighter on the eve of an exam was common; one of my roommates found an interesting way to remain awake. He would use an ink filler to drop water into his eyes when he started to nod off — water conservation at its best!
The most commonly used mode of waking up another was the human alarm system. This sometimes had tragicomic results, though. There was a case of three roommates doing last minute catch-up. Person 1 told Person 2 to wake him up when Person 3 went out for a late-night cup of tea. Person 1 was shocked to wake up completely refreshed the next morning. When Person 2 was confronted he weakly explained that Person 3 was to blame — he did not go out for chai! Other ways to keep oneself awake included group night-outs and — as an extreme measure — climbing the iron ladder of the water tank. End-semester exams were treated with a little more respect and preparations would start a couple of weeks in advance. Only the earnest ones played a test match, studying throughout the year!
‘Board exams’ was code for an ingenious device we relied on while writing exams. ‘Board’ stood for the rectangular wooden board used by mechanical engineering students. All the exam rooms were equipped with these boards and it soon came to my notice that they were crammed with microscopic notes. Every possible formula was etched into the board but there was just one problem with these cheat sheets — you had to know where and how to apply each formula! Over the years, students had been going to the examination halls hours or even a day ahead to inscribe formulae on the boards. Some even brought rough-grained sandpaper to erase existing notes and replace them with new ones.
However, what topped the art of cheating was called “operation”. Very few (typically the ones who had arrears and were long-term residents of the campus) had the courage to execute this ploy that involved multiple people trying to help one person pass an exam. As soon as the question paper was distributed, the examinee would roll it up tightly and chuck it through the window where someone below would be waiting to catch it. The question paper was then rushed to the nearby hostel where a group of seniors waited to solve it. The answers would be written on the stamped answer sheet procured by bribing one of the clerks, and delivered after a couple of hours to the examinee who would take a convenient toilet break at that juncture. I now wonder whether, if the same effort had gone into studying, the person wouldn’t have passed with flying colors.
The most brilliant among us were also the most unassuming. You had to be wary of classmates who complained that they hadn’t prepared enough, giving you a false sense of complacency and thus derailing your own preparation, because when the results were announced they inevitably topped the class. But there were also benevolent ‘fundus’ (toppers) who would impart a quick bit of coaching. This, as well as group study, inputs from Seniors, and long walk from hostels to classrooms ensured that you prepared for the subjects as well as bonded with different personalities — a bonding that grew stronger over time.
Each of us had our individual strategy but the common goal was to get at least 60% overall, before the campus interviews. It is quite possible that some of the engineers who are today senior company executives may have struggled to pass some of the exams. But then the fundamental question is: what were we testing when most of what we learn is rarely applied in the jobs we perform?
Well, it’s been 25 years since we graduated. Unlike us, every student now has a laptop and internet at their disposal, changing the very idea of learning. With information available at our fingertips, remembering a formula is no longer necessary and neither is the need to actually attend every class in person. But with an abundance of information comes poverty of attention. The challenge for the current generation is to remain focused and have a curious mind. As for oldies like me, we will continue to wallow in the nostalgic memories of a time gone by.
