Board Exams.

So, My board exams finally got over. Yes, I have one or two friends for computer science so I'll still write this blog. But, I decided to reflect on all the shenanigans that happened and how it went.

Board exams are hyped quite a lot in India. It does make sense because :-

1. If it's CBSE, one of the most mainstream boards of education, so the stakes are high.

2. I guess 12th marks do matter, or atleast they DID. Will get back to it later.

3. How else are retired government employees supposed to linger onto their employment?

But yes. It really felt like this year's exams were not serious at all. 

Firstly, the amount of holidays we got between each exam almost felt like mini-summer breaks. Thanks CBSE but I'd rather get done with the exam as soon as possible. To the next year 12th students, you guys might probably be writing board exams even into college if these exam preparation breaks keep increasing.

But the worst part isn't even all the things around the board exams, it's the actual exams themselves.

First, it's the exam centers where we need to go to. I don't know why there's such a downgrade from our school, where the benches are still in their youth and fans work at full speed.

We go from that to our exam center, where the benches suffer from arthritis and the fans are as efficient as government employees. I guess government schools quite an influence. 

It's ironic that they'd frisk us for checking whether we're carrying any paper bits by chance, but that one uncle who works there would bring the same chits and bits of paper when our benches wobble. I don't know what happened this one time where he had to bring actual rocks. I guess they ran out of paper supply or something perhaps. 

What i realized while writing the exam this year is that board exams were merely a formality this year. A lot of things like formats, books and things allowed in the examination are changing next year, so it feels like this year they just want to get through and done with it. Can't blame them, one of my classmates went for his relative's wedding and came back one day before the exam. With a blocked nose and a heavy voice. 

Because let's be honest, if the exams were taken slightly more seriously, I wouldn't have sat right next to my friends on the same bench during my Entrepreneurship paper. Sadly, my luck is as such that the person I sat next to got stuck at the same questions that I did. If I knew how we were going to be seated, i would've messaged him earlier and divided the chapters accordingly.

Best part is some of my friends thought this would be the same arrangement for future exams and prepared accordingly, the dissapointment on our faces when we only saw one roll number on each bench was quite saddening.

The worst part was when I'd be locked into my paper, but the invigilator would come and order me to sign on my sheet. I never got the point, I'm signing on my exam sheet already, what's the use of that sheet? I feel like they do it just to disturb the flow of students.

But NOTHING. I mean NOTHING is worse than the invigilators sipping their Tea and Good Day biscuits in front of us, and gossiping near the door. Yes, thank you for reminding me that I need to have something too, by eating it in front of me.

But CBSE likes to put a show too. When you enter the exam rooms (I'm not going to call them exam halls, that's too respectful), you'd see that just before the exam is about to start, the teachers start cutting into the packet or seal where our question papers are.

But, it's really not that serious. I mean, we are not that interested in seeing the question paper either. You invigilators can keep it if needed.

But no, instead of cutting it normally and before time, they like to act as if they're making an unboxing video for us.

But I felt the worse for the Physics students. My friend is worried about it to the highest extent. But I'm confident she'll score above average. It also made me wonder about the plight of Remedial students who have had issues with passing Physics the whole year.

But CBSE decided that copy pasting a JEE mock paper would save their time and energy. Surely It's not like my friend was worried about this weak subject or anxious or anything.

I would like to thank my first Entrepreneurship teacher, the Commerce king Rajat Arora and CA Parag Gupta for saving me from these exams. And for making my two years of learning worthwhile and interesting. Even for me, I can't believe that my English paper went the worst and that my Accounts paper went better than my Economics paper. That was not my plan. But hey, objectively all of them went good. And, i had Skyfall by Adele playing in my mind as I finished my last Accountancy paper.

But yup. It's over. The years of us being captivated by CBSE is over. And I know that there's someone very overwhelmed by what's next? College, leaving behind friends, going to other cities, etc. but rest assured, I'm always here. It's a part and process and this shall also be figured out with time. That's how we get our best answer :)

Apologies for mentioning physics.