Board Exams

As we are into the last week of february(this year blessed with an extra day) it is examination time again.The public examinations for class 10 and class 12 students will commence from the first week of march.For thousands of students across the country,this is the lifeline and holds the key to a better future.It is the time of the year when quite a lot of students would be facing examination blues.As i am writing this, my mind travels back in time to last year when i was in a similar situation about to sit for my class 12 examinations.I remember how much i had slogged hard( though i cant really say i burned the midnight oil..). I had used my study holidays effectively, paying equal attention to all the subjects so my preparation was upto the expected level.However i was nervous like any other student and i recall how little sleep i managed the day before the first exam( physics!!). The next morning my eyes were red from lack of sleep and spent a few anxious moments before the breakfast worrying if i would drop down asleep while writing the examination(lol). After reaching the examination center, i was surprised to find out many of my friends had experienced sleeplessness the previous night.

After the customary prayer and the last minute brushing n reviewing of concepts,graphs and formulae we proceeded into the exam hall. The question papers were distributed and we were given extra 15 minutes in the beginning ,for going through the paper. This was and is a open gift to all the students and helps in simmering down the tension. Ten minutes into scanning the paper i had worked out the the way i was going to answer the most of the questions.There wasnt any big surprise in the question paper and the questions were of the expected standard;neither very difficuilt nor very easy.The two practise papers which i had solved prior to the exam helped me to manage my time effectively and i managed to finish the paper with 15 minutes to spare.Coming out of the exam hall i became aware of the glaring mistakes i had made in the paper. I was a bit disappointed with myself for i had put in good efforts.

It was time for me to move on and i was more than happy to put physics out of my mind for the time being. I still had four more to go.The next exam was chemistry and there were 4 days for the preparation.There was just about sufficient time for me to complete studying( i had wasted a lot of time!!!) .However i found the paper to be like a stroll in the park(!!).From that moment i had only maths to think about which was the fourth one.Meanwhile english exam got over and the ICC world cup had commenced.From that moment my attention had drifted from maths to cricket. Analysing the scorecards and the statistics had taken maths out of my mind; more than half way through the study holidays( 13 !!)i started preparing sincerely wishing it gets over soon. Maths was again very easy and by that time Team India had been knocked out of the world cup .Four exams were over and the last one was computer science .There was a break of 2 weeks in between ,and it proved to be quite counter productive. I spent majority of the 2 weeks in attending classes for entrance examinations( which i regret doing now!)that it was only towards the fag end i started preparing anything.The break seemed to drag on forever and finally the exam got over.For me it was the end of an ordeal , 35 days from the commencement.I was no longer a school kid anymore and i had a wonderful summer to look forward to or so it seemed.....