Exams And Life

Examinations are a like a very badly (or well) designed game. It has a set of fixed rules that are not initially apparent to the student. In fact, the rules are never made known to or figured out by a good number of students. The deal breaker, of course, is that once done, there is no way to undo what one did (or did not) in the exam. Realistic? Perhaps. Fun? Probably not.

Of course, some have likened this phenomenon to that of life. Life is presumably fun, or a good majority of living creatures would have committed suicide because there was no real reason to live on. Some may argue that they have a sense of self-preservation or a fear of death and thus are not quite likely to want themselves dead. I would disagree, since they have obviously deemed it not-fun to actually off themselves. I believe a good number would disagree as well, but they're currently pushing up the daisies and are unavailable for comment.

Back to exams, the general consensus is that they are NOT fun. This is likely because they are either too easy (I get an A every time!) or too hard (I can never get that A!). In pattern theory, this would mean that a good number of students have failed to learn the pattern of exams (the holy grail formula that gets you A's every time). Whose fault is it? Obviously academia. They are the ones who grade the papers in the first place.

Look a little deeper, and the source of not-fun is quite likely the value system of the individual students. The value system itself, of course, can be influenced by a number of factors, not the least of which society. It is probable that the lack of fun is not so much from not getting A's...but from not being able to enjoy the exam experience itself. By being unable to understand the pattern for A's, or to grok the system itself, the students cannot find such an experience fun. All this, however, does nothing to improve the exam's rating as one of the most horrible games ever invented (assuming that games are meant to be fun).