“Okay, here you go. You have 35 minutes. You can use any source of information you have, books or whatever. You have to answer these 15 questions,” says my Professor, and hands me over a booklet. I hear within myself: “Ladies and Gentlemen, here is a masterpiece I created, to make all of you feel like retarded losers, who can’t answer one question even after looking at your books. The questions are overwhelmingly-magnanimously gigantic; teleported freshly from Mars, reading which itself will take you more than the stipulated time period for your test. Leave that aside; lifting the questionnaire itself will crush Godzilla under its weight. The questions will seem to be written in Chinese to you, and you will surely get zero, sadly so, because awarding anything less is not permitted by our college.” There is a deafening silence; one I have never witnessed. Everyone around is flipping through the “gazillion” pages of the “question paper” (Yes, of course. The abridged version might be a novel. Why use the singular word, “paper”? Why-w-why?). The next 35 minutes are THE most excruciating moments of my life. I realize then, that even though I am in one of the best colleges of the nation, I am not any more than a… bimbo.
I open my book called “dynamics of fluids”. The questions seem to be about the role of Nationalism and Colonialism in the freedom struggle of India. I read the questions, over and again, looking for something remotely related to some fluid. Finally, I arrive at a question, which seems to be about science. In the excitement that I might score above Zilch, I voice my opinion, a little louder than desirable, attract a few raised eyebrows, and get a book imported from across the classroom. About 23 minutes 12 seconds later (yeah, I counted. Can you not imagine how interesting the test was?), I scribble something on my answer sheet (singular). Sir tells everyone to hand over their sheets, which contain answers to questions that even Mr. Einstein would not be able to comprehend. 50 stressed-out geeky engineers hand over their death-certificates.
That was the last open book exam I gave. I personally believe that open book exams are of two kinds. First, in which every Tom, Dick and Harry scores a cent-percent, and the second, of the type described above. The striking similarity, which in turn is also the gruesome irony, is that everyone performs exactly the same in both the cases; such a tragedy that there isn’t a GPA system in my college.
From my experiences, and from those of my near and dear ones, open book exams, if fashioned by a serious teacher, are a complete farce, created solely to embarrass and to make one feel like a claustrophobic stuck inside a tin can. Otherwise, they are just for kids to have something better to do than have pen-fights and play with crayons in the classroom.
In order to avoid digression from the main theme, and to transform this, well, pathetic attempt at an essay into “a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury” (i.e., a serious essay), and also because I am by heart a nerd, here is a list of pointers, for any and every innocent soul who is going to be tormented in future by some frustrated guru of his, that should be followed in order to (un)successfully handle an open book exam:
Once announced that an open book exam is going to be held, immediately analyze the teacher you are dealing with. You will reach one of the following conclusions:
1. He’s happy go lucky
2. He belongs to Hitler’s bloodline
Analysis of the first case:
Go through the questionnaire pleasurably, open your book and do some actual intelligible work.
Another option that you preserve is to sit and watch the obstreperous crowd around you go helter-skelter looking for answers. Afterwards, just replicate the answers of whomever you feel is the Newton of your class.
Analysis of the second case:
Take a walk in your nearest park.
If you think you are Bhagat Singh or the like, sit in the classroom and try reading, what is titled Electronics, but will seem to be “Learn to cook in 5 days, sham-free, ‘nuff said!” No matter what you decide to do, the end result remains constant. You feel damned, doomed, de-humanized, decayed… dead.
At the end of it all, fact remains that the exam, of the type talked about and over-sarcastically described so far, is of no practical use to humanity. It is either way too easy or way too difficult for anyone. That, open book exams do not serve any practical purpose is obviously debatable, but hey, this is the opinion of a student who has appeared in and experienced the stereotypical open book examinations.
One may and should have different dimensions of thought process. To drive the soul of this piece of literature to a more serious note, it is mandatory, according to me, to specify that open book exams, if drafted in the ideal way, possess the true strength to analyze the basic (core) Intelligence Quotient, the ability to organize and summarize, and the swiftness and speed of thought process of any individual. It may be the ignorance of a college kid, but I am yet to come across any practical example of such an exam.
Moving slightly off the mainstream and providing a distinct perspective to the theme, I feel, life, is the ultimate open book exam (and the ONLY practical one at that). It has been created, not by any known source (speaking philosophically), and in which one has access to all earthly volumes and ingenious thoughts, yet, to battle through it and emerge victorious, and not be lost somewhere in the pages of history as a mere mortal who existed, not lived, seems to be a Herculean task.
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