Just Feeling Bored

The exam season is here again, and everyone has, to some extent, started on their revision in a bid to achieve their desired grades. However, as we all know, the grades you get are not just about how well you score; it’s about how well you score relative to the others taking the exam. And so we come to the purpose of this post: to introduce some tactics to exam-taking that can be helpful to us in getting the grades we want. Some of these concepts may be familiar to you, but until now nobody has explicitly listed them out. Yet, learning them may just make the difference between an A and an A+ (or A-)!

This ground-breaking research was borne out of my 3 months spent at NUS Dept of Chem Eng so far. As we all know, this department is one of the most competitive in the university, and most of its intake consisted of students with at least 3 ’A’s in their A levels. Piqued by curiosity, I started to observe whether these students are really as smart as their grades suggest. Preliminary findings indicate that indeed, almost all the subjects do not exhibit any form of neural disorder, but most of them also do not leave anything to chance. One notices a striking similarity with regards to the ways they seek to influence the minds of others. This seems to tell us that people who practice such methods are usually the ones who score better in exams. And we will be discussing these below.

There are a few important things to note. Firstly, this post probably will not do much for those who are finding ‘A’s easier to come by than getting dengue; however, for those who need just that little bit of extra boost to get yourself up to the stratosphere, this might be the solution – read on. Secondly, effort has been made to give credit where it was due, but the identities of the originators of the methods discussed have been made deliberately vague for fear of physical abuse by people who might think such methods to be unscrupulous and pernicious. Finally, it must be noted that this list is not exhaustive; as mentioned earlier this is only a preliminary study, and the findings are only what time has permitted me to understand. Also, following the tactics does not necessarily guarantee success. One must note the importance of the skills (prudence and timing) required in implementation as well.

So without further ado let us discover the ways to better exam grades!

1. The Zeroth Law of Demoralization (also known as the KMS Law)
One word: flair. The KMS Law states that no matter what you do, attribute the success or failure of it to flair. Therefore, when you do well, people will perceive you to be very flairful and be demoralized as they realize that they have relatively less flair. One way to do it is by making references to history. You can dig up old records showing the results of your JC2 preliminary results to be all ‘F’s but that of your A levels to be straight ‘A’s. When people say that you are a chao mugger, challenge them by asking how can anyone go from failing everything to ace-ing everything in just one month by studying? The only conclusion therefore, is that you have flair. This demoralizes people as they then realize that all their months of hard work cannot be compared to your one moment of flair. This is when you take your next step. Convince these people that they too, have flair, when you understand that actually they will definitely fail if they stop studying. Make them believe in themselves and believe in flair! In no time at all, they will be influenced and start relying on flair. Then when the final exams come, *KA-BOOM*! They crash, and the one to benefit from this is who else but yourself.

There are some downsides to this law though. Firstly, it cannot be applied to truly flairful people, as even if they don’t study they will get high marks. However, one can argue that by not studying, their marks will be lower, therefore it still benefits you as it brings the average down and the moderation up. Secondly, applying this method means that you really must have some flair, or you have to study discreetly as having people finding you study will destroy the whole act you are trying to put up. Then again, if you can pull this off successfully, you can probably raise your grade up by one or two levels even without much studying.

2. The First Law of Demoralization (aka Cashew nut’s Law)
This law makes use of the fact that people become stressed when they find that there are others in front of them. Always go to lectures without bringing any notes, then whenever the lecturer brings up a new and complicated concept, turn to your neighbor and proclaim loudly and nonchalantly, “Tai Jian Dan Le!” making sure that the people 5 rows below and above you can hear you as well. Then go on to say that you have finished doing the tutorials for this topic, heck, even for the whole module, and wonder loudly whether they are really of any help since they offer no challenge at all. Some effort might be required on your part however, as constantly proclaiming this may prompt some people to believe that this is only empty talk on your part. If such a scenario occurs, read up intensively on the topic for the next lecture, and then discuss the derivation of the formulas or point out any possible mistakes that the lecturer could have made. About 3 weeks before the exam, make your final move. Offer to sell your textbooks in the forums or anywhere with as much publicity as possible, stating that you have finished studying for the exams and is willing to sell the books off at a low price to anyone who has yet to start and might find the books useful.

You may wonder what this law is all about. Basically, it is to put stress and pressure on the people taking the exam with you. It is a fact that excessive stress may push some people to greater heights, but most people crumble under the weight of it instead. Therefore, most people, under tremendous stress to catch up with you, will push themselves until they actually do worse than before. And that is where you benefit. Although this tactic may make some people score higher instead, these are usually the ones who will do well anyway. In any case, the pros definitely outweigh the cons, so it is a wise method to invest in. As for those of you who are wondering how do you combine the Zeroth and First law to make it work for you since they seem so different, my answer to you is: TAI JIAN DAN LE! LIKE THIIS ALSO DONO! NO FLAIR!

3. The Illusionist Tactic (aka the SQC Illusion)
As the name suggests, this tactic is about creating illusions: the illusion that the situation is much rosier than it really is. One way to do this will be by demonstrating to people that exam questions are very easy as all you need is one formula to solve all of them and get full marks, which you know is correct but not easily done by anyone. Another way is to convince people that the rest of those taking the exams are seriously moronic in comparison, therefore not matter how badly one does in the exam there is a safety net below to cushion your fall as the bad grades of the “morons” will push your grades up. In other words, there will be people to “dian your di”. This tactic seems to be in direct contrast to the zeroth and first laws of demoralization that we have discussed earlier, but it is no less effective. By creating such a rosy picture, the people taking the exam will you will be convinced that the exam is much easier than it really is, and believe that they will get high grades with minimal studying. Therefore, they put in less effort preparing for the final exam, and subsequently are forced to swallow the eggs that roll towards them when the results are released. You, on the other hand, will be laughing yourself to the top of the alphabet.

4. The Mug shen tactic (aka Ji Nu tactic)
There are a lot of people who mug, and the mug shens are the ones who are the kings of mugging. Yet as we have discussed before, mugging is not enough, as people using the three tactics mentioned earlier will be able to chu their power on these muggers and relegate them to the ‘B’s and ‘C’s league. The Mug shen tactic, therefore, advocates that muggers hide their mugging exploits from the world. For example, whenever the lecturer requests that you refer to the textbook to learn better, always groan loudly (thus the ji nu name) and lament that you have no textbook to refer to and that the library is the worst place in the world, when actually in the beginning of the term you have already secretly ran to the co-op bookshop and purchased the textbook to mug at home. Whenever the lecturer goes through a question in the lecture, once again groan loudly and lament that the question is too difficult for you to comprehend when actually you are laughing inside thinking that this is child’s play. Whenever you are at home, switch on the computer and the MSN and make sure you are online all day to let people see that you are not mugging but surfing the Internet and something else. If nothing better to do, just groan so that the whole world turn their heads towards you and see that you are not mugging. When you do well in tests, attribute it all to luck; here, you may even use some deception methods by doing badly to give people the impression you are lousy when you know the tests are inconsequential since you are sure to get full marks in the final exam. Let this go on until about 3 weeks before the final exam, which is when you make your move. Openly show the world now that you are a chao mugger shen and have gone through all the tutorials twice and attempted the exam papers for the module for the last twenty years. The rest of the people, having felt no pressure and therefore having not done much revision, will be shocked that you are actually much further ahead of them, and try to catch up with you. The short time that they have will put even more stress on them, and the stress that occurs will eventually be their downfall.

5. The Kokanathan tactic
This is one of the most fundamental tactics, yet also one of the most effective. The trick here is to utilize the art of disturbance. During lectures, always talk cock and vulgarities loudly to disturb others so that they cannot listen to the lecture; if possible, try to time your loudest and dirtiest moments with the moments that the lecturer or tutor are talking about the most important concepts. Feel free to have your meals inside the lecture theatres, and it would be especially good if it was food which affects the olfactory senses particularly strongly, as this would be more effective in distracting the other people from the lecturer to your food, and might even make those who have gastric troubles take MCs and go home. Besides, going to such lengths to make yourself a nuisance also helps to create an illusion as people will think you are one cannot-make-it and therefore think that there are indeed, people who make the situation rosy. (Refer to the 3rd law for more information.)

Hope that all of you learnt something, and good luck for your exams!