Friday, March 16, 2012

But what of the man?

Mock exams are curious things. The sound serious. People think they are serious. People take them as challenges. Teachers set them up as challenges. They are considered to be as tough and important as exams. They ignore the ‘mock’ in ‘mock exam’.

When it is a mock exam, one simply cannot and should not take it seriously. The results have no significance. One can learn very little from them. They just… are. They just linger there. And do nothing. Don’t matter at all. They simply sit there and wait. In the corner. And yet most people care.

This makes people nervous. It becomes a matter of success or failure. And there is a high standard to success. Alas, being nervous makes it even more difficult to succeed. This I see as counterproductive.

Not caring an eggplant about it appears to be more efficient. Loses the tension, the nervousness. Causes serene calmness. This, in turn, helps creativity fly and thoughts whiz through in a straight line.

Hence I find it better not to care. It gives a better viewpoint for whatever you’re doing. And success is imminent.

 

And before you ask, the storyblog (look at the top-right corner below the blue belt, above the followers) will continue very soon. The story is a decent one and cannot be rushed. And I assure you, I know what it is.

4 comments:

  1. For once, I'd like to disagree. Not would like of course, I do. Mock exams are not taken half as seriously as you think, most people ignore the exam part just as well. Why do we do it still, sit and write for 6 hours? Because it does matter, not to show where we stand, but we get our Estonian course grades mainly from mock exams like these. Some people would think that's also important, of course, we could argue whether a grade should ever be considered important, but right now let's just accept that for some it is. Me included. Maybe "just taking it easy" is even a bigger problem for some? I bet I would have had more motivation to actually write and not just sit, stare and dream. I have no idea why I'm writing this, probably just to see how bad I am at punctuation. :)

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    1. I see your point of getting a grade. And then I raise a question 'Why?'.
      It is rather difficult to get anything below a 4 on any mock exam, and surprisingly difficult to get a 5 sometimes. But if that is the case, why try? Do the ends really justify the means in this context? I, for one, do not agree that it is worth taking something like mock exams seriously just to have a small of hope earning a measly few more points. It is too much thinking for too little result. But, I admit, it could be just me.
      After all, that is the approach I usually use for most competitions as well. Perhaps that's why I keep failing so miserably...

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    2. Sometimes we take things seriously because they are not important enough not to be taken seriously. :)

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    3. Touché.
      People in general tend to be illogical and irrational. Puny Earthlings.

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