Losers Talk About Exams

Quick preface: I was in a bit of a mood when writing this. The post reads like an angry rant. But everything I said, I stand by. I just wish I'd been a little nicer about it.

The one thing more despicable and more annoying than exams is the culture around it. Leaving an exam and speaking about nothing except the exam is a sign of blind conformist. To have something as regular as an exam happen with you and a thousand others like you, and then for you to not be able to speak of anything else after it tells others how much of a free thinker you are. There is nothing that annoys me more than a some dimwit walking up and saying “how’d it go?”. Get some original thought in you.

How I actually did in the exam is of no relevance here. I’ve felt this way about this subject since 5th grade; so most exams that made me feel this way in all my 7 years of schooling since then, I’ve actually done alright in.

Using the traditional exam as our primary way of gauging prowess in a subject is already not the most solid idea, so to then let it kill your thoughts in such manner is insane.

One might think it is nothing so wrong to speak about what happens to yourself and people around you, we all engage in conversation on news and sports matches after all; why should this be looked at in any other way. But no, this public habit of discussing exam problems a lot hollower. Every time a smug numbskull comes up to me after an exam, I can tell within the first 3 seconds whether what they say will hold any substance or not. Statements like “It was so hard” or “I could only do 5 problems :(” or “Mine went okay” make my blood boil. Or we all know the great comedians: “I knew so little I was done in 30 min heheh”. Why are you pre-programmed? Do you only turn your brain on for the few hours that you take exams.

One part of after-exam discussions which is more acceptable is talks on solutions to the questions, but with the ones engaging in the aforementioned idiocy of “how’d it go?”, even solution-discussing feels sheepish, and I do not like to participate regardless.