Saturday, April 19, 2008

Harsh Pande's Theorem of Periodic rise in Marks a.k.a. The 5 minute Theorem


Statement :

All normal students [by normal I mean, those who aren't the geeks or the absolute dumb-asses of this world], secure maximum marks in the last 5 minutes, in comparison to any period of 5 minutes during a 3 hour Exam.

Alternate statement:

The rate of increase of marks increases exponentially during the last 5 minute period of an exam given by a normal student [as defined above], as compared to any segment of 5 minutes, during the course of the entire 3 hour paper.

Corollary:

1. Writing Speed is the highest during the last 5 minutes of exams

2. Invigilators are most distracted during the last 5 minutes

3. Student info exchange is least detected and at it's highest frequency in the last 5 minutes.

Explanation:

All students strive the hardest to secure marks during the last 5 minutes of their exam. They throw caution to the winds and start looking everywhere for the nearest student who knows the answer they don't. Invigilators also, all of a sudden start panicking and moving all over the hall, giving students a better chance at increasing each others knowledge.

Occasionally, our brain also miraculously remembers answers under the "last 5 minutes" pressure. I repeat, this happens occasionally. Even a hint at what the answer could be, maybe a word or two are enough to allow the student to write an entire paragraph on those two new words. These few lines somehow end up getting marks as well.

The last 5 minutes are the most important 5 minutes of the exam.

Proof:

Visit any COEP exam hall during the last 5 minutes, you won't need any more evidence.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Exams@coep.org.in

A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam
- George Carlin


For everyone an Exam is something to loathe, hate, be afraid of etc, etc. But in COEP especially with my batch [COEP Computers 2009], exams have gone past all feelings of fear, anxiety, hate et all. If an exam was Saddam Hussein, then we are George Bush [maybe vice versa, depending on whether we do well in the exam or not]

When any normal University student comes for an exam, he [I'm writing "he" for convenience instead of "he/she", no offense to women] knows about them at least a week or more in advance, we don't. He gives a fixed number of exams every semester, we don't have that liberty. He knows the syllabus on which the paper will be based on, we don't. He knows what the format of the paper will be, we don't. And yet we survive!

Our Mid-sem exams were based on syllabus for which a text book is yet to be published [or maybe if they assemble all our answer booklets they can make a new textbook for it]. It exercised our brains, as we faced each question, we wondered first which Unit it could possibly belong to and then we eliminated the options one by one. The best suited option was chosen and then what started was not an engineering answer, but more of a composition ;)

Since relative grading started in COEP, we have given so many exams that I've stopped counting. There are class tests, surprise tests, seminars, case studies, dumb internal Orals; each of them are taken randomly, at times innocent students just walk into the lab and to their horror they realize a "Viva" is on.

Let me corroborate this with some evidence -

1. When any normal University student comes for exams, he knows about them at least a week or more in advance, we don't.

-
The date 8th April 2008
The venue DBMS Lab :

We were waiting to give our CN viva, which was scheduled to start at 2:30 pm but it was 3:30 and our batch was to start after at least 2 hrs more. We suddenly get a mail saying, "You will have your ALL Oral on April 9th at 2:30 pm. All of you should be present [yeah right, as if someone's gonna dare to bunk his own Viva]"
Imagine the mental condition of a student who as it is, in anticipation of the CN Viva [which by the way was taken by one of the most screwing Externals of all time] is about to consider choosing one of the 3, Suicide, Murder or a simple resignation from Engineering; suddenly has to grapple with the thought of another Viva for which he/she is not at all prepared.

2. He gives a fixed number of exams every semester, we don't have that liberty.

We have no idea how many exams we will be giving in a semester, it could be anything from 15 to 25. It's really weird!

3. He knows the syllabus on which the paper will be based on, we don't.

I will narrate the incident of this semester's MMC Mid-sem paper, we had 3 Units for the exams, obviously no one had done all 3 damn well; but the entire paper was totally based on 80386 [a crappy, obsolete Intel Microprocessor, which we have to know everything about, for a reason no one knows]. Imagine the plight of the guy who had left it for options.

4. He knows what the format of the paper will be, we don't.

A day before the CN class test, a girl happened to ask the Prof, what the format will be; subjective or objective. His answer "Kahihi aso, tumhala dyava lagel" which roughly translates to "Whatever it is, you'll just have to give it!"

These my friends are the sort of statements that I assure you can be said only by Profs in COEP, for whom Relative grading has become an excuse to torture the students. For example, a Prof has threatened us all -2 marks in a class test in SE. When told that the situation of many students in SE is very precarious, her prompt reply was "Relative aahey naa, mag kaye farak padnar" which means "It is relative grading, what difference does it make" ;)

And yet students in COEP continue to lead non-violent lives. I, having written this long post about exams in COEP, will now get back to studying; for yet another exam!


Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Stupid Ads i miss

Remember these ads?

Saree pey saree, Parag Saree

Krack and Jack ads [Boman Irani was Jack]

Maggi Tomato Ketchup - Ajit [Loin] Style

Pepsi ads, that literally worshiped Sachin - Sachin aaya Rey.

Stupid Gtalk Status Messages

Here's a countdown for the stupidest Gtalk Status messages:

5. "Busy" with a Green Sign
4. "Sleeping", again with a Green Sign
3. "Do Not Disturb", somehow whoever puts this ends up getting very disturbed.
2. "I need Testis", a guy once wrote this, in reference to Orkut Testimonials [I hope ;)]
1. "Offline", who the hell was this guy kidding!

Blog Hits - Courtesy StatCounter

I had my MMC Exam today, was quite pathetic. I came home and finally added something i had wanted to add to my Blog since, forever. Its called a Stat Counter courtesy

http://my.statcounter.com/

It just counts the number of visitors to a blog. Even though my blog is about a year and a half old, I've initialized the counter to zero. Now I'll finally learn if all those claiming to have visited my blog and read my latest post have been lying or were they genuine visitors ;)

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Weirdest Village Name


Fucking, is an Austrian village in the municipality of Tarsdorf, in the Innviertel region of western Upper Austria.




The village is located 33 kilometres north of Salzburg, four kilometres east of the German border and half an hour by car from the town of Petting, in Bavaria.

The village is known to have existed as "Fucking" since at least 1070 and is named after a man from the 6th century called Focko. "-ing" is an old Germanic suffix indicating the people of the root word to which it is attached; thus Fucking means "(place of) Focko’s people." The village has a population of 93.

Fucking's most famous feature is a traffic sign with its name on it, beside which tourists often stop to have their photograph taken. It is a commonly stolen street sign. Significant public funds have been spent on replacing the stolen signs.
In 2004, mainly due to the stolen signs, a vote was held on changing the village's name, but the residents voted against doing so. In August 2005, the road signs were replaced with theft-resistant signs welded to steel and secured in concrete to prevent further chances of the sign being stolen.

In case you don't believe me -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucking,_Austria
http://googlesightseeing.com/2007/01/16/fucking-austria/

V For Vendetta

This is one of my favourite movies. It has some amazing, long dialogues which are very deep and meaningful. Read on...

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.





Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.