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.

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!

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 ;)

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.

How I Met Your Mother

This show started out as one of the best sitcoms in recent history. Barney being the icing on the cake, but in it's 2nd season it began dwindling. And now the 3rd season... well the only really good episode out of the 1st 11 episodes was Slapsgiving; that too because of Barney's exceptional timing. Robin has really lost a lot of her sex appeal. In the 1st season she looked great, 2nd was good and in the 3rd she's just looking average.
The show is still worth a watch, but it's nowhere close to the 'awesome' and 'legendary' status it had in the 1st season.
I wonder if there will be even a 4th season?

Anonymous Comments

The beauty and power of anonymity is that one can literally say anything without any worries about the repercussions. I am a strong supporter of anonymity, at least on the Internet, that's why i have allowed anonymous comments on my blog.

Recently, i have come across some anonymous comments in which the 'anonymous' person has said some really positive and nice things about my blog. In which case i don't see the sense in it being anonymous. Neither are those comments something which should be secret like a love message or something ;)
Nor are they hate comments, like "F**k you, you have absolutely no idea about what you write" [which is a comment i would like to return word to word to the person who posts such a comment]

So people, please post your name along with your comment, especially if it is something positive!

Treachery

Treachery is a very strong word to use under normal circumstances.
According to the dictionary -

Treachery = Violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence.

Seldom does one feel the need to use such a word, in the recent past this word has entered day to day life in a way i never ever expected it to.


In fact another thing i read once and liked a lot, but never thought it would apply to anyone in real life was a quote i read in the Lord of The Rings : The Fellowship of The Ring. It goes like this

Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens!

Dumb Warning

At the base of a Happydent White pack, it says "Warning: Not For Phenylketoneurics". Now how many of us would even know what that's supposed to mean :D

Youngsters

IBL - Indian Birdwatching League!

Variety and Dinner

If one has read the previous two posts i have written, the basic message has been that our class off late has completely changed. The chemistry has been higher than ever before. Confirming that belief, was the fact that for the "Variety' show in college, our friends managed to reserve two entire rows in the jam packed Audi just for our class mates.
I reached about 15 minutes late. But the performances i saw were really impressive. Must mention the fact that Mrs. Iyer sang the best [song was Chupke Se from Saathiya] and the dance performances were equally good. I must make a special mention of my friends Ms. P S and Ms. V V, who were performing in dance items.
But for me the stand out performance was by the guy who played lead guitar and lead vocals for the song 'Sultans Of Swing' [i'm waiting to get the video of that performance which i will upload soon]. It was a pity that most people in the audience hadn't heard the original ever, but i swear that even Mark Knopfler would have been proud. The guy didn't miss a single note while playing or a single line while singing. At the start there were a few people in the audience who were booing, because it was in English. But even those people were stunned into silence when the solo was played. Brilliant stuff dude!

Then again i must mention my friend and fellow Vincentian Mr. A T [the guy who was acting as Nana Patekar and Akbar in the mad ads and all]. He was really hilarious and the timing of his jokes were brilliant. He even sang 'Woh Lamhe' very well.

Finally those who have been watching the Variety and other such events for the past 2 years will very well be aware of Saahil. This guy can sing, its very difficult to live upto expectation each time and as soon as he came on stage for his performance everyone was looking forward to an awesome performance and he delivered. He sang 'Aadat' and it was really well done.

In the evening came the DJ Nite and the dinner. I danced again with my friends, good friend Mr. P S even recorded my weird but enjoyable dance performance. This time the location was the GPP boat club, just a few meters away from the Trad Day dance floor [ dance garden or wateva]. Then we headed off for dinner and again our class showed the way to the others by sitting as a group in lawn next to the instru building. Other groups followed our lead. I only hope this good rapport continues to grow.

The last couple of days have been a lot of fun and i am glad that i went for the events. But i can't help but ponder about one weird thing that happened last night during the gathering dinner. A couple of Profs i saw were looking at some students with a very evil grin, almost as if saying 'enjoy yourselves while you can' ;)

Trad Day

On Trad Day, that was on 6th March; i was in SIT from 9 am till 5 pm giving a paper presentation with my friend and partner in paper contests H P. Surprising thing is that our team name is perfect HP2 [HP squared] on account of sharing the same initials.
Anyways the dilemma i faced was whether to come for the Trad Day celebrations or not, since i was already massively late. I reached home at 6 pm n was back in COEP. I think i must've tralvelled 45 kms in less than an hour that too in the city traffic.
Anyway for me, Trad Day clothes aren't such an issue i just put on a plain white 'kurta' over my jeans and head off. Then of course, there are those who takes these days very seriously and come decked up like as if it was their wedding day!

Girls in general do dress up for this occasion, in fact its rare to see a girl who isn't all decked up, quite frankly i don't mind. In fact on rare occasion some of them do look good ;) LOL

Then came a very important moment of the day, i decided to throw caution to the winds and entered the dance floor [actually a dance lawn or whatever]. I located my friends quite easily and since it was a free-for-all i just had fun for about half an hour. Songs ranged from downright sucky to decent dance numbers. I felt bad for this one guy who was constantly trying to get everyone to do the move he was doing, but no one was actually following his lead. Dude, maybe next year.
I am no Michael Jackson [and i mean it in every which way] nor a Hrithik Roshan, but i do know how to shake a leg, and that's exactly what i did. Dancing with your friends is quite a bit of fun, especially when none of them care about how the other one is dancing. It's a whole lot of fun.

Then came the usual photo session, and then off i went, my 'kurta' drenched and nearly see-through. Now only if dancing had the same effect on 'saarees' ;)

The Mahabaleshwar Trip

Last week a lot of things happened in our class. Most of it good.
A class trip to Mahabaleshwar was planned, and the best part was that it was executed. Some absentees were there, but the ones who came more than made up for them.
It started off on Friday 29th April. We started off at 5 am from the boys hostel. What followed was an hour or so of singing and dedicating songs till we reached a Venkateshwar temple at Narayangaon. The temple was quite awesome, huge space and exceptionally well maintained. Must mention here a place called 'Kalyan Katta' in the temple premises, where we sent a couple of our friends to drink water whereas it actually was a place to tonsure your head. ;)

Up next was the journey to Panchgani, where even more singing ensued and we finally reached the 'Table Land'. After clicking snaps and all, people started off a game of football. It was a lot of fun. I must mention here that the amount of walking i did that day was way more than what i have walked in the last 5 years. A couple of over excited people rode on horseback, to each his own.

Then once we got onto the bus, we used the UPS and speakers combo-pack that some sensible hostel guys had decided to bring along. Mine being the only iPod in the bus, it was used, only problem was that i had just 12 Hindi songs in it and no Marathi songs. Still, we managed fine w/o getting the girls very angry [they generally hated all the English songs we played, only Justin Timberlake escaped their fury ;) ] Also i must mention, lest we forget, a very interesting incident. Some of the guys started playing 'BC Sutta' on the speakers and the girls started loudly singing [almost shouting] 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram'.

We then landed up at Echo Point, where the 'echoes' were conspicuous in their absence. The usual photo session was wrapped up and then we headed off for Mahabaleshwar. It was close to lunch time so we all sat down in some joint owned by some lady who many called 'maavshi'. We had 'theplaas' for which i must thank once again the girls of our class, who spent a lot of time making them for us. And i will confess that until then i wasn't much of a 'theplaa' fan, but the girls had done a fabulous job. Really.

After the lunch we all walked a little to one Strawberry ice cream joint nearby and there we spent a lot of time, sitting in a circle. We first played 'Spin the Khwaja', but the game didn't last very long. Although we got a great performance from Ms. A C [i don't divulge anyone's name on the blog, but those who were there that day will know of whom i speak]. A C was enacting a skit in Marathi, about how different people show off their new dress, earrings and other such things. A C if you are reading this, everyone enjoyed that performance a lot.
Then we had a couple of guys like Mr. S W, Mr. K S and Mr. S D [aka 'Rangu'] who mimicked some of our profs and a couple of our classmates. That was real fun, then we started off with 'Dumb C', boys versus girls. Must mention Paddy here who had to enact a movie called 'Kabul Se Aaya Kabuliwala', well he really made a funny hash of it.

After an hour or so over there we headed off to 'Arthut's Seat', I didn't go down all the way but most of the gang did go on and then a point was named 'Nutan Point' for some reason i don't know yet. After that we left for the sunset point, where a game of 'box cricket' was played. Then we had 'bhel' and we were there till it really grew dark and finally left at about 7:30 pm.

Then there was a minor argument with the bus driver and it was finally decided where we were to go next. The destination was the market. Where my good friend Mr. R K bought the Mapro stuff for me and Mr. J G. Meanwhile Mr. A J, Mr. J G and I were busy chit chatting and then about 30 mins later some of the guys came back and decided that guys and girls on the way back will sit on adjacent seats [side by side]. It worked out fine, since none of us guys had any past criminal records, i don't think the girls had any issues sitting. Then i came up with the idea of having a horror story session. It was accepted and then for the next 30 mins, Mr. Rangu, Mr. A J and I were narrating ghostly stories and unsolved horrors of the world. Must mention here that Ms. P M also had a couple of horror stories to add to our tales from the crypt.

Then finally most of the people were tired so a small bunch of guys and girls including me huddled up at the front of the bus and started playing a game where weird questions were asked and we had to vote for each other. For e.g. 'Who will get married first?' etc etc.
That game was a lot of fun and we learned a little more about each other as well.
Finally the trip came to an end at 00:00 hrs on 1st March when we were back at the boys hostel.
It was a great experience, all those who came enjoyed themselves and it has catalyzed our class into a closer unit. Something that only augurs well for the next couple of semesters.

I for one enjoyed the trip a lot, i thank all those who helped out a lot, our class is filled with some amazing people, most of whom are my friends and the trip only proved that once we decide to have fun, we will have it.