A Trick Question, Some MCQs and Jay Mata Di

A Long Break from Writing

Hello everyone, I’m writing almost after a month. It has been a crazy month. Was it work? Yes, but work is always crazy. Someone always needs you for something. That never stopped me from writing though. What caused this break was my internal exams for the first semester of MA Psychology. It was my first serious academic exam after almost 8 years. I was excited to study.

Almost all of those exams were online, but one paper was offline. So, I wrote my first offline exam after 8 years as well. What an exhilarating experience!

Back to the Exam Hall after 8 years

I was more psyched to write a paper in an examination hall than about the paper itself. It was stats. We had a sum to solve and some MCQs. I was very well versed in the probability distribution sum. In fact, I had taught this to a couple of kids who were absent on the day it was taught.

So naturally, I started solving that sum first. It had two sub parts. I did both of them in under 7 minutes. As I started moving towards the MCQ part of the paper, I glanced over the sum for no apparent reason and found that either the wording may have been wrong for one sub part, or it was a trick question

A Trick Question and the Agony

Just then, our teacher came in to check on us, how we were solving the paper and all. I requested her to come to my table and asked if the wording was wrong. She glanced at it and said no, the wording was correct. Then I followed up by asking if we were supposed to use our heads for this, and she said yes. We kinda exchanged a laughter filled look there, and I got back to my paper. I used my head and solved that sum again.

Then I moved on to the MCQs. I knew 7 out of 10, did a quick “Jay Mata Di” for the remaining 3, and just sat there. They didn’t let us leave early just because we were done, so I had to sit there for the remaining 20 minutes. Normally, that’s not a big deal. I put my pad and paper aside, put my head down, and waited.

The Win

A few minutes went by, and suddenly I started agonizing over that sum. My mind went haywire. I had these continuous thoughts that it could be this, that, or 20 other things. My mind was playing games with me. It was hell. I got very restless.

Somehow, I made it through those 20 minutes. Such a long time it was. As we submitted our papers to the supervisor, I went to the teacher and told her what I did in my sum after our clarification. She said that I was right. Damnnnn, I can’t even describe the happiness that consumed me at that moment. I literally shouted a celebratory “Yesssss!” with overjoyed expressions.

Two days later, she kinda declared in class that she was disappointed with the class performance in internals, as she had completed checking the papers. I was absent that day because I had to prioritize work. My classmates informed me about what happened.

When I saw her again yesterday, I told her I heard she discussed the results and I wasn’t there. I was curious about how I did. She told me I did great and that the sum I solved was perfect. Later, she mentioned that I got maybe 17 or 18, which probably means that one of the “Jay Mata Di” MCQs worked. I laughed about that. But honestly, I didn’t care. I had already won the moment she said I solved the sum correctly after the exam.

What do I really crave?

Is it great that I got a good score? Yes, of course. But I realized the marks were inconsequential after that post exam win, where I found out I had solved it correctly. The marks didn’t really matter to me. It gave me a strong realization that this is what matters to me, solving the problem, giving a solution.

Even in business, I love solving my clients’ problems. Do I enjoy the money? Yes, absolutely. But does my motivation come from the money? No. It comes from solving a problem, and I felt content with that thought. It was a good day.