Funny Exam Stories: Part 1

Since it is exam (not Christmas) season for most university/college students, I thought I’d share a funny exam story that I experienced back in my second year of university, around the end of 2008. It’s interesting looking back at it, but it was obviously not very humorous at the time.

I was in my second year, and as per program requirements, I had to take a compulsory language course. I chose to take French, believing that I could do well in it without decreasing my GPA too much (language courses are hard unless you have a genuine interest in the language).

I was very wrong.

Not to make excuses, but it was my second year, and since it was an online course, I found myself caring less and less as the semester went on. To date, that semester was my worst in all of undergrad, and ultimately served as my “what the fuck are you doing?!” moment. Any university student who reads this has had that same exact moment at least once in their undergrad years.

Anyway, I need to mention three things before I continue the story. First, the exam was held at 9 AM in a packed gymnasium. Second, I am NOT a morning person and need to sleep at least 10 hours if I haven’t slept properly. And lastly, I had a 57 coming into the exam (tsk tsk, I know), and the professor had designated that students MUST pass the final exam to pass the course.

I remember having a very hectic exam schedule that year, so naturally, I didn’t get to start studying for the exam until there were about 2 days left. I will say that my time-management skills were horrendous till I got to about third year, so that may have factored into this situation as well. Either way, I blame myself for it.

For some reason, there I was at the library starting at 6 pm, planning to pull an all-nighter and yes, cram for the exam. And I did. I literally studied from 6 pm – 6 am (12 hours!) at our school library, DC.

On a side note: yes, there were plenty of other people who also pulled that all-nighter at DC with me, though I’m quite sure they were all in engineering.

Nevertheless, after pulling 12 hours of studying with no sleep, and stubbornly refusing to consume caffeine, I was absolutely exhausted by 6 am. I think I stopped retaining information after 3 am, so I’m not sure what I did or what I learned for those 3 hours before leaving the library. I decided that the best thing to do at this time (around 6:10 am) was to go home, eat, and study till my exam started.

I somehow found my way home and stumbled into my room.

Now, if you’ve ever pulled an all-nighter knowing you had a test/exam in the morning, you should know that sleeping/”napping” is absolutely forbidden under these circumstances.

And if you didn’t know that, then you will know why in a second.

I entered my room, put everything down, and saw my comfy, comfy bed. In retrospect, this is how I know now that I was delusional from studying - my bed was simply two mattresses stacked on the floor and was not exactly luxurious. I decided that at 7 AM on the morning after an all-nighter, the best option for me was to take a “15 minute nap”.

My exam was 2 hours away.

I set about 3 alarm clocks, and plopped on to my (not so) comfy bed, and just passed out.

An accurate depiction of how I looked when I decided to nap at 7 AM.

All of a sudden, I woke up, and it wasn't even because of the 3 alarm clocks. I felt light headed and my eyes were burning – the obvious result of not sleeping all night, not consuming caffeine, not eating properly, and deciding to nap. 

With my insides feeling queasy, and with only one eye awake, I looked at the time.

9:20 am.

My exam started at 9.

I was fucked.

- Gaurav P.

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Note: For those of you interested in finishing the story, here is part 2.