What Boards Did To Me
An inside account of Class 10 — and it’s ‘happy’ ending!
CBSE Boards ended this 18th of March, hardly a week ago (although the test on 20th for an optional subject was postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak), and I am really happy about it. Not only because they are finished and I am pretty free now (which I am not), but because it has left behind a lasting impression on me — it had left behind a different and perhaps, a better me!
Now when I look back, more than the examinations themselves, it were the days preceding it that I remember more.
So, here’s why I feel Class 10 transformed me into a different version of myself — enabling the configurations I was so far unaware of!
Managing Stress
Your half-yearly exams have finished and you plan to relax. Suddenly, you are informed that your Pre-Board I is within 5 weeks. No sooner do you get rid of the first Pre-Board, you are given the schedule for the second — beginning in a fortnight. When you finally topple those behind, cherishing your transitory freedom, you see the Third Pre-Board (though not compulsory) knocking your door — before you even reached your home! Don’t forget that the Boards start within a week of Pre-Board 3.
Well, that is exactly the kind of stress I am referring to. My batch (as well as the next and the previous) has been subjected to newer syllabi and exam-patterns (which have been changing every year since 2017–18) — and luckily enough, mine has been the most fortunate, with the least number of exams in class 9 (we were pretty much always free from burden then).
For children who have so well adapted to the gradual heralding of exams, it was huge pain trying to get through this barrage in class 10. I must, so to speak, agree that these exams were meant to prepare us, and the volume of the syllabus was not unexpectedly (because class 9 had for us several insightful warnings about it) mountainous — and therefore, we should have been fine. Yet it’s hard to sideline the traumatic neuro-treatment exams give to students.
The Bright Side?
As of me, I am pretty sure that I am now better conditioned to withstand such sharp tensity in the future — after I have gone through the Boards! I feel it’s now easier for me to prevent the pressure from clouding my mind while I work — I am assured things are in control.
A Different Lifestyle
Less sleep
I have since long been a sleep-loving person — early to bed and late to rise. But it has been during the last couple of years that, particularly for study, I have started being late to bed and/or early to rise.
I won’t say that less sleep is healthy in any way — it surely isn’t. But where I could have no less than 9 or even 10 hours of sleep a day, I can pretty easily now survive in 7 or sometimes 8 hours! I can no longer sleep more than this — and its first impact is a day that is a couple of hours longer.
Continued Work Hours
Board preparation demanded, at times, complete days of study. Although it isn’t a difficult task in itself, provided Boards is all you care about at the moment, it does require a lot of intent.
Not just constrained to exam preparation, this habit has given me the valuable capacity to engage in a particular activity with considerable efficiency, without being distracted or feeling downright bored!
Preferences
One important aspect of life, which I have learned this year, is preference. Who we are, what we do, who we become, what we are known for — a lot is defined by our preferences in the present.
I have got a hands-on experience about how one must choose one thing over the other — not for the hilt of short-term outcomes, but keeping in view the long-term consequences. This is a very crucial decision, that we might have to take for even the most trivial aspects of our daily life.
But it does go a long way in allowing you to look at your goal with a sharper focus — and paving the path to it, shoving off any potential obstacle before it could become a liability.
Power of Self
Self Company
No matter how boring school seems or how much tempting it is to miss school, it is hard to deny that living without your school mates isn’t easy. Every day at school, we get to see people our age, talk to them and maybe have fun — without this routine interactional exercise, life seems bland.
What can be more harrowing than to live like that for a month? Add to that the fact that exam preparation means you don’t have time to communicate over chat or call either.
Fortunately, this also gave me an opportunity to realize self-company and cherish it. Living by yourself isn’t that bad after all — minimal distraction, maximum productivity, no peer-worries, more time for self-realization and deeper thought generation. I must say that Boards let me prize this aspect of myself to the fullest.
Self Possession
Back in the earlier classes, it was a simple matter to finish everything in the course much before time, have fun, mess around — and yet get to revise everything multiple times before the exam! Now? Not at all!
It’s indeed a virtue to be able to cover the course before your Pre-Boards — and an even greater honor to revise it. During these days, I learned that the only reason ‘revision’ seems desirable and necessary is a lack of self-confidence. I am not claiming that one must start taking things for granted — but I mean that if you are confident that you sincerely worked hard then you can make a choice and omit a complete revision if time constraints are narrow.
Having to make this choice several times, I think I can now strongly believe in myself during hard times and be confident that my previous efforts wouldn’t let me down. Just wait and let things unfold while you cross them over.
Parallel to self-confidence runs self-motivation. Class 10 and Boards have been a pretty practical example of how potent motivation can be when you are working to get something meaningful done.
Although the influence of surrounding people cannot be neglected, motivation from one’s conscience is the ultimate factor when it comes to accomplishing something.
One really cannot produce anything competently unless it comes out from within — and that happens when the urge, the drive and the motivation to do it comes without effort.
Focus
Not much needs to be said about focus — we are asked to observe it all the time, particularly in school. But what about focusing when you aren’t pressed by someone else to stay quiet — when you are on your own?
Naturally, unless you have something as tyrannic as Boards, it is not very surprising if you find yourself staring ar your phone every 10 minutes, or if you are taking an hour of break every 30 minutes of study, or if you cannot resist thinking of completing the series you were watching.
It isn’t a big thing if it’s really the same for you during boards as well — but as of me, it turned out to be a training of self-discipline and focus. In the beginning, you might have to coerce yourself into following your schedule — uninstalling social media, stop playing video games, avoid television by getting rid of it or whatever — but ultimately the long training period will help you assimilate into such distraction-free conduct.
Maybe someday you can have all sorts of applications installed on your phone and still not use them before your homework is finished.
Methodology
Technique
It’s not how long you study — its how you study.
It’s not me saying that — this is the traditional advice every intellectual student would understand, and it’s quite correct.
When you have more syllabus to study than you have ever had to, in any previous grade or exam, technique is the key. After so many tests coming about one after another, and after testing several ways to study — by the time I was done with Boards, I was more confident about how I am going to study in the following year, than I was ever before.
Although this video from AsapSCIENCE came about towards the end of my Boards, I really agree with each point discussed here. Fortunately, it seems I wasn’t really far from the right track — Hypercorrection, Spacing and Interleaving.
Evolution of Techniques
Repetitive exam pressure has also allowed me to go through a trial-and-error cycle about my learning pattern — I have been able to clearly determine the capacity of my memory, how much practice I might need to understand a new concept, how much time I need to spend on learning, and so on.
Like natural selection leads to the evolution of new and better-suited species over time — this cycle had constantly been generating better and better plans, ideas and ways to perform particular tasks — techniques that exactly suit me!
Organization
Now that you have better learning methods created from repeated trials, you need a way to organize them and know when to apply which and how to go around things as a whole. One important thing about Class 10 has been the diversity of topics we have to study — and required different strategies for different aspects of preparation.
Again, as I have talked about learning methods, repeated and long-term study of the similar syllabi has been an enlightening source of understanding how one must organize their schedule to extract the maximum benefit from a limited time frame.
By the time I got over class 10, I was more aware of the right way to organize my daily activities, my upcoming tasks, approaching deadlines and much else — no matter how enormously bulky things may be.
Into the Future
Ah, and here comes the most difficult yet crucial part — Future!
Until you are in class 10, things are very generalized for you — you study everything because there’s not much scope for selectivity. You aren’t even bothered about focusing your skill in one direction or even thinking about your interests — because you don’t need to.
It is only later, when you are about to enter Class 11, that you have to decide a path which you are supposed to follow for your career. I am not a huge fan of the strict choices we are given (I sincerely would have preferred more fluid choices for subjects) — but there’s much I can do except voicing this concern.
Yet, the last 2 years have really given me the essence of what I really like. Even subjects I did not like much earlier are now one of my favorites — I have understood that it’s too premature to hate something without understanding it. I have developed new skills and polished my old ones — and have put them to action.
Although I have made a choice about my subjects for 11th Class, I now know that I am not going to personally drop the subjects I could not choose in school. The past couple of years have given me the true taste of knowledge, and how to absorb it. I am more open and more fluid about it now, after all.
Final Words — do Boards matter?
I have heard almost every second student in my class claiming sometime or the other, that boards do not matter! But one thing I believe we must be certain about is the context in which they don’t matter.
Marks? Kinda.
This topic really has a wide range of opinions. Some people like our teachers assert time and again that our class 10 board certificate is our first proper identity — something we might be asked for even when we apply for a job. Having a poor score on this identity is surely an embarrassment anyone would like to avoid.
Apart from this esteem-issue, I have also read answers on Quora by people who claim to have got out of trouble only because their board certificate landed them a job when they needed it the most. I don’t know how much someone should worry about such a condition, but maybe, sometimes these marks can help — although in most cases they may not really matter.
What then?
In my honest opinion, this is not at all about marks — but a deeper realization. We must not avoid Boards as unworthy and not even give a try — what’s the use of all the days you spent in school if, in the end, you didn’t work for the exam only because it wasn’t worthy enough.
More than an excuse, this is a lost opportunity. Sincere efforts and performing your best are aspects that are limited not just to boards, but to every area of life. Boards are perhaps the first milestone — the first true test — for these subjects too and not just Mathematics or English.
While its totally true that a test cannot judge you as a person, and exam scores cannot predict how successful you will be, Boards are an opportunity to learn much more than I have discussed in this story — much of life, knowledge and yourself. It’s a lesson about trying your best without regard for the outcome, honesty, sincerity, interaction with knowledge and much else — which shapes your personality and character for life. If you really think boards aren’t any worth at all, believe me, you are missing on much.
Lucky are those with opportunity — luckier are those who make use of it.
This story was published in Technifity — A Growing Publication with a difference! Follow Technifity today and stay updated about everything happening — that matters to our times.
Please clap for this story if you found it good — it really helps! Please drop your suggestions/criticism in the comments.
