It's an interesting feeling when you feel like you've studied all you can for a paper...

The CS1102 forum is exploding with posts from people all around discussing past year papers. Comparing answers, comparing algorithms, arguing the 'correctness' or 'wrongness' of analysis of difficult questions. I too joined in quite a bit, but after awhile, the hyperbolic explosion of posts and comments make it difficult to keep up with the discussion and the powerful number crunching analysises simply becomes shut out as you glance over the post.

Then I realise... all these geeks and nerds (i'm one too) can take their number crunching analysis and go stuff it down or up wherever they want cos nobody's gonna be able to come up with such detailed analysis of similarly difficult questions under exam conditions.

In the exam hall, when faced with such questions, it is luck that is all important. Especially since some of these super difficult questions are MCQ. In the mere 2 minutes that you are allowed to spend on the question, you might not be able to analyse it correctly, but if by some stroke of luck you guess or arrive at the same answer then you've got it made! No need to spend days and nights pondering and deciding if there are exception cases.

Perhaps that is also one of the reasons why people say don't take life too seriously. Many 'crunch time' decisions have to be made on a hunch or a guess. So what if you predicted the means to the end wrongly? Often it is the end that is important. Just like MCQ in exam. It is the end, the shading of the oval on the optical answer sheet that gives you or don't, the mark.

Pangy was pricked and bled at 1:39 AM