The Certification-One Off Experience

This dates back to one of the most memorable experiences a guy can have or a human rather could possibly experience this haphazard mockery kind of tests conducted to obtain a printed certificate that reads ‘you have passed the examination, thanks for your participation’.

To be practical, ones experience of clearing the exam is always different from the other person, who have also attempted and  a rare case scenario might occur, were in, those two experiences, have a distinct chances of a coincidence happening.

Why is all these tests conducted, the subject is so weird and lengthy, that doesn’t give me an interest to even open the materials and scan them. What these courses must do is they need to show how the syllabus and materials will be before making us take up the course and end up writing tests. All the above knowledge treasure and brainwaves materialize when we see the exam paper in front of us and the invigilator signals one hour more.

I guess during my college, days had I taken this course possibly I would have studied with extra effort and really done justice to the amount paid for this stuff. I really took a bad decision and suffering its consequences. Well guess with the limited time let me attempt some and yeah, if luck favors me, God, I would be really thankful to you.

But the fact is this test is online. Online exams were never a fascination for me, right from my childhood. What I always end up seeing in the screens is the timer that really ticks and wonders wouldn’t there be any mistake in those timers so that we get some additional minutes. It hardly helps the already lost cause.

Half an hour more, the clock still ticks.

Oh I still have 20 questions more, but 30 are there in total. Fine for the pass mark to be availed, 5 more right answers would do me through. So among the 20 more available, an attempt of 5 right answers is enough. The best step is to check my ten answers now and see if those are all right. A minor calculation occurs and for a moment I am proud of this brainwave and give a boasting smile, patting my instincts to take cool decisions at pressure situations.

In the ten, I figure out and to my shocking, some questions I have marked, to be done at the end. That reduces the count to 6 questions, fully attempted and making a wave of doubt over three or four questions among the 6.” Fine, cool, relax,” trying to say to myself imitating the traits, an attribute of legends, a thought strikes which goes on saying even if I concentrate now, till the end time, I can manage to scrape through. The inspiration of M.S. Dhoni flashes, who always stresses to fight till the last minute and never give up.

Has M.S. Dhoni made India win in an overseas test match? I don’t think any captains knock has been replicated by Dhoni. Not a good player of tests, unlike Odi’s and 20-20’s I guess. Comparing to him Dravid should have still been the captain, sad man, a legend truly.

 Oops only 15 minutes more.

Oh my, lot of work needs to be done still. A wide yawn is the only other guest visiting me every 5 minutes since the test commenced. Let me scan through all the questions and tick the nearby answers or some reasonable ones so that, by luck, I might be right, who knows. Let us see if luck favors me or not, pity that poor guy named ‘luck’ often comes under severe scrutiny in my case.

 12 more minutes and countdown is on.

I have attempted ten more questions that comes to a total of 14 and I have ten more to attempt and after that the marked questions to be done at the end. Ok concentrate and faster, I need to be quick now. Random clicks should do the trick and by luck if all the ticks are right man, I will score full percentage. Wow, the smile on my face broadens and that’s the broadest smile I could ever manage in whole of my lifetime.

Ten more minutes

Exam over

Cool I managed to finish it before ten minutes. So only thing I need to do now is click on “End Test”. Should I consider revising the answers I have ticked, since time is precious and in these ten minutes if I am able to identify any mistakes that would do some good and would be helpful. A wide ‘yawn’, my only guest, again comes without any prior notice.

Couple of persons leaves the exam hall that increases my urge to leave the hall soon. ‘Mate come on click on ‘end test’ and be done with it. This place is cramped and I hate it let us go’. The end test is clicked when a message pops up, you have selected end test, your result will be generated soon, please do not close the page. Butterflies in the stomach, the moment is just seconds away until the page refreshes. It could be anything and my hands tend to chill leaving some of my fingers watery too. And lo! Behold, the page has been refreshed and the result is displayed.

It reads

Total questions:     30

Correct answers:      7

Wrong answers:     23

            Percentage:            21.21 %

         Result:                   FAILED

I thought my answers sorry my guesses were right. Is there anything wrong with the system. Possibility is there, the server might not have responded properly. To whom should I represent all these issues?  I probably feel performance issues are eminent in the system and the score wouldn’t have been calculated properly, look at those systems present at the center everything is awfully aged and still they use windows XP.

All thoughts running across my mind, I finish the ending formalities and leave the hall a bit dejected. The material for the exam is really big but I should have opened the material at least once. Sad thoughts reverberate across my mind when my phone rings.

Friend: Dude how did the test go?

Myself: I flunked mate the last one and a half hours was a criminal waste. We could have rather enjoyed ourselves and carried on with our roaming plan.

Friend: why what happened was the paper really tough? This is the third time you have attempted the test and again flunked eh?

Myself:  They asked questions apart from the portion which I have studied. From the portions which I had gone through no questions came.

Friend: you going to attempt once more.

Myself: Are you Crazy? I have already lost 10K writing this exam, I am never going to attempt this one, never again in my lifetime.

Friend: oh ok chill come to the usual meeting point I will pick you up.

 The conversation goes on, trying to get some respite, despite the fact that nothing had been studied or touched for the examination. This is just a crazy and humbug exam unnecessary time and money waste.

The above experience is just a description of how could a certificate course completing experience could possibly be, this hardly might coincide with any person but to be practical this is an one off  experience were in this has been tried, tried, tried and only tried.