Exam Types

This post serves dual purpose. One is to say something interesting about ISB for the prospective candidates some of whom are victims of this blog. Second is to pay tribute to ourselves for having taken 136765645389 exams over a period of about last 6 odd months and another 3758669709 exams we would take during the remaining period.

1) The common exam: In ISB lingo this is called “Closed book/ closed notes/ no cheat sheet allowed exam”. This is a common exam. Terminology becomes clear as we go along.
2) Open book/ Open notes: Bring along any book/notes. Usually such papers are so damn difficult that no one has a clue about what is going on. So books and notes lie in one corner and booth hands are usually busy in pulling out the hair and trying to make sense of the questions
3) Closed book/ Closed notes-Cheat Sheet allowed: Cheat sheet is a sheet which helps you cheat. Usually, a two sided sheet of A4 size is allowed. Normal font size on the sheet is some 3.5 to 4. People try to print the entire book onto this sheet. Mostly its useless, but could be useful if you make it intelligently. So pre-exam most time is spent on making the cheat sheet and not studying.
4) Open any non living source: This is the latest avatar. Not only books and notes, you may bring your laptop and use internet also. Needless to say, the Prof will make sure you waste time in googling and will set and impossible paper.
5) Take home exam: Another horror. People would think take home should be easy. But the question in contention would be so vague and difficult to figure out that even if you take it anywhere you like, its still going to be a tough nut to crack!
6) Midterms and End terms: An optimist would say that two exams in a course give you time to recover if you screw up one. I would say nah---they just give the Prof two opportunities to laugh at you instead of one. Anyways, turning it into a boon or bane is mostly in our own hands.

So much for exams. One thing is clear that whatever be the exam type, some people would always get good marks while others would continue to pride their average scores. Nevertheless, the whole exam giving experience along with tons of presentations, assignments, cases, classes and blah and blah would make you so immune to working for unreasonable number of hours that if you get a couple of hours extra during a weekend you would check your calendar a million times just to make sure you are not missing out on a deadline.

Good stuff !!