ENGLISH ASSIGNMENT

PRANAV S
21IAME06

Exams are always the poetic endings we all work hard at the end of a semester. But
these poetic endings often appear as a tensed, traumatic experience for a large
fraction of students appearing for the exam. I don’t know when and where exactly this
institution of exams started but since then it was always considered as an acid test
for abilities. Because of this hyperbolic approach given to exam often a slight failure
in these will be considered as failure in life and this causes a lot of stress among
student community. Speaking of the exams that i have written after joining university
of Hyderabad was also no different, exams were always hyped so much compared
to any other things and always the tension to reach the basic limits required for a
good grade was always a tense affair for me. But frankly the exams were a lot
different compared to the school structure. In schools as we all know; all our
academic knowledge was limited to certain topics and beyond which there was no
freedom to express our knowledge. But here there was lot of freedom in writing as
expected, the usual pattern of textbook question luckily was not followed here for
most of subjects, but the sad reality was that even here professors expected us to
follow a boundary in our expression through answers in exams and in a way, we
were also been forced to study the so-called prescribed materials and write
accordingly, and this approach make the final exams more stressful. But this
scenario of exams undergoes a complete change with English course in the III and
IV semesters.

Our English classes were a really different experience compared to other subjects
since it was not all a academic aspects focused course structure rather it was more
about improving our skills in communication and more related to real life situations
which we should tackle in the future. The presentations and all assignments were
done in such a way that it will always be somewhere related to each of our life. This
semester we did a project regarding the concept of ikigai, which discussed about the
purpose of life and then we did a long-term project on the topic “diploma disease”
which is relevant for each of us in the era of qualification inflation. The striking
feature of English classes were the freedom that mam gave to each of us regarding
every aspect of the academics. The unique pattern of classes was followed in the
exams too, first of all the pattern of question paper was thoroughly discussed much
before the exam and the significant feature that make the English exam special was
that everything in the question paper was based on classroom activity and projects,
this was not seen in any other subject question papers, all other exams that I have
attempted always had a template of reflecting the topics from class notes and a
particular material ,but this English exam was not limited to it .Through solving
riddles we were not asked to find out specific answer rather we were asked to
rationalise our stand ,thus giving us the very important sense of freedom that no
other subjects gave .Another striking feature is how the exam hall is treated in
3hours for English exam ,it is a complete different experience compared to all other
subjects, we were not detached from the world of internet, we were not forced to sit
anywhere and we were given chocolates and biscuits which eases our stress and
make us feel relaxed to think and be creative. I have definitely liked this pattern of
question paper of English exam were your stand and creativity are given more
weightage than any study materials, even though for all subjects we can implement
the academic structure like our English class, we can definitely make sure of at least
easing the pressure in exam halls where students are well and truly supported by
faculties, which reduce their stress.

Given the question paper it is much of like a pure academic based model while our
question paper was more challenging because we were using common sense and
rationale thinking above our academic skills, The given question paper has focus on
grammar part, reading part and writing part but this is structured in a textbook model
where you are asked to find out the simple / compound sentence or past participle
etc. Our question paper that we have written also has all these applications but it
does not come from any prescribed texts rather it comes from your classroom
interactions and projects that you have already done which make it more connected
to us rather than following any materials. Our question paper contained editing,
rationale thinking through riddle solving, writing been marked through essay writing
and also dialogue and response making through constructive, destructive, neutral
situations. Thus, our question paper no way lacks in content with the given question
paper on academical aspect but what makes our question paper different is the
freedom and relatability it has to our classroom interactions than any text book
interactions. If a question paper like what was shared in the group was given to us
this course would have made no difference in overall template of examinations, but
through question paper which was given in our exam I personally got a real different
perspective on learning.

I believe the regular method of writing reflective essays after each activity has helped
us to garner knowledge in depth analysis about each topic and reflect the importance
of these issues in real life, thus the way of learning and the method of examination
for English was a totally enthralling experience for me. In the fast-moving era of
globalized world, it’s time for us to adopt new approach in examination and
classroom activities at least from college days, where the process of adulting should
also be taken care of.