Monday, January 16, 2012

The laws governing study vacations are as fundamental as Newton's laws of motion

Law of diminishing returns – During the study vacation, there is, on average, a 10% decrease in the total amount of studying that is done on any given day, as compared to the preceding day.

This trend, however, is abruptly reversed and accompanied with a sudden surge in both vigour and panic, at a specific point in time (the "break point") which usually occurs no earlier than 48 hours before the start of the exam (by which time, of course, the outcome of the examination has become inevitable, and the probability of altering it tends to zero)

Law of failed adherence - No timetable, without exception, however well-planned and seemingly practicable, will ever work as planned or be successfully implemented. This holds good for timetables that extend over months, weeks, days, hours, or even intervals of 10 minutes.

Law of extraneous influences - In the process of attempting to study, all things unrelated to the study material become supremely fascinating, and the student feels an obsessive and compulsive need to stare at blank walls, update blogs and play Castleville.

Law of successful recollection (applicable primarily to community medicine) – If the student possesses the ability to recollect, with reasonable accuracy, just one paragraph from one page after intensive reading for one hour, then the period of study shall be deemed to have been sufficiently productive.

Law of wishful thinking – Every student begins to incessantly replay some impossible fantasy in his/her mind, always ending with some disastrous event (like a piece of Phobos-Grunt hitting the college) that results in the cancellation of the approaching exam.

PS. Phobos-Grunt did not, in fact, crash into my college. I checked.

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