I had what I think was an unusual studying pattern for my 12th grade exam. I do not know how unique it is because I haven’t shared it with many people and haven’t asked if they had a similar practice as mine. Even so, I do think my habit was quite unusual.
As it happens, I aced my 12th exams. I did achieve a good rank and a good score in the regular board exam as well as the competitive objective questions based exam. Here is how I did it. The academic year I believe started in the month of May (or earlier). It was a long time ago: the year was 2002. We are presently in the year 2022. Therefore, it was exactly 20 years ago. But because I was grown up (I was 16+ years of age) and because it was an important period of my life I do remember what I did then. I used to attend college and coaching classes. In both places, they would teach the same subject matter. In the coaching classes, the teaching quality was probably superior. A few months (3–4 months) into the academic year I started realizing that I was studying the same subject matter over and over again: once in the college, once at the “tuition” (i.e., the coaching class), once for a test, once for a quarterly exam and so forth. Then it started dawning on me that I would end up studying the initial parts of the textbooks more often and more rigorously than the latter parts of the textbooks. However, at the end of the academic year in the final exam in the months of March and April of 2003, the question paper setters wouldn’t take that into account. They would give as much importance to the subject matter learned in the second half of the academic year as to the lessons learned in the first half. Thus, the method I had to adopt if I were to go by the schedule of the college and the coaching center seemed utterly sub-optimal to me. I started thinking about a way out of the stalemate . To show that they were serious, the coaching center teachers would set mock tests every week and make students study the subject they would ask about in those tests. I wanted to get out of that rhythm and establish my own. I wanted to optimize for the final board exam. Then it dawned on me. I had to study the subjects at my own pace. Additionally, I had to be absolutely sure that I did complete all subjects on schedule, i.e., before I faced the all-important board exam. I checked the total number of pages in the textbooks of different subjects: Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Biology. I calculated how many days were left before the end of the academic year. I realized if I studied 4 pages each (yes, that’s right — only 4 pages) of the subjects each day, I would comfortably finish going through all the textbooks much ahead of schedule — sometime in December and January. I couldn’t believe it. I must have pondered over the puzzle for a couple of days scratching my head if it could be that simple. No matter how I analyzed it, I couldn’t shake off my epiphany. It added up. The course in front of me seemed crystal clear: I should chart my own course and study the subjects on my own, free of distractions of the tuition classes and the college.
Once I came to that conclusion, all that remained was execution. I had to execute. A well laid plan comes to a naught if it is not executed well. That meant two things: 1) I had to absolutely study 4 pages every day (no fewer than that) irrespective of how hard it got on some days. Certain Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics chapters could have been hard. I still had to persevere and make progress. Otherwise, the end date would get pushed back more and more. I couldn’t let that happen. 2) I couldn’t have too many days of holes — days when I didn’t study at all. Weekends/Sundays could have been those days. Or because there was a test in the tuition class so I had to study for it and therefore, couldn’t make progress on my parallel study plan. I had to avoid those situations. I think I felt Sundays were pretty good for my study plan — I didn’t have to go to tuition classes and thus had more time on my hands. Therefore, Sundays were better for me. I stuck out on Sundays. That was not a problem. I think tuition and college exams did interrupt me a bit. I didn’t want to flunk or do a lot worse in those tests and exams either. So I did inculcate the habit of studying at least lightly for them. I do not remember if I did not study my parallel 4 pages at all or I reduced the quantum on such days. But either way, I didn’t let the tuition tests derail my plans completely.
After many months and more than half a year of executing on such an austere plan, the results were amazing. For one, when the tuition teachers accelerated the pace of teaching because they were scrambling to finish the syllabus, I was calm. In fact, because I had already completed the whole textbooks by then, when they taught the last portions of the syllabus, they were like revisions for me. It could have so happened that the concepts that were not clear to me became clear. The end result was fabulous. I must have even worn a smug face in the classes for I must have thought I already knew what the teachers were going to say (I mostly did).
I should note another peculiar practice I had developed. That habit isn’t only confined to my parallel study plan. It was that I would write down what I read. I would read a paragraph or half a page and then I would close the textbook and write down from memory what I had just read. That was my technique to keep what I read in memory. When I started 11th (PUC 1st year in Karnataka), I found the subjects to be too intimidating, too unapproachable. The subjects were hard, really hard. I didn’t think I would be successful. I always wondered how my classmates were not panicking like I was. I was super worried. Then, when I disclosed my troubles to my father that I just didn’t seem able to remember what I read, he suggested that I could write it down so that it sticks in memory better. I started practicing that. It helped. Initially when I read a paragraph, closed the book, and tried to recall what I had just read, I couldn’t remember a word of it. It was scary, it was pathetic. Then, I started the habit of writing down. It must have made the mind focus better. It was the first lesson and probably the only lesson on mindfulness for me. I started making incremental progress. At a minimum, one could read a sentence, and remember it. It shouldn’t happen that you read a sentence in a book, close the book, and can’t remember what you just read. Well, it could happen. But, with practice you would at least be able to remember the last sentence you read. If you remember, you can write it down too. Once you are able to retain in your working memory a sentence, you can start to work on remembering two sentences at a time. Once you have mastered the art of remembering the last two sentences, you can move onto three. Extending the logic further, eventually you would become comfortable remembering the whole paragraph. That is how I made progress. I was able to retain whole paragraphs in memory and write them down. The exercise of recalling paragraphs by forcing myself to write had preceded the 4-page-a-day matra. That was the prior preparation I needed and had. Therefore, the 4-page-a-day of all subjects (4 subjects to be exact — Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Biology) flowed smoothly out of the memory technique. Consequently, the 4-page-a-day, you can imagine, wasn’t quick at all: I had to read and write 4 pages each of the different subjects.
As I said when we were at the near-end of the academic year, when the tuition teacher was proceeding at a break-neck speed it didn’t bother me at all because I had already learned the subject. Sometimes when I asked my physics teacher some question I encountered before he had taught the chapter related to it in the class, he, I think, realized that I had studied the whole textbook (He must have known that it was not taught in the college either). He would refuse to answer my ahead-of-time questions saying only that we would get there. Once in one of the classes, he remarked that “I know some of you have already completed the syllabus” and went on to make another point that I do not remember. I thought that remark was directed at me. I did not think others had stumbled onto my idea of learning at their own pace. I do not know. I remember that I had read in the Physics textbook that matter itself sometimes gets converted into energy according to Einstein’s E =mc² equation. I shared the fascinating fact to a friend of mine. He was incredulous asking “Could that happen?” I said that it was indeed so and that it would come later in the syllabus. Later it very much did. I had read about such genuine “aha” discoveries on my own.
I was able to do well in the exams like I indicated earlier. Additionally, maybe it helped me to learn to self-study. When we are young, maybe we want somebody to explain the concepts to us. We may think, we may not understand an intricate detail on our own. My self-study plan I think to an extent helped me be self-dependent. To borrow a British phrase, I taught myself. (I prefer to say, I learned by myself). That at any rate is a good ability to have I think. I haven’t consciously examined after my 12th if that was a crucial factor in my later life. Crucial or not, it would always be good to be able to read something and understand it yourself so that you are independent and you do not have to rely on someone else to make you understand a subject.
That was my tryst with the 12th grade study. I am proud of that period of my life. I am prouder of that period of my life than any other. I was able to bell the proverbial cat (the cat being the all-important, make-or-break 12th exam) with a serendipitous discovery (the technique of self-study in small portions). I worked harder than ever then: I have not worked harder before that time or hence. I couldn’t repeat the feat. I do not know if I can say I enjoyed the hard work or that it was the most enjoyable time of my life. What I can say though is, the reward in the end was sweet — I gained admission to a good engineering college. Neither did I become a rock star in life nor did I become the most successful technologist. However, admission to the said good college was a turning point. It helped me set a higher benchmark in life and I saw up close what it means to be great. I can unequivocally say that I am a better person because of that. Thank God for it.
